All you are doing is replacing NASA requirements with FAA certification, which if anything is even more strict. You can't fly paying passengers on an experimental license. BFS point to point is no different than a Boeing 787 which is no different than BFS for space access.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 09/17/2018 02:09 amYes, and?You forgot that the $390m included Falcon 1 dev costs.Falcon 1 development was a necessary input for the development path taken for Falcon 9. Otherwise, you very well could have had 3 Falcon 1 like failures on Falcon 9, potentially increasing the cost above the $390 million. BFR/BFS doesn't have a similar demonstrator vehicle (or maybe it does). Quote from: Robotbeat on 09/17/2018 02:09 amEverything after included a bunch of NASA design requirements which is part of the reason the price is much higher. BFR doesn't have that.All you are doing is replacing NASA requirements with FAA certification, which if anything is even more strict. You can't fly paying passengers on an experimental license. BFS point to point is no different than a Boeing 787 which is no different than BFS for space access.
Yes, and?You forgot that the $390m included Falcon 1 dev costs.
Everything after included a bunch of NASA design requirements which is part of the reason the price is much higher. BFR doesn't have that.
Relevant regulations, the FAA added in a footnote, “simply require that space flight participants: (1) be informed of risk; (2) execute a waiver of claims against the U.S. Government; (3) receive training on how to respond to emergency situations; and (4) not carry any weapons onboard.”
Quote from: ncb1397 on 09/17/2018 02:24 amQuote from: Robotbeat on 09/17/2018 02:09 amYes, and?You forgot that the $390m included Falcon 1 dev costs.Falcon 1 development was a necessary input for the development path taken for Falcon 9. Otherwise, you very well could have had 3 Falcon 1 like failures on Falcon 9, potentially increasing the cost above the $390 million. BFR/BFS doesn't have a similar demonstrator vehicle (or maybe it does). Quote from: Robotbeat on 09/17/2018 02:09 amEverything after included a bunch of NASA design requirements which is part of the reason the price is much higher. BFR doesn't have that.All you are doing is replacing NASA requirements with FAA certification, which if anything is even more strict. You can't fly paying passengers on an experimental license. BFS point to point is no different than a Boeing 787 which is no different than BFS for space access.Wow, very wrong.There are completely different regulations for commercial space travel (speaking in context of this flight around the Moon) than air travel, and in fact, the commercial crew NASA folk will be flying under the same FAA regulations (although with the added ability to pilot the craft and all the extra NASA requirements) as this passenger will. I'm afraid you've got some research to do. I've quoted a small portion, but this is just a taste.https://spacenews.com/38524nasa-astronauts-to-fly-as-participants-on-commercial-space-taxis-faa/QuoteRelevant regulations, the FAA added in a footnote, “simply require that space flight participants: (1) be informed of risk; (2) execute a waiver of claims against the U.S. Government; (3) receive training on how to respond to emergency situations; and (4) not carry any weapons onboard.”
...FAA is deferring to NASA on Commercial Crew. IF BFR/BFS does the run around NASA, it runs into the FAA. This hypothetical wild west scenario where anyone that can bolt a pressure vessure to a rocket engine and liquid tank can sell tickets to the public, as long as you make someone sign a piece of paper, is pure fantasy.
Quote from: ncb1397 on 09/17/2018 03:02 am...FAA is deferring to NASA on Commercial Crew. IF BFR/BFS does the run around NASA, it runs into the FAA. This hypothetical wild west scenario where anyone that can bolt a pressure vessure to a rocket engine and liquid tank can sell tickets to the public, as long as you make someone sign a piece of paper, is pure fantasy.Nope, FAA was just deferring to allowing the well-trained NASA astronauts to pilot the vehicle if necessary. Other than that (and in addition to NASA's requirements), NASA's astronauts are regulated the same way this guy would be. He's a "spaceflight participant." And specific regulation was established to make this possible and to reduce the regulatory load on commercial space companies so as not to make commercial human spaceflight impossible.Based on your false statements about the level of regulations required and your snide (and misplaced) cynicism, you are clearly not familiar with the FAA's regulations on spaceflight participants. It's not hypothetical. Here you go: https://www.congress.gov/bill/108th-congress/house-bill/3752...we've been having this discussion for YEARS, decades even; I started around the time of the X-Prize, which was the impetus for many of these regulations. Where've ya been?(Oh, and hats off to the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation for doing a good job of facilitating instead of squashing the commercial space industry... I really think the rest of the FAA could learn from them.)
All the Virgin Galactic test flying was done under a special experimental permit issued by the Federal Aviation Administration. To reach the point where SpaceShip Two could be cleared for carrying passengers Galactic needed to move from the experimental permit to being awarded an operator’s license.That required a new 180-day review by the FAA to establish that all the systems were thoroughly tested and fail-safe. But remember, this was uncharted territory for the FAA just as it was for Galactic. Indeed, by submitting to the FAA review Galactic was being asked to set the standards for all who followed… if they could.
(Oh, and hats off to the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation for doing a good job of facilitating instead of squashing the commercial space industry... I really think the rest of the FAA could learn from them.)
