Elon Musk has suggested the possibility of a Falcon Super Heavy — a Falcon Heavy with extra boosters. “We could really dial it up to as much performance as anyone could ever want. If we wanted to we could actually add two more side boosters and make it Falcon Super Heavy,” Musk said. This five-rocket Falcon Super Heavy would have around 9 million pounds of thrust, Musk said, nearly doubling the rocket’s current capability, and putting it in line with the Saturn V as the most powerful rocket ever built.
A SpaceX Falcon Super Heavy would have 63% more a launch capacity than a Falcon Heavy. This would mean a 100-ton capacity to low earth orbit.
Elon Musk also said they will perform a six-hour coast to demonstrate to the Air Force the capability to do a direct-to-GEO mission. The risk is that the Roadster and the third stage could end up in low earth orbit.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 5, 2018
Musk: We are doing a six-hour coast to demonstrate to the Air Force the capability to do direct-to-GEO missions. Risk is that the Roadster ends up in LEO.
— Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) February 5, 2018
Elon also said that they will not send paying tourists around the Moon in 2018 on the Falcon Heavy. SpaceX will only send paying tourists around the moon using the BFR (Big Falcon Rocket).
Musk said as long as the BFR’s development happens on schedule, SpaceX will send people, including the two tourists, into space on the new rocket. This will save SpaceX from getting the Falcon Heavy approved for human spaceflight only to replace FH with the BFR. However, if the BFR takes longer to make than expected, then it’s possible SpaceX will return to the idea of putting crews on Falcon Heavy.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.
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