Not for a decade.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 08/31/2014 10:56 pmNot for a decade.Right. Right now SpaceX needs to crank out launches, and bring all the near term stuff online. In a decade, maybe they might reengine Falcon with the mini-Raptor that some speculate they have to do anyway for a lander engine.But in a decade or two... maybe it will make more sense to take payloads up with the BFR and use in-space tugs to put them where they need to go, if BFR pans out. Meanwhile reengining is a distraction they can ill-afford.SpaceX doesn't care about best. It cares about cheapest. Kerolox is working.
Quote from: Lar on 08/31/2014 11:00 pmSpaceX doesn't care about best. It cares about cheapest. Kerolox is working.It's working, but it's also fair to say it is a much more limited family in terms of reusable capability. Also, given methane's great reusability characteristics, it should be much easier to "gas and go".
SpaceX doesn't care about best. It cares about cheapest. Kerolox is working.
Quote from: Hyperion5 on 08/31/2014 11:15 pmQuote from: Lar on 08/31/2014 11:00 pmSpaceX doesn't care about best. It cares about cheapest. Kerolox is working.It's working, but it's also fair to say it is a much more limited family in terms of reusable capability. Also, given methane's great reusability characteristics, it should be much easier to "gas and go". Let me repeat. Better is the enemy of good enough. Kerolox is good enough.
Let me repeat. Better is the enemy of good enough. Kerolox is good enough.
A methane powered F9 would be a radically different beast, though, a much bigger leap than F9 to v1.1. Further stretching the vehicle to fit the lower density methane may also prove impractical, leading to a wider core, which makes road transport harder, and so on.....
Quote from: Lar on 08/31/2014 11:20 pmQuote from: Hyperion5 on 08/31/2014 11:15 pmQuote from: Lar on 08/31/2014 11:00 pmSpaceX doesn't care about best. It cares about cheapest. Kerolox is working.It's working, but it's also fair to say it is a much more limited family in terms of reusable capability. Also, given methane's great reusability characteristics, it should be much easier to "gas and go". Let me repeat. Better is the enemy of good enough. Kerolox is good enough.It's not a hard rule, and we are not privy to all the factors involved. It may depend on how well Raptor development proceeds, and how much reusability benefits from methane.A methane powered F9 would be a radically different beast, though, a much bigger leap than F9 to v1.1. Further stretching the vehicle to fit the lower density methane may also prove impractical, leading to a wider core, which makes road transport harder, and so on.I do think that the next SpaceX vehicle after FH will be all Methane powered, even if it isn't full BFR size. But I expect keroLox F9 to fly for the next decade in some form.
Sometime in the future I could see a single engine Raptor powered, single core rocket, as their bread and butter commercial launcher.
Quote from: GalacticIntruder on 09/01/2014 01:33 amSometime in the future I could see a single engine Raptor powered, single core rocket, as their bread and butter commercial launcher.How does a single-engine booster return to launch site? It would have to be clustered mini-Raptors, and that makes the whole idea a lot less compelling.
Quote from: butters on 09/01/2014 01:57 amQuote from: GalacticIntruder on 09/01/2014 01:33 amSometime in the future I could see a single engine Raptor powered, single core rocket, as their bread and butter commercial launcher.How does a single-engine booster return to launch site? It would have to be clustered mini-Raptors, and that makes the whole idea a lot less compelling.You mean the single Raptor engine makes the idea less compelling? Just wanted to be sure I understood you on this.