7 ms·

SpaceX aims big with massive new rocket

117 points by someperson 14y ago

someperson 14y ago
This was submitted 11 hours ago (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4661364 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4661364), but only got 9 upvotes so was probably missed by many people. I sincerely believe this is strong Hacker News material that wasn't successful due to an unfortunate submission time, so it's worth resubmitting. This news deserves quality HN discussion.
someperson 14y ago
> Musk declined to say what 'MCT' stands for, and declined to answer further questions on the project. There's some speculation [1] that MCT stands for Mars Crew Transporter (or Mars Cargo Transporter). (The comments on [1] are very interesting, speculating on Musk's aims for a rocket that currently doesn't have that much value to private industry) [1] http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/10/spacex-developing-larger-engine-to.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/10/spacex-developing-larger-en...
- robbiep 14y ago
  aaah my dreams are coming true. How exciting, even from this far off speculative point.
benzofuran 14y ago
I was thinking the same thing - either Moon or Mars Crew / Cargo / Colony Transporter. It's an exciting time around these parts, and as I understand it the Merlin concept is pretty scaleable. Perhaps the new fuel he's speaking of is some sort of hypergolic mixture (Hydrazine etc) that can be used for just about everything once the vessel arrives somewhere without much available oxygen.
TeMPOraL 14y ago
SpaceX - because screw FTL, we'll just build a better rocket. ;). Jokes aside, they're doing really impressive job and I'm very happy to see visible progress in what I thought was a stale industry.
robbiep 14y ago
possible payload range of the new rocket is 150-200t to low Earth orbit (LEO). A vehicle of that size would easily eclipse NASA's proposed Space Launch System, which will eventually be capable of launching 130t to LEO This really allows you to begin to grasp the economics of what Musk et al are doing - * The Space Launch System has been funded to the tune of $17Bn through to 2017 (Wiki) * SpaceX got through the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 development to where we are now (Viable launch system with paying clients) on around ~$1Bn Even assuming that they have to start the development from scratch, new tooling, new plant and equipment, you could extrapolate out at a stretch that perhaps it would cost a cool $3Bn (And likely well under this) if they are planning on having some form of prototype 'MCT' up and running in around 3 years so that would be around 1/6th the cost of a bloated government program for an extremely heavy lift capability, potentially re-usable if they are able to complete the engineering of that little monkey, making production of a space elevator within the realms of possibility (and maybe making earth rocket launches redundant!) as well as cheap heavy launch capability to mars. The solar system is getting a lot smaller, it seems.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  > making production of a space elevator within the realms of possibility Rocketry has little to do with a space elevator, the materials science for a space elevator does not even exist.
  - robbiep 14y ago
    you're right, they are completely different fields. However one of the more likely methods of construction (from this distant point anyway) would be a launch of lots of material, tie it all to some asteroid or other large counterweight that has been put in space a good 90,000+km away, and then unspool it all to the surface, which would require a good and cheap heavy launch capacity (I suppose you could say if we are going to do such an undertaking as build a space elevator, with all the billions it may entail, then launch costs to get it going will probably be the least of our worries, but as far as I see it, every little bit helps!)
    - 14y ago
sbierwagen 14y ago
"Elon Announces He Might Be Building A New Rocket, Provides Absolutely No Details At All." 6m's pretty big, though. Falcon 9 is 3.66m. Ares V (the space shuttle replacement) is 10m. Saturn V was 10.1m. I'm really not sure why they're not using RP-1, though. What's the alternative propellant? LH2 has all sorts of problems.
- cdash 14y ago
  My guess is that they will be using a methane engine.
  - Gravityloss 14y ago
    That's an interesting point. Methane is sort of halfway between kerosene and hydrogen. No operational space launcher has used it, though, as far as I know, some engines like the venerabe RL-10 hydrogen upper stage work horse have been modified to run on it on a test bench.
    - InclinedPlane 14y ago
      Methane is about half-way between Kerosene and Hydrogen in terms of Isp but it's far closer to Kerosene in density, which is critically important for overall achievable rocket stage performance (weight ratios). Liquid methane has about half the density of Kerosene but liquid Hydrogen has about 1/12th the density. Moreover, liquid Hydrogen is a super cryogen whereas liquid methane has a higher boiling point than LOX so handling, materials, and insulation requirements for LCH4 are comparable to LOX.
