SpaceX LA Shipyards @ Port of San Pedro - BFR Manufacturing Location

I think the most important point here is that the incorporation of Janicki's resources allows SpaceX to avoid having to tool up and learn how to make large COPV's. Which just leaves avionics and the superstructure/engines, which scale easily and shouldn't require difficult manufacturing methods to fabricate. After all, the only "big" parts of BFR are the shell and the COPV's, along with the heat-shield. But, the PICA-X facility at hawthorn is excellent so I'm not worried about the heat-shield part. And, Elon has said that F9/BFR will share many components as well, which further speeds up development.

BFS is hardest part, its designed to operate both in deep space and atmosphere, Space Shuttle was destroyed two times due to solid rocket booster and damaged heat shield tile. BFS has neither, i am curious why no one uses SpaceX Pica-X heatshields, Dreamchaser will use same ones as Space Shuttle.

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Some additional interesting stuff gleamed from the files:
initial equipment includes
>1 autoclave – 20 MM BTU/hr
>8 aerial lifts (63 horsepower (hp) each)
>3 gantry cranes (170 hp each)
>8 forklifts (89 hp each)

A 20 MM BTU/hr autoclave is extremely powerful.

>meanwhile in bureaucratic moneyland

to be proposed bill called ALSTAR (‘‘American Leadership in Space Technology and Advanced Rocketry Act’’)

Section 3 is the most interesting and contains the spice;
>"(b)The Marshall Space Flight Center shall provide national leadership in rocket propulsion by—
>"(1) contributing to interagency coordination for the preservation of critical national rocket propulsion capabilities;"
>"(2) collaborating with industry, academia, and professional organizations to most effectively use national capabilities and resources;
>"(3) monitoring public- and private-sector rocket propulsion activities to develop and promote astrong, healthy rocket propulsion industrial base;
>"(4) facilitating technical solutions for existing and emerging rocket propulsion challenges;"
>"(5) supporting the development and refinement of rocket propulsion for small satellites;"
>"(6) evaluating and recommending, as appropriate, new rocket propulsion technologies for further development; and"
>"(7) providing information required by national decision makers so that policies and other instruments of the Government support the development and strengthening of the Nation’s rocket propulsion capabilities throughout the 21st century."

Seems they are trying to tie their pockets with law and add legal options to cockblock the private sector under the guise of national interest and "expertise" in the field.

That's just Mo Brooks trying to keep MSFC funded. Doubt it will get anywhere

It's nothing until it's built. Until the BFR actually flies longer than 10 seconds, it's a dream.

I really want to believe though.

This is a project on par with the N-1, which the Soviet Union put all their energy into yet could only justify four (4) launches before the whole program was scrapped. Musk is trying to do it with private money.

No you idiot, they're trying to give the rocket/space industry the same boost the aerospace industry has. They are going to leverage SLS's supply chain assets for the private sector, effectively a public subsidy.

>until X happens, Y is a dream

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We always have Bezos and his unlimited budget if BFR fails.

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>the N1 meme again
That's dead and buried forget it already.

>on par with the n1
that's an insult to the BFR.

new Armstrong should be interesting, hopefully the release specs for it sometime soon

Just checked and his net worth is up 50 billion since Jan 2016. I say this with two amazon boxes sitting next to me so I guess it's not the biggest surprise but good lord

Jan 2017*, it's 90bn since 2016

why would Blue Origin release specs on their "new rocket" before the fucking NG flies? It's at least 3 years away from flying too

Blue Origin, just based off what we know their shitty rocket will cost, will not be able to compete with SpaceX

he puts 500mil into BO per year iirc. Wonder when he's gonna ramp it up to 1bil... Heck, Elon started SpaceX with only 150mil! Sure, the COTS contract helped, but still

competing doesn't matter short term when you have 100 billion dollars to play with. SpaceX showed off BFR before FH flew... don't see why BO won't do the same with their next gen system. Then again BO is pretty secretive

SpaceX has to fund raise and they are further along on the BFR than BO is on their rocket

They aren't really directly competing launch vehicles, either. New Glenn fits into a similar niche as Falcon Heavy, but with Block 5's intended reusability from the outset.

