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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 88.192.242.201 (talk) at 13:00, 28 May 2016 (→100 tonnes landed on Mars - possible?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Super Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (SHLV)

I tossed together this picture to give a sense of scale.--Craigboy (talk) 15:36, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Labels would be necessary for correct interpretation, Thanks, BatteryIncluded (talk) 16:02, 8 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Craigboy:—Thanks for generating this image. I believe this is a useful graphic, and is based on well-sourced information. And I think it will fit in some article. I'm not sure it is yet this one on MCT, since it is not clear that the MCT will have a 10m core and 9 Raptor engines, even though it is clear per the Raptor article published on NSG earlier this month that the booster rocket for the MCT would have a 10m core and 9 Raptor engines. Net: still thinking on where your graphic might go. Feel free to leave any ideas. N2e (talk) 10:51, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I should rephrase that just a bit. I think your graphic, as is, totally and well describes the scale size comparison of the MCT launch vehicle to the legacy SpaceX launch vehicles.
I'm just unsure that, at the present time, the launch vehicle (engine-end view) for the MCT should be the only image in the Wikipedia article on the MCT, when SpaceX has not yet disclosed how far the "MCT" designator will be applied. For example, we don't know that the MCT name will apply to the first stage at all per any source I've seen. The "MCT" name might be more analogous to "Dragon", where Dragon flies on a "Falcon 9"; we just don't know how the BIG ROCKET of SpaceX will be named, and whether that name will include "MCT." YMMV, as well as other MMV. That's just my two cents based on what's in my head based on all the sources I've read to date. Cheers. N2e (talk) 11:20, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
During a recent interview (The Space Show - 21 March 2014), SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell stated that the SHLV didn't yet have a name (22:16). She also stated that she believed that Pad 39A would be too small for it and that they would need to build a new pad (20:40).--Craigboy (talk) 03:28, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@BatteryIncluded:—You are correct, labels or a caption would be required before the graphic could be used in the main space. However, I believe we do have sufficient information in the various sources to write a caption that is solid. My first draft would be: "Scale size comparison of SpaceX first-stage launch vehicles: (from left) Falcon 9 v1.0 (2010), Falcon 9 v1.1 (2013), and the 10-meter diameter, 9-Raptor, booster for the future Mars Colonial Transporter." N2e (talk) 11:03, 21 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the addition of height/diameter and a descriptive caption including the thrust force should be informative for such comparison. Cheers, BatteryIncluded (talk) 03:32, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
We don't yet know the height or how many cores the SHLV will consist of.--Craigboy (talk) 05:00, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Craigboy:/@BatteryIncluded:—Okay, I have added the image to the Raptor (rocket engine) article, as there, it very well illustrates the very large size of the Raptor engines on the (now in plan) 10 m diameter "BFR", or MCT launch vehicle, or whatever we call it until such time as SpaceX chooses to name the huge first stage booster rocket. If anyone would care to look over there, and see if the caption might be improved, that would be fine with. Cheers. N2e (talk) 19:42, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I have created a section in the MCT article now just to cover the little bit we have sources on for the MCT launch vehicle. Given that this is now a separate section, with a narrowly-defined and well-specified scope, I think that adding the graphic to the MCT article is entirely appropriate. If other's disagree, just revert my edit, and we can discuss further here. N2e (talk) 04:29, 25 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Rumor has it that SHLV will have single 15 meter in diameter core stage. It can't be added to the article until we have a solid source but I thought it would good to keep some of the other editors up to date.--Craigboy (talk) 06:41, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

15 metre core diameter... wowzers. That's kinda crazy:). — Gopher65talk 15:02, 8 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

MCT Nomenclature

I'm starting to get the picture from side comments made by SpaceX that the Mars Colonial Transporter might be the in-space portion of their transport system. IE Raptor = BFE. Unnamed SHLV = BFR. MCT = the thing they're launching that will actually take people to Mars. So I think our naming system could use an update. Maybe not today, but as soon as we have enough information to convince everyone. — Gopher65talk 14:35, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I see N2e has already made some moves in this direction when I wasn't looking:). Cool, never mind them. — Gopher65talk 14:37, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Gopher65:—Yeah, I created a short-term use redir called MCT launch vehicle for this purpose. I think that is about all we know about it, for now. But it does give us a place to put info that comes out about it. And I do think, as you apparently do, that the 1st stage is separate from the MCT payload carrying Mars transport vehicle. N2e (talk) 19:44, 23 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
@Gopher65:—Well, one week later, turns out that I learned something else; but it was something that Craigboy was already aware of. The MCT launch vehicle will be either one or three cores, each with 9 Raptors, according to the NSF source. So Craigboy updated a part of the article a few days ago, and I got on yesterday and tried to make the prose consistent on that count. As we learn more, we'll no doubt be able to flesh out the article with more info per new/future sources. Cheers. N2e (talk) 03:57, 3 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

It will have boosters

It will have boosters so why not put it in the article? my source is http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/03/spacex-advances-drive-mars-rocket-raptor-power/ it is 2/3 to 3/4 of the way down that it tells about it. I think it will be a larger falcon heavy modified possibly so it would be bigger than the falcon X heavy. LABHOUSE (talk) 05:25, 1 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

