July 28 SpaceX presentations: Merlin 2, Falcon HLVs, Raptor,

I don't think anybody's posted about this here yet, but via another blog site I found out about some SpaceX presentations which were given on July 27 and 28 at the Joint Propulsion Conference.

http://www.hobbyspace.com/nucleus/index ... emid=22430
http://commercialspace.pbworks.com/changes/

The first presentation has an absurd amount of new information here on the Merlin 2, plans for a 6m core "Falcon X" with 38mt to LEO, "Falcon X Heavy" with 125mt to LEO, and "Falcon XX" with 140mt to LEO (I shudder to think of what a Falcon XX Heavy would be like):

http://commercialspace.pbworks.com/f/Sp ... small.pptx

The second presentation has info on Merlin 2, Raptor (apparently 150klbf thrust) and talks about possibility of modifying Merlin 1 to use LOX/methane for ascent/descent. Also mentions Merlin 2 could be developed and flight qualified in ~3 yrs for ~$1B, ~$50M/engine production, with 1700 klbf vacuum thrust and 322 isp. On the "near-term propulsion needs" slide it also discusses solar-electric tugs and nuclear thermal propsulsion for a Mars stage (?).

http://commercialspace.pbworks.com/f/Ma ... small.pptx

That Falcon XX is a monster!!

Holy S...!

For a moment there I thought they'd hired BP's Photoshop artists. Are they serious? And where are they going to get a billion dollar? Perhaps they should build and lanch some more rockets first and make some money. Unless they're going to get outside investors of course, then the sky is the limit I guess.

That Falcon XX is probably a few decades off, if it ever gets built. It's way impressive though. The kind of thing you need to launch a Mars mission...

Could be, now that the development of F1, F9, plus their engines is pretty well complete, that there's a bunch of rocket engineers looking for some new projects

These are awe inspiring. I sure hope SpaceX fares well enough to gain assets necessary to produce Falcon XX (or whatever this design evolves into).

I'm sure you all noticed the planet on the first slide of Propulsion presentation. Doesn't mean much by itself, but kind of confirms where Musk has his crosshairs at.

Exactly what they are doing. They have over 20 F9 launches manifested.

And they won't built it unless NASA gives them the money, as they are the only customer for something that big. The Merlin2 engine on the other hand would be worth building anyway, as it would make F9 launches cheaper.

I have thought about it a lot, and it wouldn't take all that much for SpaceX to put together a lunar mission, either. One of my fantasies was a "Falcon 5" second stage, with accompanying much higher thrust. It wouldn't be enough to set a human on Luna, but as a supply mission, or to preposition one of Bigelow's modules as the nucleus of a moonbase... But Falcon XX could do the whole job in one launch! They don't think small, do they? Man oh man do I wish I could talk Mrs. O into moving to Florida! Or Texas. Great things are happening, and we get to be in at the beginning, watching the birth of a new age of space flight. Exciting times we live in!

More on this:

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/ ... cle%20Plan

Getting 404 on the presentations. Did anyone save them? Could someone email them to me so I can mirror them? (minthos@gmail.com)

They're available on Nasa SpaceFlight forum

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index. ... #msg623684

Ah thanks. No point in mirroring them I guess since it's already done, but I did anyway: http://files.minthos.com/space/