Plus Bezos’s overall space goal is a huge orbital manufacturing base and asteroid colony, rather than a mars civilization

People seem to continuously use the N1 attack when referencing the BFR without actually knowing why the N1 failed. It failed because the engine vibrations fucked up the piping. Unlike the N1, the BFR can shut off and restart it's first-stage engines; which in turn allows SpaceX to static-fire and test over and over again until every single error and fault is located so it can be fixed.

Do you really believe a company that botched their first vehicle so bad, with the New Shepherd, is going to be able to just produce a fully finished reusable rocket ? First try?

They even engage in lies and shows pretending NS is in the same class as the F9 booster, something SpaceX doesn't do.

I think nothing of the sort, especially since that's not Blue Origin's goal. Only the Booster is meant to be multi-use reusable from the outset, with a reusable upper stage following somewhere down the line - possibly not until New Armstrong is ready, whatever that launch vehicle turns out to be.

It failed because the Russians cancelled the program for lack of money, and they were on a shoestring budget too
If they had been able to do the launch tests they intended, eventually the rocket would work

It was a combination of that and the simple limitations of a pre-computer modeling world. Oh, and not being able to manufacture pill shaped fuel tanks with common bulkheads. N1 had a bunch of spheres... not space efficient, and it lead to other design fallbacks

N-1's big problem was that the NK-33s are grossly overrated. Between the N-1 itself and blaming decades of Siberian storage, no one seems willing to admit that maybe, just maybe, the NK-33 was actually an unreliable engine.

Exactly, the ussr liked to test fast and iterate off of failures. Everything else besides the rocket would have been fine, probably. People forget that they did successful sample return missions on the moon in the 70s

Back on the topic of the OP, does anyone live in LA who wants to go snap some pics?

At a conference a couple of weeks ago a Blue Origin representative stated that it would take Blue Origin 6-8 years to fly a manned mission on the New Glenn, let alone the New Armstrong. There is no space race, you need a manned spacecraft to take part and building one is the least of Blue's priorities now.

There isn't much to look at currently, construction is starting in April and will apparently last for 18 months.

Would be neat to put up a webcam to make a timelapse

Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. Just look at NASA.

Sure, I didn't say it was impossible to build the BFR, Just that there is an enormous capital cost involved, a cost not even a massive country would swallow. But the point remains that the BFR is a huge project, on a scale that has not been successful before. It is designed to dwarf the SLS, a project that has taken ten years to do using the best technology and nearly unlimited American taxpayer money.

This is not an easy task, and Musk will not have accomplished it until he can get at least 10 seconds of flight without the whole thing blowing up. Again not impossible, just extremely difficult. There's a reason why the Saturn V had five main engines, SLS four. BFR will have 42, more complexity brings more problems.

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In theory they could strap Boeing CST 100 or Orion to New Glenn instead of developing own spacecraft from scratch.

Fuel tank shapes aren't trivial. The X-33 was cancelled because NASA's composite asymmetrical fuel tanks kept cracking.

>has taken ten years to do using the best technology and nearly unlimited American taxpayer money.
Main bane of SLS is Space Shuttle legacy, its sole purpose is to employ same people and companies on essentially identical hardware, that was designed in 70s and made in 80s.

>is not an easy task, and Musk will not have accomplished it until he can get at least 10 seconds of flight without the whole thing blowing up.

SpaceX has an advantage on multi-engine firings that the old school rocket programs lacked: The ability to perform full duration test-firings, multiple times, with the same engines.

>BFR will have 42,
31, they did fly rocket with 27 engines already.

