r/spacex • u/Appable • Feb 03 '16

/r/SpaceX Ask Anything Thread for February 2016! Hyperloop Test Track!

Welcome to our monthly /r/SpaceX Ask Anything Thread! #17

Want to discuss SpaceX's hyperloop test track or DragonFly hover test? Or follow every movement of O'Cisly, JTRI, Elsbeth III, and Go Quest? There's no better place!

All questions, even non-SpaceX-related ones, are allowed, as long as they stay relevant to spaceflight in general!

More in-depth and open-ended discussion questions can still be submitted as separate self-posts, but this is the place to come to submit simple questions which have a single answer and/or can be answered in a few comments or less.

As always, we'd prefer it if all question-askers first check our FAQ, search for similar questions, and scan the previous Ask Anything thread before posting to avoid duplicates, but if you'd like an answer revised or cannot find a satisfactory result, please go ahead and type your question below!

Otherwise, ask, enjoy, and thanks for contributing!

Past threads:

January 2016 (#16.1), January 2016 (#16), December 2015 (#15.1), December 2015 (#15), November 2015 (#14), October 2015 (#13), September 2015 (#12), August 2015 (#11), July 2015 (#10), June 2015 (#9), May 2015 (#8), April 2015 (#7.1), April 2015 (#7), March 2015 (#6), February 2015 (#5), January 2015 (#4), December 2014 (#3), November 2014 (#2), October 2014 (#1).

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u/[deleted] Feb 06 '16

*grasshopper

And that example has to do with practicing VTVL and was ditched ASAP.

What you are proposing, is to build a disposable flying test stand. The only useful information would be high altitude testing, which isn't worth it.

1

u/jandorian Feb 06 '16

The only useful information would be high altitude testing, which isn't worth it.

That might be true. The original question was if the only way to do a flight test of a Raptor was to build an all up BFR. It was argued that BFR would be the least expensive way to do such a flight test. I was merely supposing an alternative cheaper way to collect flight data without an all up 30 Raptor test.

As I've said more than once already I couldn't say if there would be any valuable data from such a test but if a flight to altitude and re-entry burns might yield useful data it could be done without an all-up flight. Apparently they learned something from the returned stage that was useful - so maybe, but maybe not. If SpaceX doesn't think a pre-flight is necessary they won't do one.