Commercial air travel regulations didn't exist when air travel was invented. The regulatory regime was built up at the same time as the technology progressed, so no squashing happened.The idea is to gradually develop regulations that improve safety without stifling the industry.
SLS/Orion is not $25B, the appropriation already run into ~$33B by 2017 if you include money spent during Constellation. By the time of EM-2, it would be $50B easy. So I think $5B estimate for BFR development is a good first order approximation, with the caveat that it use a Dragon 2 scale ECLSS instead of the 100 people version full ECLSS.As for how to fund it, here's another approximation:1. SpaceX annual revenue: $1.69B = $450M Commercial Cargo + $300M Commercial Crew + $840M for 14 launches at $60M + $100M additional fee for government launches. (Here we assume 18 launches per year, 4 of them are for Commercial Cargo and Crew)2. Assume resources spent is proportional to the revenue, then resources spent on Falcon is (840 + 4*60) / 1690 = 64%, resources spent on Dragon is (450 + 300 - 4*60) / 1690 = 30%3. Further assume resources spent on development and production are evenly divided (not a good assumption, but I don't know a better one), and SpaceX ultimately can put 90% Falcon and Dragon development resource, 50% Falcon production resource and 20% Dragon production resource into BFR. This means ultimately SpaceX can spend ~60% of the company resource on BFR4. When can they reach the ultimate state: Here I think 2021 is a safe assumption given the most pessimistic estimate have Commercial Crew in operation by 2020, a guess of the ramp up follows:2017: 5%2018: 15%2019: 30%2020: 45%2021: 60%2022: 60%2023: 60%5. If you plug in annual revenue of $1.69B, by 2023 SpaceX can put $4.6B into BFR, they'll cross the $5B mark by 2024, that's without any outside investment.
What I think will happen is a Starlink subsidiary or separate corporation will be formed. Investors buy shares. Those investment funds will be used to pay SpaceX for Starlink R&D costs, manufacturing costs and launch costs. That way SpaceX gets cash IN for the next few years before Starlink operational revenue happens. This would be a very helpful cash source for BFR development.
Quote from: philw1776 on 09/17/2018 02:57 pmWhat I think will happen is a Starlink subsidiary or separate corporation will be formed. Investors buy shares. Those investment funds will be used to pay SpaceX for Starlink R&D costs, manufacturing costs and launch costs. That way SpaceX gets cash IN for the next few years before Starlink operational revenue happens. This would be a very helpful cash source for BFR development.If they are smart, this won't be a public company, but rather limited to a tight circle of investors via private placement., and SpaceX will retain a very large majority of the outstanding shares. Even under these terms they should be able to raise many billions.And SpaceX are nothing if not smart, so I am not saying anything they have not already figured out.
Quote from: Lar on 09/17/2018 03:11 pmQuote from: philw1776 on 09/17/2018 02:57 pmWhat I think will happen is a Starlink subsidiary or separate corporation will be formed. Investors buy shares. Those investment funds will be used to pay SpaceX for Starlink R&D costs, manufacturing costs and launch costs. That way SpaceX gets cash IN for the next few years before Starlink operational revenue happens. This would be a very helpful cash source for BFR development.If they are smart, this won't be a public company, but rather limited to a tight circle of investors via private placement., and SpaceX will retain a very large majority of the outstanding shares. Even under these terms they should be able to raise many billions.And SpaceX are nothing if not smart, so I am not saying anything they have not already figured out.Yes.I should have stated that. I think Elon has had it with running public companies. Enough said on that.I'm extremely confident that Musk could easily raise many billions through private investors. He's not just good with physics and first principals based engineering but the guy is a whiz at finances too. As a new products design engineer & MBA I respect both his capabilities.
We now know that only 5% of SpaceX is working on BFR. Slightly surprised as I thought more of a transition of engineering with Block 5 supposedly done and Crew Dragon design hopefully frozen at this time.
We now know that only 5% of SpaceX is working on BFR. Slightly surprised as I thought more of a transition of engineering with Block 5 supposedly done and Crew Dragon design hopefully frozen at this time.BFR development (whatever that scope entails) guestimated to be ~5B with must be >2B and hopefully under 10B.B= billion dollars, or $1,000 million dollars.So roughly averaging a billion $/ year 2019-2023, obviously with more $ in the later years
Quote from: philw1776 on 09/18/2018 04:17 pmWe now know that only 5% of SpaceX is working on BFR. Slightly surprised as I thought more of a transition of engineering with Block 5 supposedly done and Crew Dragon design hopefully frozen at this time.BFR development (whatever that scope entails) guestimated to be ~5B with must be >2B and hopefully under 10B.B= billion dollars, or $1,000 million dollars.So roughly averaging a billion $/ year 2019-2023, obviously with more $ in the later yearsI was surprised that it was thatmany people...although pretty happy about the cost number...as thats what I have been saying |why surprised?there is no final design, there is no factory, there are no machines that allow them to put the thing together.AND there are other programs which are ongoing that "need workers" the biggest initial cost is going to be building the factory and getting the "machines" for it. next year 2019 they will crank that up in earnest