>BFS is hardest part, its designed to operate both in deep space and atmosphere

This is also the part most likely to get scrapped. Even if Musk can get the BFR booster itself working (a hard enough task), building a crew-rated vehicle to go along with it - one that is designed for both intra and inter planetary flight - is enormously difficult. It took Boeing about ten years to build the current X-37, and will take them another five to build the XS-1 neither of which are not crew-rated.

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SpaceX isn't doing any preliminary development work on the booster. If the ship doesn't work, attempting to build the booster is pointless.

If it's not broke don't fix it. Also the shuttle hardware works better when applied to a normal three-stage rocket instead of the space shuttle, who would have guessed. It's sufficient in a world where aerospike and nuclear propulsion research is marginalized.

Yes, but that doesn't change that he's using a huge amount of engines. Building a bigger engine would have resulted in more fuel efficiency as well, although it would have required a completely new production line (which Musk is apparently unable to get financing for otherwise he'd do that like any sane engineer would suggest). I'm not saying it's impossible, just extraordinarily difficult. More difficult than getting the original space shuttle to work.

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Then they're going to wind up with a spaceship that has no rocket capable of taking it to space. The exact opposite situation NASA has with SLS (a vehicle with no/few missions right now).

>Building a bigger engine would have resulted in more fuel efficiency as well

Specific impulse doesn't scale like that. It actually peaks right around their development size before rapidly dropping off due to the limits of attainable chamber pressures for a given volume.

That's more of a materials problem than a scaling problem.

>engine count
I assume you missed the Falcon Heavy launch and how it's success destroyed the argument about "explosive difficulties" of clustered engine designs?
My best bet is you are trolling, especially when you are unironically comparing spacex's work to things like the n1 and the sls.

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There's always more than one way to skin a cat in engineering projects, and inventing stronger materials isn't a wrong way.

The booster is essentially a solved problem, they can defer it because they know that.

>The booster is essentially a solved problem, they can defer it because they know that.
^this

Materials science has been working on it since the 60's. No ending in sight.

Space Shuttle was inherently flawed, that's why it has been canceled and never succeeded by Space Shuttle II.

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Neither of you actually refuted my point. Putting all of this into a new vehicle isn't easy, but again I'm not saying it's impossible. It does require a lot of capital though, a thing a private company is always going to have issues justifying to investors or creditors. Past performance does not guarantee future results, especially when someone is trying to build the largest rocket ever. Hughes built the H-4 but it only flew for about 26 seconds.

It isn't a "solved problem" until it's built and not blowing up on the launch pad. Look at how NASA manage to screw up Ares I, whose cancellation created the market SpaceX now inhabits. Technological development isn't just ticking off a list, as new vehicles are built they have to be experimented and tested with even if they are hobbled together with existing parts.

Again I'm not saying it's impossible, but it takes a lot of effort and labor (time) to make it all function. It's success is not guaranteed until it actually flies.

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Wrong, see the F-117, B-2, the space shuttle itself (in particular it's ceramic tiles), the X-33 and the 787. All of them use composite polymer or ceramic structures, things that were mostly impossible to build fifty years ago.

Of course it was, which is why NASA originally went for the X-33 then the SLS. It's also why Boeing is doing the XS-1 instead of a shuttle 2.0 (which they own because they bought Rockwell).

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>Neither of you actually refuted my point.

Sure thing, kid.

I was hoping for a serious discussion here

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> Past performance does not guarantee future results
Nice one, how does that not apply to everyone else then? Rockets are impossible? Give up? If anything SpaceX are the only one who have experience with large rockets in recent times so they are the best bet one can make. As for financing the company is profitable, holds the existing launch market, its R&D costs are considerably lower than anyone else, and there are planned sources of large income such as starlink. The majority of its shares are also owned by Musk hence no shareholder derailing.
And it won't take a lot of labor and time, that's nothing more than vain hope for competitors praying for natural and God made disasters to help their terrible predicament.
The prototype's very likely to start extensive tests mid to late next year. The BFR schedule including all musk time dilation memes is orders of magnitude faster than anything suggested let alone delivered by anyone else.

