Musk's BFR
By Pratik Vadlamudi '21
On September 28, at a space industry conference, Elon Musk proposed that he would make it possible to get from and to anywhere on Earth within one hour. His proposed method for such a short trip is to ride the BFR (the “B” is for “Big” and the “R” for “Rocket”), a rocket that will enter and exit space for the trip. Effectively, the idea is that passengers board the rocket, which then shoots up and then lands at the destination. Musk’s company, SpaceX, has perfected the reusable rocket, the key piece of technology for the BFR.
Until now, SpaceX’s resources were invested in Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy, rockets that were used to service the ISS and to send satellites to space. SpaceX had eight launches last year and will have thirteen launches by the end of this year: NASA (which does not have its own launch capabilities) and many private companies are paying Musk to send cargo to space. Soon, SpaceX is set to send astronauts to the ISS as well.
Musk says that the development of the BFR will be funded by these short expeditions to Low Earth Orbit. Musk has two goals for the BFR: to be able to rocket people from and to anywhere on Earth in under an hour, and to be able to send a rocket to the Moon and to Mars (interplanetary humanity has been SpaceX’s founding goal).
However, it is likely that more funding will be necessary: especially because Musk wants to send the BFR to Mars by 2022 and establish a civilization of millions of humans by 2060. Currently, NASA is developing its own giant rocket: the Space Launch System (SLS). The SLS has numerous supporters in Congress, and because NASA is funded by Congress, is likely to receive funding. Government funding would assist SpaceX if its current launches cannot fund the development of the BFR, but the prospect of Congress-approved funding is bleak.
Musk advertised a number of other uses for the BFR: SpaceX could use the vehicle to launch satellites, service the space station, and clean up space junk: effectively it would replace SpaceX’s current Falcon and Dragon spacecraft and also go to Mars and the Moon. However, all of these uses seem to be overkill for such a powerful rocket – the name itself is a tribute to its power. The only reason customers would want to utilize the BFR is if it is cheap, and Musk says that, because it’ll be fully reusable (as opposed to the Falcon 9, which is only partially reusable), it will be even cheaper than the first, smallest rocket that SpaceX flew 9 years ago: Falcon 1.
On the other hand, rockets are only so reusable: estimates lie around 100 uses per rocket. After 100 uses, the aggregated wear and tear from supersonic speeds, heat differences, and intense vibrations upon exit and reentry of the atmosphere would render the rockets unusable. Even a stronger rocket will still wear and tear to the point of degradation after a set number of uses.
Furthermore, the market for satellite launches may not be elastic enough to require so many launches. In order to justify the cost of one rocket, it would have to be used many, many times per year: perhaps hundreds or even thousands of times. The fleet of satellites launched last year could fit on a handful of BFRs due to the size of the BFR and how small satellites are getting.
