That Time A Falcon Rocket Visited Washington, DC
15 yrs ago, @elonmusk brought his un-flown falcon rocket to the @airandspace museum to show the world he was ready to take on the traditional aerospace firms. This week – he and @yousuck2020 announce their mission to the moon. #dearMoon Photos: @spaceref @KeithCowing pic.twitter.com/pQVFdQE9fC
— TJ Cooney ? (@TJ_Cooney) September 19, 2018
SpaceX Falcon Launch Vehicle Unveiled in Washington D.C., earlier post (2003)
“Among the speakers at the rocket’s unveiling were Elon Musk, President and CEO of SpaceX and Patti Grace Smith, Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation, FAA. Musk and Smith were introduced by Keith Cowing, editor of NASA Watch.com.”
Keith’s note: How time flies. I must say that this was a really interesting event. I was also one of the people standing at the podium to introduce Patti and Elon referring to the Falcon 1 as “not your father’s rocket”. The idea for this, as best as I can recall, emerged from a discussion that my late friend and co-author Frank Sietzen and I had. At that time Frank was SpaceX’s first employee in Washington, DC. I think I said something to the effect of “why not bring the rocket to DC and just park it in front of NASA Headquarters?” Frank said I was crazy and then admitted that Elon was a little crazy too. He suggested it to Elon. Then it happened – again, as best I recall.
FYI one of the buildings in the picture is the old NASA HQ. Maybe I should Photoshop a Falcon 9 in front of the current NASA HQ …
Pity the FH is too big to put on a trailer ?
No trailer needed. Just launch one and land it there.
Meh – land a BFS.
The problem is the sonic boom would blow out all the windows. Of course that will get it noticed 🙂
What sonic boom? Just land the BFS on an ASDS offshore and sailed up the Chesapeake Bay to Annapolis. The BFS is too tall to pass under the US Route 301 bridge over the Potomac.
It is unlikely the FAA will allow the BFS to hopped from the ASDS to Andrews AFB. So everyone can gawked at it.
As I’ve said before, that’s what kills the whole idea of using BFR for point-to-point travel on Earth. How long do you think it takes to sail up the Potomac from the Bay to D.C.? A few hours on each end, to get to the off shore launch site, and the overall journey isn’t dramatically shorter.
Sounds like the government needs to build a hyperloop from Washington DC to MARS (Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport)
You misunderstood my post. It is not possible to sail up the Potomac to DC with the US Route 301 bridge in the way. I was stating that you exhibit the BFS at Annapolis instead.
Offshore P2P launch platforms should be easily and quickly accessible with either high speed sea ferries or Vertol aircrafts.
P2P travel is alternative to long haul commercial air travel like from New York to Tokyo. Which have travel time of over 10 hours.
I guess we are talking past each other. Let me try again.
It is very possible to sail from the Chesapeake Bay to Washington, along the Potomac. It is not possible for a large ship, but smaller ships (like the “high speed sea ferries” you mention) can and do make that trip.
In terms of BFR point-to-point transport, I think you are wrong. The trip on the BFR would be about an hour, rather than over ten hours. (You state that a New York to Tokyo flight would be over 10 hours. Over 15 hours is closer to the mark.) But, even with a high speed sea ferry, you’re looking at an hour or more on each end to get from the off-shore landing site to a dock at the city’s harbor. From the harbor to a person’s home or hotel, perhaps another hour. And add two or three hours, since that’s the usual recommendation for international air travel (get to the airport two hours before departure, more if it’s an international flight.)
All of those issues add about five hours to the travel time. Which means that even a BFR point-to-point trip means a six hour journey. Six hours versus 20 hours is an improvement, but it is a factor of three or four improvement. Not the factor of 15 claimed for point-to-point transports by BFR.
True, and the frequency of the flights would be limited as well. That is why no one is working on supersonic aircraft seriously, the costs to develop and operate them is greater then the likely benefit.
I think someone could find a niche market for supersonic aircraft. The best ideas I’ve seen involved private or business jets, rather than regular commercial service. But suborbital point-to-point takes things even further. That’s when it gets to the point where I can’t even see a good niche market.