2/10 concern trolling honestly learn to bait better this is bad.

There's not a lot to discuss, though; we're arguing about our differing levels of optimism for SpaceX's ability to overcome technical hurdles. Personally, between SpaceX's large amount of first-hand and pioneering experience with high temperature environments around rocket exhaust and hypersonc retropropulsive reentry, they'll not have a lot of trouble making the booster work. They'll probably RUD a few of them in the process, but that's the SpaceX way.

NASA being insincere and slow walking a development program for decades because it makes no difference whether they launch or don't launch is totally different to SpaceX

I think the lesson from this Commercial crew program is that NASA bureaucracy will sabotage any successful program to slow it down to the speed of the slowest common denominator

Hiding embarassment is the most important thing for these bureaucrats.

X-33 had a much colder fuel in hydrogen, and their tanks weren't cylindrical, and there has been 20 years of time for the state of things to improve. BFR is an easier task.

There was even a NASA tech demo project a few years ago that built a small composite hydrogen tank that worked. The same tank builder in that project is who SpaceX is using to build their tanks.

>ass hurt over kid-posting

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>It's success is not guaranteed until it actually flies.
b-b-b-but elon musk is le IRL tony stark

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Back in the 1950s everyone expected supersonic travel to be the norm by 1990 and nuclear-powered commercial space travel by 2000. Technical issues caused both concepts to stall rather than progress. The Space Shuttle was supposed to be the DC-3 of space travel, it didn't pan out like that.

>As for financing the company is profitable, holds the existing launch market, its R&D costs are considerably lower than anyone else, and there are planned sources of large income such as starlink.

Yes just like Hughes Aircraft, who created the Hughesnet/DirectTV brand. Regardless of that, within five years Boeing will actually be competitive again with the XS-1, a vehicle which would quickly ruin SpaceX's plans *if* Boeing can get XS-1 to operate twice a day as they plan. And this is where the past non-performance does not guarantee future results occurs, Boeing will have learned from the STS and will create a product evolved from it designed to meet the goals STS was supposed to. And out of left field there is the Scaled Composites Stratolaunch, which could prove more disruptive if they can manage to do more than four launches per day.

My point is that nothing is guaranteed when it comes to large projects such as this, at least not until vehicles fly. But even then as we saw with the H-4, even then that is not always enough.

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>300 million kids in Africa are starving
>I know, let's build enormous fireworks for some rich guy's amusement!

Yes because even the X-33's main contractor, Lockheed, built composite fuel tanks a few years later for the F-35 project. BFR may be conceptually easier, but again the fact remains no vehicle that large has ever been built before. This brings with it many unknowns, which will have to be figured out (likely through failure and repeated failure). Such is the nature of science and technological development.

Which is to say, it doesn't fly until it does. That's the only thing that people can safely bet on, that BFR will not work until it is proven to work. As was the case for the Saturn V, X-1, H-4, and the Wright Flyer.

Not technical issues
But physics issues for super sonic travel and politics for nuclear

>it didn't pan out like that.
NASA made no attempt to BUILD it as anything capable of that

Why are you posting on Veeky Forums instead of volunteering in Africa?

Literal fireworks is a better use of cash than giving money to Africa.

If composites prove difficult the design can fallback on conventional al/li alloys for the tanks. Sacrificing payload, naturally. The same is true for other parts such as engine performance, heat shield mass and so on.

The real issues will be
>propellent transfer
That is a must. If it doesn't work flawlessly the whole fuel rich BFR architecture fails.
>cradle landing
This is the second big must. Without it large ground infrastructure will be required with all that entails to cost launch cadence.

I actually wonder what worst case scenario would look like.
Merlins + kerolox instead of raptors?

>I actually wonder what worst case scenario would look like.
>Merlins + kerolox instead of raptors?

Robert Zubrin's Falcon Heavy Direct.

They should just stop reproducing, no kids - no problem.

