In article ,
says...
The current discussion with the US military is over using BFR/BFS for
space based *cargo* transport.


Who's on the receiving end and how did they get there?

The articles quoting people from DOD do not say anything about troops,
just cargo, so I wouldn't really know.

I also said:

| I assert that BFR/BFS would be little different than the V-22
| in terms of both unique capabilities and could be little
| different when it comes to its reliability as an air/space
| transport craft.

Note that we don't see V-22s or a commercial derivative of the same
technology being used in commercial passenger carrying transport quite
yet. The V-22 has tended to crash more often than FAA certified
commercial passenger carrying transports.


Nobody is shooting at commercial passenger aircraft. V-22 is
apparently 'good enough' that the Army is considering V-280 as a
replacement for H-60.

Which dovetails into one of my original assertions that I feel that a
first generation BFR/BFS might not be quite safe enough for routine P2P
passenger transport. To do so it would have to gain FAA certification
for such a role which may prove difficult. But, it might be considered
safe enough for "routine" military use (especially for cargo, which is
what has been reportedly been discussed by DOD and SpaceX).

This is precisely why I brought up the V-22 as an example. DOD doesn't
have to put any of its aircraft through FAA certification, so they can
use the V-22 "routinely" even though it is not FAA certified. Gaining
FAA certification for a commercial tilt-rotor aircraft has proven quite
difficult and lengthy, even though it's been more than a decade since
the V-22 was green lighted for series production (2005).

DOD was able to green light and adopt tilt-rotor aircraft technology
faster than the civilian transport industry partly due to the need to
gain FAA certification. I'm just suggesting that BFR/BFS for P2P
transport could face similar hurdles. Courting DOD for the P2P role of
BFR/BFS makes sense because they can avoid needing FAA approval for its
use as a P2P transport vehicle. Hell, if it's flying for DOD, they
don't even need FAA approval to launch the thing no matter what the
mission.

Jeff
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