ballooney 14y ago
If we're playing 'guess-the-acronym', I'm going to depart from something Mars-based and suggest that the 'C' is to do with 'Cryogenic', and that now that they are more confident with engines they might be switching to a harder, but much higher performance, fuel combination like liquid oxygen with liquid hydrogen. Whereas LOX+Kerosene has a Specific Impulse (crudely the amount of 'go' you get from a pound of propellent) of about 340s, LOX+Hydrogen engines have an Isp of about 450. That's really a huge increase in terms of what you can launch with a given size of rocket. Tom Mueller, the head of propulsion at SpaceX, previously worked for TRW (the company that did the US's ICBMs in the 50s) and while there he worked on a LOX+Hydrogen engine, the TR106 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-106 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-106 ), which was a beast. It's harder to work with - both propellants are very cryogenic - but any rocket engine designer will be very aware that LOX+Hydrogen is hovering at the top of the evolutionary ladder looking mighty attractive for those that have the resources to take it on - a position Space X find itself in as they become more mature and heavyweight. They're already looking at it for their replacement Upper stage vacuum engine for Falcon 9 - the Raptor ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_(rocket_stage) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_(rocket_stage) ). Also, almost any Mars mission would involve a lot of heavy lifting into low earth orbit to construct a vehicle that would transport people there and back. A space vehicle that can support several people for say 2 years, and move itself to and from Mars, is going to by way bigger than anything that can be launched by a single rocket all at once. A big heavy-lifter whose engines have a much improved Isp (which rather relaxes the expensive mass saving measures you need in the rest of the rocket to launch a given payload, or alternatively lets you launch a much heavier payload for the same vehicle) is consistant with a mars road map. I doubt they would undertake something like this just for Mars - developing rocket engines is hecka expensive. SpaceX got started by inheriting most of the cancelled FastTrac project from Nasa ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastrac_(engine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastrac_(engine) ) and indeed still outsource their turbopumps (the hardest bit of an engine) to Barber Nichols, who did the design for Fastrac. That was a great move on their part - starting with a blank sheet would have been madly expensive and very slow - a working baseline engine design is a very high-dimensional optimisation problem, before you even get to cutting metal. My point is, if they're now starting clean-sheet engine design, I'm sure they must have in mind some way for it to pay for itself because it's a hugely costly business. We live in interesting times!
masklinn 14y ago
> During an April interview, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell discussed a project with similar characteristics, describing engines with "more than 1.5 million pounds" of thrust. For comparison, 6.7MN (1.5 million pounds) was roughly the thrust of Saturn V's F-1 engines (it had 5 on first stage and that many J-2 — at a mere 4.4MN each — on second stage), and it had an LEO payload quite a bit under those asserted here (120t). Going beyond that means SpaceX is going to compete with the Zenit's RD-171 (~8MN), which is the current holder of "most powerful liquid-fuel rocket engine" title (the shuttle boosters are the holder of "most powerful rocket engine" title at more than 12MN each). The Merlin page[0] seems to confirm that, suggesting the Merlin 2 is planned for around 8.5MN. That's absolutely enormous. You still have to wonder how many of these things they'll put on a rocket to get it to push the expected 200t to LEO: the original Energia only lifted 100t to LEO with 4 zenit boosters (so 4xRD-170) and its own engines (4xRD-0120 at 2MN each), there were plans to have a 200t-lifting Energia… by strapping 8 zenits to it [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine)#Merlin_2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine)#Merlin_2
Gravityloss 14y ago
How many launches per year? I don't see the economics here. Not with expendable, not with reusable. Plus, if you have fewer big engines, you can't land on them as their thrust is too high.
JulianMorrison 14y ago
Are they building Sea Dragon?
danieldrehmer 14y ago
A few days before this article, a redditor reported a conversation where Elon Musk tells his friend that Dragon is just an appetizer for what he called "Mars Colonial Transport"... MCT? http://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/11bpvi/elon_musk_just_informed_my_friend_that_dragon_is/ http://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/11bpvi/elon_musk_just...
bejar37 14y ago
Eaoq
teeja 14y ago
Given Musk's vision for the future, MCT clearly means Mars Colonization Transport.

117 points by someperson 14y ago

This was submitted 11 hours ago (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4661364 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4661364), but only got 9 upvotes so was probably missed by many people. I sincerely believe this is strong Hacker News material that wasn't successful due to an unfortunate submission time, so it's worth resubmitting. This news deserves quality HN discussion.

someperson 14y ago

> Musk declined to say what 'MCT' stands for, and declined to answer further questions on the project. There's some speculation [1] that MCT stands for Mars Crew Transporter (or Mars Cargo Transporter). (The comments on [1] are very interesting, speculating on Musk's aims for a rocket that currently doesn't have that much value to private industry) [1] http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/10/spacex-developing-larger-engine-to.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/10/spacex-developing-larger-en...

robbiep 14y ago
aaah my dreams are coming true. How exciting, even from this far off speculative point.

benzofuran 14y ago

I was thinking the same thing - either Moon or Mars Crew / Cargo / Colony Transporter. It's an exciting time around these parts, and as I understand it the Merlin concept is pretty scaleable. Perhaps the new fuel he's speaking of is some sort of hypergolic mixture (Hydrazine etc) that can be used for just about everything once the vessel arrives somewhere without much available oxygen.

TeMPOraL 14y ago

SpaceX - because screw FTL, we'll just build a better rocket. ;). Jokes aside, they're doing really impressive job and I'm very happy to see visible progress in what I thought was a stale industry.

robbiep 14y ago

possible payload range of the new rocket is 150-200t to low Earth orbit (LEO). A vehicle of that size would easily eclipse NASA's proposed Space Launch System, which will eventually be capable of launching 130t to LEO This really allows you to begin to grasp the economics of what Musk et al are doing - * The Space Launch System has been funded to the tune of $17Bn through to 2017 (Wiki) * SpaceX got through the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 development to where we are now (Viable launch system with paying clients) on around ~$1Bn Even assuming that they have to start the development from scratch, new tooling, new plant and equipment, you could extrapolate out at a stretch that perhaps it would cost a cool $3Bn (And likely well under this) if they are planning on having some form of prototype 'MCT' up and running in around 3 years so that would be around 1/6th the cost of a bloated government program for an extremely heavy lift capability, potentially re-usable if they are able to complete the engineering of that little monkey, making production of a space elevator within the realms of possibility (and maybe making earth rocket launches redundant!) as well as cheap heavy launch capability to mars. The solar system is getting a lot smaller, it seems.

jacquesm 14y ago
> making production of a space elevator within the realms of possibility Rocketry has little to do with a space elevator, the materials science for a space elevator does not even exist.
- robbiep 14y ago
  you're right, they are completely different fields. However one of the more likely methods of construction (from this distant point anyway) would be a launch of lots of material, tie it all to some asteroid or other large counterweight that has been put in space a good 90,000+km away, and then unspool it all to the surface, which would require a good and cheap heavy launch capacity (I suppose you could say if we are going to do such an undertaking as build a space elevator, with all the billions it may entail, then launch costs to get it going will probably be the least of our worries, but as far as I see it, every little bit helps!)
  - 14y ago

sbierwagen 14y ago

"Elon Announces He Might Be Building A New Rocket, Provides Absolutely No Details At All." 6m's pretty big, though. Falcon 9 is 3.66m. Ares V (the space shuttle replacement) is 10m. Saturn V was 10.1m. I'm really not sure why they're not using RP-1, though. What's the alternative propellant? LH2 has all sorts of problems.

cdash 14y ago
My guess is that they will be using a methane engine.
- Gravityloss 14y ago
  That's an interesting point. Methane is sort of halfway between kerosene and hydrogen. No operational space launcher has used it, though, as far as I know, some engines like the venerabe RL-10 hydrogen upper stage work horse have been modified to run on it on a test bench.
  - InclinedPlane 14y ago
    Methane is about half-way between Kerosene and Hydrogen in terms of Isp but it's far closer to Kerosene in density, which is critically important for overall achievable rocket stage performance (weight ratios). Liquid methane has about half the density of Kerosene but liquid Hydrogen has about 1/12th the density. Moreover, liquid Hydrogen is a super cryogen whereas liquid methane has a higher boiling point than LOX so handling, materials, and insulation requirements for LCH4 are comparable to LOX.

ballooney 14y ago

If we're playing 'guess-the-acronym', I'm going to depart from something Mars-based and suggest that the 'C' is to do with 'Cryogenic', and that now that they are more confident with engines they might be switching to a harder, but much higher performance, fuel combination like liquid oxygen with liquid hydrogen. Whereas LOX+Kerosene has a Specific Impulse (crudely the amount of 'go' you get from a pound of propellent) of about 340s, LOX+Hydrogen engines have an Isp of about 450. That's really a huge increase in terms of what you can launch with a given size of rocket. Tom Mueller, the head of propulsion at SpaceX, previously worked for TRW (the company that did the US's ICBMs in the 50s) and while there he worked on a LOX+Hydrogen engine, the TR106 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-106 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TR-106 ), which was a beast. It's harder to work with - both propellants are very cryogenic - but any rocket engine designer will be very aware that LOX+Hydrogen is hovering at the top of the evolutionary ladder looking mighty attractive for those that have the resources to take it on - a position Space X find itself in as they become more mature and heavyweight. They're already looking at it for their replacement Upper stage vacuum engine for Falcon 9 - the Raptor ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_(rocket_stage) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_(rocket_stage) ). Also, almost any Mars mission would involve a lot of heavy lifting into low earth orbit to construct a vehicle that would transport people there and back. A space vehicle that can support several people for say 2 years, and move itself to and from Mars, is going to by way bigger than anything that can be launched by a single rocket all at once. A big heavy-lifter whose engines have a much improved Isp (which rather relaxes the expensive mass saving measures you need in the rest of the rocket to launch a given payload, or alternatively lets you launch a much heavier payload for the same vehicle) is consistant with a mars road map. I doubt they would undertake something like this just for Mars - developing rocket engines is hecka expensive. SpaceX got started by inheriting most of the cancelled FastTrac project from Nasa ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastrac_(engine) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastrac_(engine) ) and indeed still outsource their turbopumps (the hardest bit of an engine) to Barber Nichols, who did the design for Fastrac. That was a great move on their part - starting with a blank sheet would have been madly expensive and very slow - a working baseline engine design is a very high-dimensional optimisation problem, before you even get to cutting metal. My point is, if they're now starting clean-sheet engine design, I'm sure they must have in mind some way for it to pay for itself because it's a hugely costly business. We live in interesting times!

masklinn 14y ago

> During an April interview, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell discussed a project with similar characteristics, describing engines with "more than 1.5 million pounds" of thrust. For comparison, 6.7MN (1.5 million pounds) was roughly the thrust of Saturn V's F-1 engines (it had 5 on first stage and that many J-2 — at a mere 4.4MN each — on second stage), and it had an LEO payload quite a bit under those asserted here (120t). Going beyond that means SpaceX is going to compete with the Zenit's RD-171 (~8MN), which is the current holder of "most powerful liquid-fuel rocket engine" title (the shuttle boosters are the holder of "most powerful rocket engine" title at more than 12MN each). The Merlin page[0] seems to confirm that, suggesting the Merlin 2 is planned for around 8.5MN. That's absolutely enormous. You still have to wonder how many of these things they'll put on a rocket to get it to push the expected 200t to LEO: the original Energia only lifted 100t to LEO with 4 zenit boosters (so 4xRD-170) and its own engines (4xRD-0120 at 2MN each), there were plans to have a 200t-lifting Energia… by strapping 8 zenits to it [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine)#Merlin_2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine)#Merlin_2

Gravityloss 14y ago

How many launches per year? I don't see the economics here. Not with expendable, not with reusable. Plus, if you have fewer big engines, you can't land on them as their thrust is too high.

JulianMorrison 14y ago

Are they building Sea Dragon?

danieldrehmer 14y ago

A few days before this article, a redditor reported a conversation where Elon Musk tells his friend that Dragon is just an appetizer for what he called "Mars Colonial Transport"... MCT? http://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/11bpvi/elon_musk_just_informed_my_friend_that_dragon_is/ http://www.reddit.com/r/space/comments/11bpvi/elon_musk_just...

bejar37 14y ago

Eaoq

teeja 14y ago

Given Musk's vision for the future, MCT clearly means Mars Colonization Transport.