Elon MuskVerified account

How do you get a 9m vehicle from Hawthorne to Boca Chica or the Cape?

It could just do a sub orbital hop.

Just stick it on the roof of the Hawthorne factory and let 'er rip!

Get a bigger diameter boring machine...

THAT is a number we can sink our teeth into! But how would you move a 30 foot diameter vehicle to the launch sites? By road to a sea port?

Elon would have to do some serious roadwork to get a 9 meter diameter rocket stage to the beach from #SpaceX's factory in Hawthorne L.A.

How do you feel John about spacex skipping red dragon, no crewed propulsive dragon landings?

Will this replace Falcon all together?

Reddit speculation says quite likely. Already cheaper than a F9 launch, and fully reusable, not to mention the insanely low per kg cost.

I think not having to fly the FH is the biggest perk

Downsized ITS might replace FH, eventually, but it would be overkill for most LEO payloads… unless they do multiple-berthed LEO launches.

1/2 Multiple launches will help to gain huge profits: they could charge full price for each customer and still be the cheapest option by far

2/2 Also, being overkill only means longer reentry burns and less damage to the booster. It is super cheap anyways.

Hard to qualify what overkill is in the new reusability paradigm. Completely new frontier, lots of unknowns

Looks like we'll find out in a couple of years (hopefully ≤ 5) just how much pent up demand there is in the launch market.

So a 25% narrower vehicle at first. I take it the first stage will probs have about 24 engines instead of 42 based on change in base area.

21 engines would fit perfectly. Just remove the outer ring from the original design.

@FFairing: Your descendants won't only be reusable, they'll stay with the vehicle, opening clam-shell style to deploy payloads then closing.

I had thought about that. But wouldn't it be less practical since u'd have to haul the extra mass of the fairing all the way to orbit?

Even a 25% reduced size ITS would have more than the margin necessary to carry the faring to orbit. Reusability is a more important priority

True, with fairings currently costing upwards of 5M, and I only see that becoming a larger figure as they are scaled up.

All of the upper stage/spacecraft of the reduced size ITS will look the same from the outside: satellite launcher, tanker, passenger/cargo…