Elon Musk Accelerating Development of the Super Heavy Starship

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SpaceX is filing for a license to test the Super Heavy Spaceship (aka BFR).

The tests themselves are divided into low‐altitude and higher‐altitude tests. The low‐altitude tests stay below 500 meters in altitude and last approximately 100 seconds. These tests will be run approximately three times per week during the initial portion of the program. The higher‐altitude tests can go as high as 5 km and will occur approximately once per week. These tests last approximately 6 minutes. Please note that SpaceX is also applying for an experimental permit from the FAA in order to gain permission to run these VTVL tests.

The idea of creating mini-BFRs for the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy is no longer on the table. SpaceX will accelerate the Super Heavy Starship (aka BFR).

68 thoughts on “Elon Musk Accelerating Development of the Super Heavy Starship”

  1. Nor does attempting to have a point about something while simultaneously disagreeing / arguing that ” “, : , which you clearly did in another comment below.

    It is you Tom, that publicly commits the greatest contradiction here. You have no legitimate comment whatsoever because you don’t even admit your life is truthfully most important (required by you) to even comment.

    e.g. Life is the first self-evident truth. ALL other truths depend on that truth to be true themselves and failure to acknowledge that truth is publicly stating that you are not truthfully living.

    Yet, you seem to have problem acknowledging that truth and as such, there is no truthful possibility to win an argument against it. It is, in truthful fact, the most important truth in life. Without acknowledging and upholding that truth, any comment of an argument is a complete and total fraud.

  2. It is not surprising to me that Musk’s companies have gotten as far as they have. His numbers came in right where mine did. There was always reasonable chance for success because we already had/have everything we need as far as energy and food production to achieve virtually unlimited energy and food production.

    What is not going to change is the fact that every single person that can, is going to find themselves on their knees, crying tears of happiness, willfully and joyfully, before their Master: Truth and Life, in loving acceptance, first, because the only other option is that all life here will be lost. Wielding that power without the loving acceptance of the truth of the importance of life is suicide.

    I don’t need to prove it for myself.
    You may try to deffer the truthful importance of life while having virtually unlimited power, but if you live you will eventually agree with my findings.

  3. It’s not “illegitimate” force.
    “Life is Most Important in Life” is true.

    However, you attempting to dispute the legitimacy of “Life is Most Important in Life”, while using “life” in complete and total hypocrisy and contradiction to dispute that it is true is “illegitimate”.

    You can kill, but you can’t kill that truth. They tried that on Christ and many others. That truth continues to live regardless.

    Does it make you feel sad and angry that all those people who told you before that you were doing wrong, that you intimidated and threatened and insulted and made fun of…actually had that part, the most important part, about life and truth, correct? Seems that way.

    They tried to tell you. They just didn’t have the words. I do.

    And Tom, did you know that only a bot (a relentless psychopath computer) or person that has has chosen to behave as a bot, would not agree ” “, : ?

  4. You think? Many commenters seem to be confused by the fact leaving Vuukle commenting and going to SpotChat has dissolved the comment thread structure.

  5. ” While I cannot force people to choose truth and life, I can force to to make a choice. ” <– I can legitimately kill you to stop you from succeeding in using such illegitimate force on people. You have nothing better to tell people, and they and I can insist with what violence is required, that you stay out of their face and space.

  6. No, no valid argument exists to the contrary of the statement that a child born to two US citizens on US administered territory is a US citizen. None whatsoever.

  8. No. They changed the law because they decided to change the law, period.

    The law that stated that children born on US military bases overseas are natural born citizens was still in effect for WHEN McCain WAS born. So Congress changing the law later had no bearing on his citizenship status.

  11. Well, hallaluha! The reply button now takes you to the right place.

    We’re talking about a topic which has not been litigated, and for which arguments exist on both sides, so stop pretending your side is self-evidently right.

  12. All you’re doing is claiming you’re right on the basis of rejecting any research you’ve done which did not confirm your biases. It’s entirely a “fake news” controversy generated solely to give McCain a hard time.

    Just to drive the point home, he was born to two unambiguously US citizens on then US administered territory. There is no possibility he is not a natural born citizen, per the intentions of the Founders and text of the constitution.

  13. It should be, really. Virgin Galactic call their jumped up planes ‘Spaceship’ though. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if SpaceX just didn’t want a trademark lawsuit on their hands. Branson’s a dick like that.

  14. What’s crazy is how some people believe they can actually be vegan. There is not such thing. We are not our actions. It’s about not committing needless violence against life irrespective of its intelligence and ability to suffer. e.g. Upholding The Most Important Truth in Life: Life is Most Important in Life. That is the truth that all other truths depend on to be true themselves and upholding that truth in word and action. It seems you may have confusion as to what my comment was trying to establish. While I cannot force people to choose truth and life, I can force to to make a choice. You can never again honestly say that you were not told better and have been forced to choose a side.

