{"id":18576,"date":"2018-04-08T23:29:54","date_gmt":"2018-04-08T15:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/what-a-tool-elon-musk-shows-off-what-spacex-will-use-to-build-bfr-spaceship\/"},"modified":"2018-04-08T23:29:54","modified_gmt":"2018-04-08T15:29:54","slug":"what-a-tool-elon-musk-shows-off-what-spacex-will-use-to-build-bfr-spaceship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/what-a-tool-elon-musk-shows-off-what-spacex-will-use-to-build-bfr-spaceship\/","title":{"rendered":"What a tool! Elon Musk shows off what SpaceX will use to build BFR spaceship"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>To build a big frickin\u2019 spaceship, you need a big frickin\u2019 rack to put it on. And SpaceX has the rack.<\/p>\n<p>The company\u2019s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, took to Instagram tonight to show off the main-body construction tool \u2014 which is analogous to the turning mandrel tool that Boeing uses as a rack for a 787 composite fuselage while it\u2019s being built up from layers of carbon fiber.<\/p>\n<p>A Tesla Model 3 electric car is included in the picture to lend a sense of scale:<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_410450\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-410450\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-410450\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/180408-tool1-630x444.jpg\" alt=\"BFR main-body construction tool\" width=\"630\" height=\"444\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-410450\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Tesla electric car is dwarfed by the main-body construction tool for SpaceX\u2019s BFR spaceship. (Elon Musk via Instagram)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For what it\u2019s worth, some have speculated that SpaceX\u2019s partner for BFR carbon-fiber construction is Janicki Industries, which is headquartered in Sedro-Woolley, Wash.<\/p>\n<p>The BFR interplanetary spaceship is the cargo-carrying element of the reusable Big Frickin\u2019 Rocket that Musk eventually plans to use as an all-purpose space vehicle&nbsp;\u2014 for trips ranging from point-to-point suborbital passenger travel, to orbital satellite deployment, to moon missions, to journeys to Mars and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>Last month, Musk said the spaceship is already under construction and should be on track to start short-hop test flights next year.<\/p>\n<p>SpaceX\u2019s tentative specs suggest the spaceship will be 30 feet in diameter and about 157 feet long. The craft is meant to accommodate about 100 people in 40 cabins when it\u2019s configured for Mars trips. Musk said the first, uncrewed BFR cargo mission to the Red Planet could take place as early as 2022.<\/p>\n<p>The other main element of the BFR is the booster, which is projected to be even taller than the spaceship. The current design incorporates 31 methane-powered Raptor engines, capable of providing a record-high 11 million pounds of thrust at liftoff.<\/p>\n<p>Will SpaceX stick to the schedule for Mars flights? If history is any guide, it\u2019ll take longer than Musk expects for the BFR to spread its wings, but as long as he has the wherewithal&nbsp;\u2014 and Musk\u2019s net worth is currently estimated at $19.6 billion&nbsp;\u2014 he\u2019ll stick with it.<\/p>\n<p>The fact that Musk is showing off his giant tool demonstrates that he\u2019s serious.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"BFR Overview\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UAkmP00QPJg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Update for 11 a.m. PT April 10:<\/strong> Teslarati reports that photos taken outside SpaceX\u2019s facility at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro, Calif., show tools from Ascent Aerospace&nbsp;Coast Composites \u2014 which implies Ascent is a supplier for the BFR construction operation. A spokeswoman for Ascent Aerospace declined to comment on the SpaceX connection when contacted by GeekWire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To build a big frickin\u2019 spaceship, you need a big frickin\u2019 rack to put it on. And SpaceX has the rack. The company\u2019s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, took to Instagram tonight to show off the main-body construction tool \u2014 which is analogous to the turning mandrel tool that Boeing uses as a rack for a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2873,1045,316],"class_list":["post-18576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bfr","tag-elon-musk","tag-spacex"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18576"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}