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Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that. - Elon https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/ https://www.

Cost per seat should be about the same as full fare economy in an aircraft. Forgot to mention that. - Elon https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BZnVfWxgdLe/ Looks like fun. I'd love to see the in-flight safety video! "Make sure there's nothing in your pockets because we'll be hitting 3 Gees. If anything goes wrong, we're all probably toast." I think this was just an interesting idea thrown out at the end of a talk that had much more interesting stuff, such as redirecting all of SpaceX's resources away from Falcon to build the BFR, and putting humans on Mars by a 2024 'aspirational goal'

thinkcontext 9y ago
It will have to do intercontinental cargo flights for a while before it can be FAA human certified. They'll probably need to invent whole new classes of safety requirements before it can take passengers.
- gbhn 9y ago
  To me this looked like it could be the key to the whole thing... That is, the idea is that you build a high-speed airline with spaceports all over the world, refueled by huge solar arrays refining Ox and CH4 out of the air. Then it turns out your airliners, by virtue of the fact they are orbiters, can also launch satellites and go to Mars and other interplanetary destinations (where similar spaceport situations can be built). The key to the whole thing is to make the second stage an orbiter big enough to do re-entry so the whole system is re-usable. Re-usable second stages are a giant pain, but if the secret is to get big, and that means you're kind of "accidentally" running an airliner, then perhaps SpaceX has found the right business model for commercial space flight in such high volume that things like going to Mars and asteroids and so forth are sort of on the cost order of chartering a private flight -- well within the reach of many organizations.
- dzhiurgis 9y ago
  I doubt they will have any cabin crew and different regulation could potentially mean cheaper operation.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    The primary purpose of the cabin crew in an airliner is to handle emergencies. When SHTF, they'll figure out the right course of action, open emergency exits, and get people outside. I'm not sure if the BFR ship would have any emergency survivability. It looks to me like the sort of thing where the flight goes well or everybody dies. In which case, yes, no need for cabin crew! (And to be clear, I have nothing against "goes well or everybody dies" as long as the probability of "goes well" is sufficiently high.)
    - justin66 9y ago
      An emergency landing on water followed by everyone exiting the vehicle and using their seat cushion as a flotation device seems like the obvious counterexample. That seems survivable enough (I bet that ship would float better than a 747) but you'd want people on hand to help everyone out.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        I can't come up with a scenario where the BFR ship would make an emergency water landing. (Of course, it could just be that I lack knowledge or imagination.) Airliners can do them because they glide, so water landings are a possibility after fuel exhaustion or engine failure. BFR won't glide well enough to land softly, so it would have to be a propulsive water landing. And if you can land propulsively in the water, surely you can land propulsively at the landing pad.
        justin66 9y ago
        > if you can land propulsively in the water, surely you can land propulsively at the landing pad. I think if you take off and you immediately find that one of the rocket motors isn't gimballing correctly, or something else looks off with the engines, it might be prudent to abort before building up a lot of velocity. (not to mention aborting before something explodes) It's certainly easier.
        9y ago
cycrutchfield 9y ago
Note that the Instagram post is a little misleading. “Full Fare economy” is not as cheap as you think, it’s more like what you would pay for business class. So, maybe $3k for a transatlantic flight.
- thinkcontext 9y ago
  True but its for a vastly superior service.
  - axman6 9y ago
    Service doesn’t really matter if it’s less than an hour.
- isostatic 9y ago
  I'd rather 30 minutes in economy than 8 hours in business, and when it comes to a jaunt off to Singapore or Sydney....

thinkcontext 9y ago

It will have to do intercontinental cargo flights for a while before it can be FAA human certified. They'll probably need to invent whole new classes of safety requirements before it can take passengers.

gbhn 9y ago
To me this looked like it could be the key to the whole thing... That is, the idea is that you build a high-speed airline with spaceports all over the world, refueled by huge solar arrays refining Ox and CH4 out of the air. Then it turns out your airliners, by virtue of the fact they are orbiters, can also launch satellites and go to Mars and other interplanetary destinations (where similar spaceport situations can be built). The key to the whole thing is to make the second stage an orbiter big enough to do re-entry so the whole system is re-usable. Re-usable second stages are a giant pain, but if the secret is to get big, and that means you're kind of "accidentally" running an airliner, then perhaps SpaceX has found the right business model for commercial space flight in such high volume that things like going to Mars and asteroids and so forth are sort of on the cost order of chartering a private flight -- well within the reach of many organizations.
dzhiurgis 9y ago
I doubt they will have any cabin crew and different regulation could potentially mean cheaper operation.
- mikeash 9y ago
  The primary purpose of the cabin crew in an airliner is to handle emergencies. When SHTF, they'll figure out the right course of action, open emergency exits, and get people outside. I'm not sure if the BFR ship would have any emergency survivability. It looks to me like the sort of thing where the flight goes well or everybody dies. In which case, yes, no need for cabin crew! (And to be clear, I have nothing against "goes well or everybody dies" as long as the probability of "goes well" is sufficiently high.)
  - justin66 9y ago
    An emergency landing on water followed by everyone exiting the vehicle and using their seat cushion as a flotation device seems like the obvious counterexample. That seems survivable enough (I bet that ship would float better than a 747) but you'd want people on hand to help everyone out.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      I can't come up with a scenario where the BFR ship would make an emergency water landing. (Of course, it could just be that I lack knowledge or imagination.) Airliners can do them because they glide, so water landings are a possibility after fuel exhaustion or engine failure. BFR won't glide well enough to land softly, so it would have to be a propulsive water landing. And if you can land propulsively in the water, surely you can land propulsively at the landing pad.
      - justin66 9y ago
        > if you can land propulsively in the water, surely you can land propulsively at the landing pad. I think if you take off and you immediately find that one of the rocket motors isn't gimballing correctly, or something else looks off with the engines, it might be prudent to abort before building up a lot of velocity. (not to mention aborting before something explodes) It's certainly easier.
        9y ago

cycrutchfield 9y ago

Note that the Instagram post is a little misleading. “Full Fare economy” is not as cheap as you think, it’s more like what you would pay for business class. So, maybe $3k for a transatlantic flight.

thinkcontext 9y ago
True but its for a vastly superior service.
- axman6 9y ago
  Service doesn’t really matter if it’s less than an hour.
isostatic 9y ago
I'd rather 30 minutes in economy than 8 hours in business, and when it comes to a jaunt off to Singapore or Sydney....