Cannot see that. The next gen rocket is probably 8 years away before it's reliable.
I think 8-10 years is realistic, but you'll need to start the clock whenever they started testing Raptor components at Stennis or wherever. 2012? 2013?
I am thinking of crew Dragon. Can they put it on top? They can deploy a cargo Dragon out of the payload bay, but a crew Dragon needs the ability to abort.
Bump.
>Musk has said 9m would be possible with existing tooling. I wonder if a 7 Raptor, 9m Al-Li first stage could be an intermediate step.
I find the topic fascinating and we've had some more updates since the older posts, so I'd like to see how that would modify the projections people have been making. If we look at Wooster's presentation BFS will have 7 Raptors and be 9m in diameter. Musk has said 9m would be possible with existing tooling. I wonder if a 7 Raptor, 9m Al-Li first stage could be an intermediate step.
Cutting the number of engines in half on a stubby version booster would put it in the FH and New Glenn range. It wouldn't help much with payloads to orbit when you already have a rocket to do that. No need for a stubby version to compete against yourself.
I have always liked that idea of a stubby version.. maybe not quite THAT stubby :-)Maybe the goal could be to keep the upper stage pretty close to the full size, but have a much shorter 1st stage with a lot less engines which is still enough performance for typical F9R missions.
Why do an Al-Li intermediate version when SpaceX already has the tooling for composites in hand?
Quote from: mmeijeri on 09/04/2018 08:59 pmI find the topic fascinating and we've had some more updates since the older posts, so I'd like to see how that would modify the projections people have been making. If we look at Wooster's presentation BFS will have 7 Raptors and be 9m in diameter. Musk has said 9m would be possible with existing tooling. I wonder if a 7 Raptor, 9m Al-Li first stage could be an intermediate step.Why did they decide the 1st stage needed to be made of carbon fibre?
If you retain the 9m diameter, the difference would look something like this: