In article , says...

On 3/14/2018 6:24 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
lid says...

(Gosh, perhaps the "Earth to Earth transport function" is to be taken
seriously...)

This is all very fluid right now, isn't it?

Jeff


Yes, but I would also take P2P transport very seriously. I suspect Elon is.

That's the one part of BFR/BFS I don't take seriously. As a first
generation VTVL TSTO it's not likely to be safe enough for routine
passenger transport. Maybe the second or third generation will be.

For use as a possible military transport, it might be considered safe
enough. But even then, you can only land and take off at facilities
that have at least a concrete pad and LOX/liquid methane in quantity.
So even for the military, it would require quite a big of infrastructure
investment for something that's not really useful on a day to day basis.
So I doubt even the US military would be very interested in it as a
troop transport.

Now for rapid launch response, I could see DOD being very interested. A
fully reusable TSTO means you would have a huge surge capacity to launch
a lot of stuff into orbit in a short amount of time. Space marines,
here we come.

Jeff
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