Fluids are still fluids in space, you can't act like propellant transfer is an actual issue
its just that its hard to test, thats all

>This is the second big must.
The rocket will have very powerful thrusters for moving itself horizontally
It'll be bigger, so naturally more stable & resistant to wind.
And it'll be able to throttle much lower + land with more of a margin

I don't see the cradle landings as an issue at all.

>But physics issues for super sonic travel and politics for nuclear

issues which existed because technology wasn't progressing at the rate people expected it to in 1950

>NASA made no attempt to BUILD it as anything capable of that

yes because they expected the private market to do it. Everyone chose military contracts instead.

The slush method for prop should be fine. It will be a critical component elude way... it takes eight refuel tankers to completely top up a single BFR in orbit. Of course, that’s only required for going to Saturn or something

Nigger, spacex developed a heavy lift vehicle for FIVE HUNDRED MILLION DOLLAS, when the Augustine commission thought it would take twice as long and TEN+ BILLION. The money aspect of BFR is irrelevant. Spacex knows how to do things for cheap. Their refrigeration systems in the payload processing facility were bought used off of eBay ffs

I've been telling people for so long that the only reason space travel is so expensive is because government organisations are always bloated pieces of shit out to make any given contract take as long as possible and squeeze every penny they can.

>No user that's a conspiracy, rockets are just really expensive
>mfw SpaceX starts sending shit up for a fraction of the cost of these conmen

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MARS WHEN

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that's just a conspiracy user rockets are expensive don't you trust the experts it would have been done if it was possible stop with that tinfoil thinking its not healthy you might need help are you perhaps lonely it will be good to think positively you will be happier

Even Blue Origin is filled with old space faggots and they are cutting costs to at least 1/5th

If you are a government organization/contractor you just shrug your shoulders at 1000 dollar "aerospace quality" bolts
If you are a sincere for profit company, you go buy a used bolt machine and make your own.

SpaceX is the master at this. An example...

"...when the company was rebuilding launchpad 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, one of SpaceX’s employees spotted a 125,000-gallon liquid nitrogen tank and thought, “Maybe we could use this?”

Despite sitting outside for years, the tank seemed in decent shape, and the SpaceX’s 10-member team on the Cape wanted it. They called the Air Force asking permission, but their calls went unreturned. They persisted and were put in touch with a company that been hired to haul away the tank and destroy it.

The company was willing to part with the tank for $1 more than the cost of scrapping it — $86,000. So the members of the SpaceX team became the scavengers of Cape Canaveral, looking for leftover hardware as if they were on a treasure hunt. Old rail cars from the 1960s that had been used to ferry helium between New Orleans and Cape Canaveral became the new storage tanks. Instead of spending $75,000 on new air-conditioning chillers for the ground equipment building, someone found a deal on eBay for $10,000.

Cost drove lots of decisions, even how the company built its rockets. Once Musk got wind that the air conditioning system used to keep the satellite cool in the rocket’s fairing, or nose cone, was going to cost more than $3 million, he confronted the designer about it.

“What’s the volume in the fairing?” he wanted to know. The answer: less than that of a house.

He turned to Shotwell and asked her how much a new air-conditioning system for a house cost.

“We just changed our air-conditioning,” she replied. “It was six thousand bucks.”

“Why is this $3 or $4 million when your air conditioning system is $6,000?” he asked. “Go back and figure this out.”

The company did, buying six commercial A/C units with bigger pumps that could handle a larger airflow."

FRUIT-FLAVORED GELATIN DESERT NEWBORNS

Wow I didn't know they cool their satellites with none AEROSPACE APPROVED AC units!
Is that even legal??

I'm gonna call my congressman! It's an outrage! How will those AEROSPACE APPROVED AC UNIT MANUFACTURERS stay in business!

>“Why is this $3 or $4 million when your air conditioning system is $6,000?” he asked. “Go back and figure this out.”