There is a lot of speculation on that, and the engineers who frequent the NASAspaceflight.com forums are speculating with the best of them. Unfortunately, SpaceX has not publicly released details on the MCT launch vehicle to indicate whether it will or will not be/have a three-core version like Falcon Heavy.
In fact, that article you reference indicates "Known as the Raptor, nine of these immensely powerful engines – on one or three cores – will be utilized to send SpaceX’s Super Heavy Lift Launch Vehicle (SHLV) uphill on missions to Mars." (emphasis added) Cheers. N2e (talk) 07:46, 1 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
N2e, it now appears that the Raptor will be about 1/3 as powerful as predicted. It's estimated that a single core will need somewhere between 40 and 100 Raptors in order to have a payload in the predicted range. Also, SpaceX has said that they're unlikely to use more than 1 core. — Gopher65talk 23:52, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I've been hearing that also. But since the Wikipedia article space is only for sourced material, I've been waiting to see that in a reliable source. If you, or any other editor has such, then by all means add it to the article. Until then, this article can only reflect the reliable sources it has; thus, 1 to 3 cores using that really mongo engine that SpaceX described a year or two ago. I'm sure we'll all learn a lot more if Musk actually does a public overview in late 2015 as he may be planning to do. Cheers. N2e (talk) 20:30, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Musk talks later dates for the large-size "seed [of a] citylike colony" on Mars

There is a long-form interview, in Aeon—The Elon Musk Interview: On Mars, September 2014—where Musk outlines a good bit more of his long-term timeline on Mars plans than he had previously made public. Includes, for example, this bit, which might facilitate some improvement to the article:

Musk might be ready to send his first flurry of missions, to seed a citylike colony that he expects to be up and running by 2040.

‘SpaceX is only 12 years old now,’ he told me. ‘Between now and 2040, the company’s lifespan will have tripled. If we have linear improvement in technology, as opposed to logarithmic, then we should have a significant base on Mars, perhaps with thousands or tens of thousands of people.’

Musk told me this first group of settlers will need to pay their own way. ‘There needs to be an intersection of the set of people who wish to go, and the set of people who can afford to go,’ he said. ‘And that intersection of sets has to be enough to establish a self-sustaining civilisation. My rough guess is that for a half-million dollars, there are enough people that could afford to go and would want to go. But it’s not going to be a vacation jaunt. It’s going to be saving up all your money and selling all your stuff, like when people moved to the early American colonies.’ (emphasis added)

Notably, those dates are quite a bit later than previously stated in public. N2e (talk) 23:28, 30 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Launch Facility (question?)

The "Launch Facility" section of the article says:

"SpaceX has indicated that their leased facility in Florida at Launch Pad 39A is not large enough to accommodate the vehicle, and that a new site would be built in order to launch the >10-meter diameter rocket."

My question is, how can that be an accurate statement? The Saturn V rocket launched from Launch Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, and it had a diameter of 33 feet (10.1 meters). So, I would think that with some reverse modifications, Launch Pad 39A could be fully capable of launching a rocket of that diameter again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mkluge (talk • contribs) 18:41, 6 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Since Wikipedia is not a forum, we are just talking here about improving the article. We need to stick in the article space to what is reliably sourced and cited. That statement in the article is sourced to a SpaceX person. Until we have something better, Wikipedia goes with what is sourced. If SpaceX later changes their mind, and goes with a smaller Raptor engine or MCT launch vehicle than they were considering a year or two ago (which many are hearing about; see sections above), and should they happen to field a launch vehicle that is usable from LC 39A, then we'll reflect that in the article when we have sources we can cite. Cheers. N2e (talk) 20:36, 7 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Given that SpaceX has stated that the BFR will place almost as much usable payload on the surface of Mars as Saturn V could place into LEO - all while being fully reusable, which will cut its payload substantially from what it could do if it were expendable - I think we can safely assume that it will be much, much larger than a Saturn V. Like, 5 times more powerful.
One important thing to keep in mind is "minimum safe distance" from the rocket, both during nominal operations and in case of an explosion. Think about the Soviet N1 lunar rocket. When the N1 exploded it was the most powerful non-nuclear explosion ever (almost equivalent about half as large as Hiroshima). The N1 was also somewhat less powerful than a Saturn V. Thankfully one of those never exploded. A BFR exploding on the launch pad would be equivalent to a decent sized tactical nuke. You simply *cannot* launch it near people. — Gopher65talk 03:38, 26 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

100 tonnes landed on Mars - possible?

"100 tonnes LANDED on Mars (planned)". How is that possible? It uses Raptor engines. Even 9 Raptor engines may not be enough??

Even putting 100 tonnes on Mars ORBIT would be difficult. But LANDING 100 tonnes...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_(rocket_engine)#Comparison_to_other_engine_designs

SpaceX Raptor (targeted,as of January 2015). Vacuum thrust 2,300 kN

Rocketdyne F-1 (Saturn V). Vacuum thrust 7,740 kN.

Saturn V was able to put maybe 100 tonnes to LOW earth orbit and a fraction of that to Moon.

88.192.242.201 (talk) 12:58, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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