New BFR Animations - Very Science-Fictionish

**Yazata** · (This post was last modified: Jun 3, 2018 06:00 PM by Yazata.)

If you are a science fiction fan like me, you will love these animations.

BFR booster takeoff and landing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eomhvZ9ooeI

BFR resupplying the space station (Falcon 9 and Dragon's current job)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUrmm3jOzIg

BFR goes to the Moon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwlWmaL4x7s

BFR heads for Mars

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SCvenRvUVs

Flyover animation of grandeur of Mars, with a few fleeting glimpses of BFRs and humans on the surface

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpx3wkDW-Ik

**C C** · Jun 3, 2018 05:29 PM

Took most of the Saturn-V rocket's impressive stature just to get the "smallish" Apollo and LEM package into orbit / escape velocity. Here the spacecraft itself occupies what seems well over a third of the overall launch vehicle's length.

**Magical Realist** · (This post was last modified: Jun 3, 2018 08:07 PM by Magical Realist.)

That Mars flyover reminds me of the time I saw a vision of some deserted and rocky planet in flyover mode. I did it by staring into a candle. (diet pills helped too Smile

) It was surprisingly vivid, like a hologram scene projected on my ceiling.

**Yazata** · (This post was last modified: Jun 3, 2018 08:44 PM by Yazata.)

(Jun 3, 2018 05:29 PM)C C Wrote: Took most of the Saturn-V rocket's impressive stature just to get the "smallish" Apollo and LEM package into orbit / escape velocity. Here the spacecraft itself occupies what seems well over a third of the overall launch vehicle's length.

The BFR spacecraft is mostly fuel tanks. About 1/3 of the BFR is crew quarters and a cargo hold. The other 2/3'ds is fuel and oxidizer. Plus the booster is entirly devoted to that.

The BFR spacecraft itself supposed to have single-stage-to-orbit capability of its own and doesn't need the giant booster (a scaled-up... way up... version of the Falcon 9 technology), provided that the BFR flies mostly empty.

But the whole plan is really dependent on refueling in space. You saw the beginning of the Moon-landing animation where two BFRs were mated butt to butt? One of them was transferring fuel to the other. Elon Musk described the process in his address to last year's International Astronautical Congress. They plan to use the same fittings that are used to mate BFRs to their boosters to mate them to each other. If a BFR can find an open gas station in orbit, it can go to the Moon with up to 100 people and 150 tons of cargo, land, take off again and return to Earth without refueling on the Moon. (The Moon has only 1/6 the Earth's gravity. Remember that even the little Apollo Lander was able to achieve Lunar orbit.)

Mars is a tougher problem. A fueled-up BFR can leave Earth orbit and coast to Mars and land, but it won't have enough fuel to return. And there are no gas stations on Mars. Luckily water ice and carbon dioxide are known to exist on Mars, so the plan is to convert CO2 and H2O into CH4 (methane, BFR's fuel) and O2 (oxidizer). The chemical process for that (actually there are several) is well understood and proven.

So the plan is to send several unmanned BFR's to Mars containing all the gear that an expedition will need, not least a portable rocket-fuel plant. Job #1 for Musk's Mars settlement idea is to set up a Mars fuel depot.

Mars' gravity is only 38% of Earth's, small enough so that a fueled-up BFR with a relatively empty cargo hold can escape from Mars' gravity well and return to Earth without need for the giant booster.