The news

Recently, Elon Musk held a conference at the International Astronautical Congress in Adelaide, Australia, and brought forth updates to SpaceX's plans on future launch vehicles and the colonisation of Mars. There were several changes to last year's Interplanetary Transport System (ITS). The colloquially named BFR, or Big... uhm, Falcon Rocket has been downsized to cover more mission types and become SpaceX's workhorse in the future.

As the main rocket that hopefully would replace their current Falcon 9 rocket and the upcoming Falcon Heavy, due to launch for the first time in November, this year, it would need to fulfil a multitude of roles, such as delivering satellites to orbit (as seen in the picture above), including very large telescopes for example, ferry people and cargo to the International Space Station, and with refuelling in orbit, do the same to establish a moon colony and a Mars colony, possibly even elsewhere in the solar system, once these colonies are built.

Thus, the ambitious plans released presented last year have been slightly reduced, but it would still be the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. Thus, the new BFR will stand tall at 106 metres (down from 122), would feature a diameter of 9 metres (down from 12), and would deliver 150 tonnes (down from 300) to low Earth orbit (LEO). This would be achieved by 31 Raptor engines (down from 42), that would generate a total of 48 meganewtons on the launchpad (down from 128).

It would still overtake worlds largest rocket ever built, the Saturn V, which put men on the Moon, which was 110 metres tall, 10 metres wide, used five F1 engines to generate 35 meganewtons on the pad to put 135 tonnes to LEO. But unlike the Saturn V, the BFR will be fully reusable; the first stage would return to Earth and land back on Earth, similar to how SpaceX lands its Falcon 9 first stages today, while the spaceship itself, would reenter the atmosphere similar to the space shuttle, to avoid overheating, then flipping to land on its engines.

But wouldn't that ruin those engine? Yes, it most likely would, but SpaceX plans to perfect its landing techniques so much, that according to their CEO, Elon Musk, they won't need engines, and will land back on the launch mounts. Ans speaking of engines, the Raptor engines seem to be less powerful than previously touted, but have been test fired 42 times for a total of over 20 minutes, with one test lasting over 100 seconds.

The new spaceship has also gone on a diet, going down from 12 metres (flaring up to a maximum of 17), of the old one, versus the slimmer 9 meter wide craft, but is almost as tall, at 48 metres (down from 49.5). Additionally it now uses four vacuum engines and two sea level engines (down from 6 vacuum engines and 3 sea level engines), however, all of them can now gimbal to provide steering assistance, whereas in the old version, only the sea level Raptors could do so.

The spacecraft now features a small delta wing to aid in atmospheric reentry, being able to lose 99% of its energy this way, just to turn around for the last leg of the landing procedure to use it's engines. While Musk has been critical of wings on spaceships before, as they are useless in space, where there is no atmosphere but almost a complete vacuum, they are needed in order to achieve full reusability. Refuelling can also be achieved in orbit, docking two BFR spaceships back to back, and thrusting towards the full craft in order for the fuel to flow back into the empty vessel. They would use the same piping as when it is docked to the booster, thus possibly eliminating the need for launch umbilicals.

If you wish to see the full presentation, you can watch it HERE.

On top of putting the basis for a Mars colony and a Moon colony in the future, with the first cargo launches planned in 2022, and first people one Mars in 2024, SpaceX aims to do point to point transportation here on Earth, directly competing with airline companies, taking people anywhere on the planet in less than an hour, as seen in the video below.

While I applaud SpaceX for its achievements and tremendous goals, I doubt they will be able to achieve all they have planned. Production on BFR components have started and some components have been tested, that 2022 deadlines seems way too rushed and banking on everything going smoothly. There is rarely a plan that goes on without a hitch, thus I believe that maybe they can manage it by 2030, which would still be amazing.

The other plan, which is to replace airlines, seems even more crazy to me. First off, new infrastructure will have to be built to accommodate for rockets. That means building launchpads in safe areas, refuelling stations, and transportation lines to these hubs. Even if such a feat is agreed upon by enough cities to be worthwhile (which I doubt), there is still the matter to let extremely dangerous rockets fly over territories. This will surely be denied by pretty much any state.

Even if I don't grant credence to all of SpaceX's plans, if there is someone that is to change how space travel is accomplished, it is them. They have proven themselves by making rockets reusable, having landed the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket 16 times in a row. On top of this, they launch about 15-20 rocket a year to orbit (out of a total of about 60), hoping to launch 30 by 2020, thus gaining more than half the market share. To celebrate their achievements, they even have the courage to laugh at themselves and their previous failures, releasing the video below, documenting all their failures along with their first successful landings.