Re:Toray carbon fiber to carry SpaceX's Mars ambitions
by Animats on Tuesday August 16, 2016 @06:27PM
(#12301110)
In some ways, not a good sign. Space-X can't make and launch Falcon boosters fast enough now. They're not a big enough company to do many things in parallel. Their unfinished, and late, projects include the Falcon Heavy, the Brownsville TX launch facility, and the crewed Dragon, all of which were supposed to be working by now.
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Re:Toray carbon fiber to carry SpaceX's Mars ambitions
by oliwaw on Tuesday August 16, 2016 @06:30PM
(#12301130)
>Space-X can't make and launch Falcon boosters fast enough now.
The bottleneck is not Falcon 9 production, at this point it's largely on the payload side. A faster turnaround would certainly help, but there's only so much optimization that can be done.
The Falcon Heavy is not a priority because (1) much less demand from customers and (2) it's a transitional system between Falcon 9 and built-for-reuse BFR/MCT, so it will have limited use.
Re:Toray carbon fiber to carry SpaceX's Mars ambitions
by kirrent on Tuesday August 16, 2016 @07:17PM
(#12301385)
Brownsville isn't a case of them being distracted but just underestimating the degree of soil surcharging needed. Crewed dragon is unfinished but hasn't missed any of NASA's deadlines so far.
I do wish that Falcon Heavy would finally launch though.
Re:Toray carbon fiber to carry SpaceX's Mars ambitions
by arijun on Tuesday August 16, 2016 @08:33PM
(#12301699)
As a point on the FH, one reason it's delayed is that it has lower priority: now that the Falcon 9 has been upgraded to the full thrust version, it can take many customers who were originally envisioned to go on the Heavy