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Science & Technology
SpaceX’s Elon Musk renames his big rocket ‘Starship’
2018-11-21
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk has announced he is changing the name of his monster rocket BFR, aimed at carrying people to the Moon and possibly one day to Mars, to "Starship."

BFR has long been the unofficial name of the rocket, which is still under development.

The letters were initially presumed to stand for "Big Fucking Rocket," before company executives began formally referring to it as "Big Falcon Rocket."

"Renaming BFR to Starship," Musk wrote on Twitter late Monday.

In September, when Musk revealed that a Japanese billionaire would be among SpaceX’s first tourists to circle the Moon by 2023 at the earliest, he said the trip would be launched aboard the BFR.

The 387-foot (118-meter) tall rocket will consist of a first stage with engines and fuel systems, which Musk said Monday would be called the "Super Heavy."

The second stage "Starship" is the part with the spacecraft where the passengers will ride.

Musk has estimated the rocket system will cost $5 billion to build.

The spacecraft’s shape is reminiscent of the space shuttle, the bus-like US spaceships that carried astronauts to space 135 times from 1981 to 2011.

Musk has said he wants the Starship vessel to be able to hold around 100 people, and that the launch system could one day be used to colonize the Moon and Mars in order to make humans a "multi-planetary" species.

SpaceX currently operates two rockets: the Falcon 9 and the Falcon Heavy.
Posted by:Fred

#12  Also loved BFR. The only thing that could rescue "Starship" for me would be Musk firing a Tesla off to Alpha Centauri.
Posted by: Zenobia Floger6220   2018-11-21 23:58  

#11  probably going to go into orbit and slow down a ton before atmospheric entry for the BFR
Posted by: Injun Bucket8891   2018-11-21 23:48  

#10  I wonder with this amount of heat on entry how Musk is planning on protecting people on a manned flight. I don't think I'd like to be the guinea pig here.

Here's the link.
https://www.popsci.com/nasa-mars-insight
Posted by: Jan   2018-11-21 21:52  

#9  NASA's Lander that will be landing this Monday has to survive the “seven minutes of terror” during atmospheric entry, descent, and landing. It'll be going 13,000 mph as it first enters the Martian atmosphere and with thrusters will slow to 5 mph. The heat shield will get as hot as 2500 degrees Fahrenheit—hot enough to melt steel. It will stay this hot for about 3.5 minutes, until it is time for the parachute to deploy. However the atmosphere is so thin they say the parachute won't work as well that's why the thrusters. So exciting, we'll be able to watch online.
Posted by: Jan   2018-11-21 21:41  

#8  #6 - I'm on the same page. Love BFR
Posted by: Frank G   2018-11-21 20:01  

#7  Call the second stage module the "Starship" as it supposedly will be able to SSTO on small bodies and keep BFR for the first stage booster... I liked 'BFR' it kinda reminds me of people explaining that the 'BUFF' nickname for the B-52 really, trust us!, meant "Big Ugly Fat ... (cough) Fella".
Posted by: magpie   2018-11-21 15:16  

#6  I liked BFR. Likely what it was called in the first meetings: "I want you to build me a rocket to Mars, a Big Fucking Rocket."

That's about as American a name as you can get.
Posted by: Boss Spoper5850   2018-11-21 14:47  

#5  When we get to Mars, the city will be built on rock and roll, because nothing's gonna stop us now.
Posted by: swksvolFF   2018-11-21 14:37  

#4  Jefferson Biplane...
Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain   2018-11-21 14:36  

#3  :Meh: The Germans didn't think it was appropriate to name submarines and only gave them such catchy names as "Unterseeboat-109". No doubt they thought the American habit of actually naming things as silly, too.
Posted by: magpie   2018-11-21 12:01  

#2  At least he didn't call it 'The UFO Two'.
Posted by: Mullah Richard   2018-11-21 08:45  

#1  Getting more cultic by the day. Er, the perfesser banned me for saying that a few years back...
Posted by: M. Murcek   2018-11-21 01:30  

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