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Elon asks that about eeeeeverything. Thus why SpaceX now makes practically everything in-house, from the PICA-X to small bolts and other components. Janicki seems to be the big exception.

two excellent good videos on it (really interesting)

youtube.com/watch?v=P06X2TZUKZU
youtube.com/watch?v=aLfy7NPxjtg

>Janicki seems to be the big exception.
They aren't the only one, but they do stand out. SpaceX inhouses what it can, but sometimes they really can't do it better/faster/cheaper in house, either for lack of experience or for a lack of fundamental or proprietary technical expertise. Janicki's no-autoclave composites are a prime example of proprietary technology with a high degree of technical expertise.

iirc SpaceX was also looking into hiring a giant Japanese carbon fiber company to do some work. I think that fell through though

Janicki is also a specialist for rapid prototyping large carbon fiber structures, so it probably wouldn't make sense for SpaceX to figure out how to do it entirely in-house before paying someone else that already knows how to do it in order to prove the viability of the concept. I don't think the CF deal is canned.

>The money aspect of BFR is irrelevant. Spacex knows how to do things

So then why don't we have H-4 sized seaplanes or double deck Concordes? Hughes and BAE knew how to do things and the money aspect was irrelevant, until one day people woke up and it was. You're being a completely deluded fanboy if you don't realize this. At the most basic level SpaceX has to do something nobody has ever done before, both with the BFR and BFS. Both of these things will cost money and take a lot of manhours to make functional let alone flyable.

Again I'm saying this is difficult, but not impossible. SpaceX has to prove they can do it, because they aren't the first to attempt it.

>Their refrigeration systems in the payload processing facility were bought used off of eBay ffs

That doesn't mean anything when you can buy basically anything off ebay if you try hard enough.

>Thus why SpaceX now makes practically everything in-house, from the PICA-X to small bolts and other components.

every aerospace company does this, or they use a very short list of outside suppliers that are heavily vetted, spacex learned this lesson when one of their suppliers cut costs and sold them defective parts which caused the CRS-7 failure.

SpaceX is paying attention to cash flow, and anonymous dismissal of its relevance has no bearing on that.

who pooped in your cornflakes? BFR isn’t new, it’s just an iteration of F9. They’ve landed rockets. They’ve reflown rockets. Everything regarding the pure engineering of BFR is just a tweak of something which already exists. The same exact thing happened with F9. Now, people say “oh spacex didn’t do anything new with retro propulsive landings, stage recovery, stage reuse, and relight capability.” And they’re right. When BFR is flying people will be saying “oh, spacex didn’t do anything new....” etc. and they will also be right. It’s the application of these technologies which matters.

BFR is just a engineering project which happens to be a large rocket. It’s not some positive Q fusion reactor pipe dream.

Anyways, thanks for adding more material to my collage of BFR doubters. Gonna post it when BFR flies lmao

Then you're a fucking moron, for fuck's sake the entire reason we are in this situation was because Congress saw how Douglas passed up NASA with the DCX in 1993, which is what led them to force NASA to consider "traditional" alternatives to the X-33. By 1997 Douglas aircraft ceased to exist when it was merged into Lockheed, who showed little interest in spacecraft when their F-35 had just won the Joint Strike Fighter contract. With private support gone NASA had to cancel the X-33 in 2001 when it's composite fuel tank cracked again. Within five years of that Lockheed and Boeing had all those problems sorted out yet still chose to create ULA in 2006 rather than build a proper SSTO (or SSTO-like system).

All of this happened because the government had high expectations that the private market would provide a low cost replacement to the Space Shuttle, which itself was originally going to be a low-cost private replacement to the Saturn V. The private market chose not to provide it due to the high cost and thus when the space shuttle retired so did America's manned space program (at least temporarily).

Relying 100% on the private sector only leads to ruin, as does relying 100% on the government like the Soviets did. America's space program was successful because it utilized both whenever practical instead of trying to make some sort of broader ideological point about doing things one way or another. This ended with the Cold War's peaceful close.

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There is zero need to involve the government in space travel in 2018.

Planes run into issues with scaling that rockets do not