Let's not mention Bitsy in the same sentence as It'sOk back to serious.Lar, what would guesstimate the new LV could send to Mars surface if it had 120,000 lbs to LEO, with a handful of tanker flights to it, moon?Would That be enough to do some real science, and start a full time base? Not colony, but base?Sent from my XT1565 using Tapatalk
What if the Mini ITS replaced the second stage of a falcon heavy? Would that be workable?
Pads 39A and 39B both can handle 12 million lbs thrust. SpaceX should try to build the biggest ITS within their existing capabilities. Their factory can handle up to 10 meters in diameter. The pads can handle the 12 million lb thrust. How many Raptors can fit under 10 meters and give 12 million lbs thrust or less? That fully reusable should be able to get 100+ tons to orbit payload. It would beat SLS being reusable.
Quote from: spacenut on 07/21/2017 05:43 pmPads 39A and 39B both can handle 12 million lbs thrust. SpaceX should try to build the biggest ITS within their existing capabilities. Their factory can handle up to 10 meters in diameter. The pads can handle the 12 million lb thrust. How many Raptors can fit under 10 meters and give 12 million lbs thrust or less? That fully reusable should be able to get 100+ tons to orbit payload. It would beat SLS being reusable. If you measure the picture from the 2016 presentation, the inner ring of 14 full size raptor engines is 10 meters in diameter. There are also 7 in the center cluster (the ones that gimbal). So 21 full size raptor engines or 13,860,000+ lbs of thrust at full rating.
I have to ask...Why not make a second stage for Falcon that is fully reusable?It doesn't have to carry any usable payload, just use it to prove that the ITS second stage systems will work.
Thread mooted: 9 meter corehttps://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43427.0