Why does that kill p2p? The plan wouldn’t be to have the BFR-platform travel to the passengers, it’s to have the passengers travel to the BFR-platform by fast-ferry.
A modern fast-ferry can do 60-100kmh. International waters starts at 22km offshore. Assume 1hr travel time is “reasonable”, that gives you an extra 40-80km through bays/rivers/etc to reach an appropriate passenger dock.
No. Jesus Christ. You don’t live at an airport either. You don’t get to add routine travel time from your home to the “trip time” of the BFR. That’s just stupid.
As a frequent traveler, I completely disagree. What matters it the time it takes to get from my front door to my hotel, or vice versa. Sorter legs are nice (I prefer two six hour flights and a layover to one, twelve hour flight), but that’s basically just a bonus. If the entire trip takes most of a day, it does not matter if the physically longest leg takes half an hour or six hours.
So the travel time from your front door, to the fast-ferry port, and from there to the off shore space port _does_ matter. As does the time from the off shore space port at your destination, to the fast-ferry port, and from there to your hotel. If the _entire_ trip still takes most of a day, it does not matter if the physically longest leg takes one or ten hours. It’s still a full day lost in transit.
As an example, let’s say you live in Los Angeles and have a business meeting in London starting at 8:00 on Monday morning. Would a BFR point-to-point let you get up that morning and fly in? No. You’d have to spend most of Sunday in transit, even if the suborbital hop from Los Angeles to London only took 45 minutes. If you don’t live on a coast, it’s even worse, since you’d have to take a connecting flight to the off shore launch site.
Rubbish. If you could knock 6hrs off a trip, you wouldn’t choose that option?
Take it to an extreme: If I invented a magic teleporter, which (because of the rules of magic) could only be built at one location on the outer limits of each city. You still had to travel there conventionally and go through customs/etc, plus queue for the teleporter itself, but then zap and you’re instantly at the destination city. Do you really think air travel would survive a week after I opened my network? Even if I was slightly dearer than air travel (say double the economy ticket for the same routes)?
Hell, with BFR, there’ll be people who go just for the 30 to 90 minutes of micro-g. There are “zero-g” tourist flights where people pay $5000 for 5 minutes of 30-sec bursts of free-fall.
“Rubbish. If you could knock 6hrs off a trip, you wouldn’t choose that option?”
If it were free, possibly. No, probably. But you’re aiming at the wrong market. I would also prefer a 10 hour flight in first class, over a six hour one in economy. That way, I could actually get some sleep on the flight.
The real question for point-to-point suborbital transport isn’t whether or not it’s faster. Of course it is. The question is how much faster is it? I am saying that the relevant duration is the door-to-door travel time.
If that’s nineteen hours using conventional airlines (one hour to the airport, get to the airport two hours before your flight, two hours on a connecting flight, one hour layover, twelve hours on the long flight, and another hour from the airport to the hotel), then I’ve lost an entire day. If it’s eight hours on a suborbital (same as above, but only one hour in flight), I’ve still lost enough of a day to make it a write-off. Not to mention time lost to jet lag, which a suborbital won’t change.
Would I pay extra to have a one hour flight instead of a twelve hour flight? Sure. But I’d also pay extra to have a twelve hour flight in first class. The overall benefit from the suborbital is, however, a factor of two or three not a factor of ten or more.
Do I think air travel would survive a week if instant teleportation were available? Sure. If it costs fifty bucks less, people would still fly. Just look at what the airlines are doing with economy class seats. People are stingy, and they are willing to take a long, miserable trip if it saves a little money. There is a demonstrable market for making trips less expensive and more painful. That’s what the point-to-point suborbitals would be competing against. If they could turn a twelve hour trip into a one hour trip, they might have a sizable market. But if it’s a nineteen hour versus an eight hour trip? That’s enough of a difference to get some luxury customers, but not the bulk of the travelers.
You might be thinking of the BFR, which, despite the sanitized version of the “F”, has very little hardware in common with the Falcon launch vehicles.
All the pieces of FH are transported by trailer. It’s just that when it gets to its destination, some assembly is required. 😉
Instead of F9, they should land Starship in front of NASA HQ. They would have a hard time trucking it in.