  17. Crazy how an article can go from space to China to Vegan so fast. lol
    I think being vegan is good, I’m not one, but more power to you, you’ve outlive me.

  19. All you’re doing here is demonstrating that you never bothered researching the topic, and so are unaware that there’s an actual controversy here.

  21. No, there was no loophole, ever. The Congress has power in the constitution to declare whether someone is a natural born citizen or not, because they have authority within the traditional scope of “natural born” to say a person is already a citizen not needing to be naturalized. Being born to American parents abroad is within that traditional scope, you have no case whatsoever — and to an extent in this case you are even being an idiot about, it, you don’t even have a colorable argument.

  23. Derek, currently the USA is the land of steak and bacon with the vast majority of the people raping, enslaving and slaughtering animals for needless reasons and then telling lies that they needed to do it, irrespective of that life’s intelligence and ability to suffer, which has needlessly killed more humans by the way of cancer, stroke, heart attack and diabetes than arguably all wars in human history combined.

    While the waste of fresh water, super-intensified antibiotic resistance, waste of grown food, accelerated disease mutation, and it being the single greatest contributer to climate change are also relevant, as that affects human life too.

    So yeah, the USA is the land of steak and bacon. Not truth and life…at least not anymore and those people whole call their local grave yard a stomach vote for more people who also rape, enslave and slaughter animals for needless reasons (fun, taste, sport, inferior nutrition, fashion, etc.) and when they slow things down, it’s only so they can needlessly stick a fork in an animal.

  24. All of this seems interesting. My tech was used to help make the definitive discovery of water ice on Mars (Phoenix) , so I get a kick out of it. Life is Most Important in Life.

  26. *At the time he was born,* the Panama Canal zone was a bit of a legal loophole in US law on the topic, and people had clearly been denied citizenship on the basis of their having been born there. A few months after he was born, Congress passed a law closing that loophole. But a “natural born citizens” is somebody who is a citizen *when they were born*, McCain was made a citizen shortly before his 1st birthday, that made him a “naturalized” citizen.

  27. You’re a mor0n. McCain was perfectly well qualified constitutionally. Born on US administered territory to US parents.

  29. That was the original plan, I believe. Which plan is preferable, and whether the mini-BFS is even practical, depends on internal factors that I’m not familiar with. It may indeed be that they’ve considered the mini-BFS and decided it wasn’t worth it.

  30. I don’t think it needs to be that complicated. They won’t be building a full BFS at a smaller scale. Just a BFS-shaped fairing with a bunch of sensors, and weld onto the existing 2nd stage.

    Payloads are often volume-limited anyway, so they don’t always need the full lift capacity. They can still use the standard fairing and 2nd stage for missions that need more delta-v.

  32. I disagree with you, I don’t see my country as declining. With the economy getting bigger, unemployment down, population still increasing. Every metric says the US is not on the decline.

    I’ve just had enough of this anti-US rhetoric that has been spreading for a long long time. Far to many people (even some Americans) think we’ve been on top for too long, and that it’s time we let China become the worlds biggest super power. Something I disagree with. Yes, I know in some areas they surpassed the US years ago, but in most, they lag behind. But It’s how the Chinese government operates is what I disagree with. Xi Jinping making himself president for life, was a bad sign of things to come. Their belt & road initiative has been bad for so many countries, unable to pay back the massive loans, allowing China to have their way with them.
    China can move their country forward much faster then us because of the way their government is setup, but its the very nature which makes it dangerous, having a congress with checks and balances is slower, but safer.
    So my first post some might think I’m anti-Chinese, but I’m not, I’m just tired of them getting so much praise, while people overlook all their wrongs.

  33. They can test the heat shield as effectively on the full scale BFR, it’s easy to slowly ramp up the reentry loading.

    Computational fluid dynamics has gotten really good, it’s unlikely they’re going to face some unanticipated instability during reentry.

  34. Yeah, McCain was constitutionally unqualified to be President, and I pointed it out at the time. But it didn’t matter, because the Democrats didn’t want him taken off the ballot, he might have been replaced with somebody who’d try to win.

    I never did think Obama wasn’t native born. I just thought it was a topic to be settled in court with a hearing on the merits, which I was reasonably confident he’d win.

    I think he just fought the release of that birth certificate for so long because it kept his opponents focused on something where he knew they weren’t going to hit pay dirt. Instead of putting the same effort into uncovering his college records, or something like that.

  35. (If it can still carry useful payload, they can still sell it. It would basically just be a different fairing combined with the F9 2nd stage.)

  36. A mini-BFS like 2nd stage for the F9/FH can be very valuable as a scale model to test BFS reentry behavior etc. Scale models are a common practice in aerospace R&D, and this wouldn’t be mutually exclusive with full-scale hop tests. They’re actually complementary. So I’m not yet convinced the mini-BFS stage is a no-go. I suspect Brian may have misinterpreted one of Elon’s tweets. But we’ll see.

  39. He has much higher ambitions than administrating a tiny piece of land on Earth for a few years. In 20 – 30 years, he may be the emperor of Mars.

  42. Not building a mini-BFR is probably a win. I’ve found in the past that doing demonstration projects is wasteful and ultimately delays the final product. Of course this was with software and hardware projects. The ultimate heuristic is if you can’t sell it then don’t build it especially if there’s a chance that you’ll haver funding issues. You are more likely able to be able to sell a full scale processor with a few issues than you are a demo sized processor that is useless.

  43. Best of luck to SpaceX … although this filing may or may not reflect what is planned or what will happen (as often seems to be the case in the Elon Musk world). So LEO Broadband -> FCC deployment deadlines -> Accelerating BFR/Super Heavy Starship.

  44. The reason why Chinese people adore the Musk so much is that he talks the way they expect from their supreme leader. Announcing a 5 years plan every few weeks, always accelerating some project and promising progress.

  47. Too many name changes.

    First it was BFR(Big F***ing Rocket)
    Then it was MCT (Mars Colonial Transport)
    Then it was ITS (Interplanetary Transport System)
    Then it was BFR(BFB+BFS) again
    Now it’s Superheavy+Starship

  49. *At the time he was born,* the Panama Canal zone was a bit of a legal loophole in US law on the topic, and people had clearly been denied citizenship on the basis of their having been born there. A few months after he was born, Congress passed a law closing that loophole. But a “natural born citizens” is somebody who is a citizen *when they were born*, McCain was made a citizen shortly before his 1st birthday, that made him a “naturalized” citizen.

  52. That was the original plan, I believe. Which plan is preferable, and whether the mini-BFS is even practical, depends on internal factors that I’m not familiar with. It may indeed be that they’ve considered the mini-BFS and decided it wasn’t worth it.

  53. I don’t think it needs to be that complicated. They won’t be building a full BFS at a smaller scale. Just a BFS-shaped fairing with a bunch of sensors, and weld onto the existing 2nd stage.

    Payloads are often volume-limited anyway, so they don’t always need the full lift capacity. They can still use the standard fairing and 2nd stage for missions that need more delta-v.

  55. I disagree with you, I don’t see my country as declining. With the economy getting bigger, unemployment down, population still increasing. Every metric says the US is not on the decline.

    I’ve just had enough of this anti-US rhetoric that has been spreading for a long long time. Far to many people (even some Americans) think we’ve been on top for too long, and that it’s time we let China become the worlds biggest super power. Something I disagree with. Yes, I know in some areas they surpassed the US years ago, but in most, they lag behind. But It’s how the Chinese government operates is what I disagree with. Xi Jinping making himself president for life, was a bad sign of things to come. Their belt & road initiative has been bad for so many countries, unable to pay back the massive loans, allowing China to have their way with them.
    China can move their country forward much faster then us because of the way their government is setup, but its the very nature which makes it dangerous, having a congress with checks and balances is slower, but safer.
    So my first post some might think I’m anti-Chinese, but I’m not, I’m just tired of them getting so much praise, while people overlook all their wrongs.

  56. They can test the heat shield as effectively on the full scale BFR, it’s easy to slowly ramp up the reentry loading.

    Computational fluid dynamics has gotten really good, it’s unlikely they’re going to face some unanticipated instability during reentry.

  57. Yeah, McCain was constitutionally unqualified to be President, and I pointed it out at the time. But it didn’t matter, because the Democrats didn’t want him taken off the ballot, he might have been replaced with somebody who’d try to win.

    I never did think Obama wasn’t native born. I just thought it was a topic to be settled in court with a hearing on the merits, which I was reasonably confident he’d win.

    I think he just fought the release of that birth certificate for so long because it kept his opponents focused on something where he knew they weren’t going to hit pay dirt. Instead of putting the same effort into uncovering his college records, or something like that.

  59. A mini-BFS like 2nd stage for the F9/FH can be very valuable as a scale model to test BFS reentry behavior etc. Scale models are a common practice in aerospace R&D, and this wouldn’t be mutually exclusive with full-scale hop tests. They’re actually complementary. So I’m not yet convinced the mini-BFS stage is a no-go. I suspect Brian may have misinterpreted one of Elon’s tweets. But we’ll see.

  66. Not building a mini-BFR is probably a win. I’ve found in the past that doing demonstration projects is wasteful and ultimately delays the final product. Of course this was with software and hardware projects. The ultimate heuristic is if you can’t sell it then don’t build it especially if there’s a chance that you’ll haver funding issues. You are more likely able to be able to sell a full scale processor with a few issues than you are a demo sized processor that is useless.

  67. Best of luck to SpaceX … although this filing may or may not reflect what is planned or what will happen (as often seems to be the case in the Elon Musk world). So LEO Broadband -> FCC deployment deadlines -> Accelerating BFR/Super Heavy Starship.

  68. The reason why Chinese people adore the Musk so much is that he talks the way they expect from their supreme leader. Announcing a 5 years plan every few weeks, always accelerating some project and promising progress.

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