So in my opinion he does not deserve any kudos for that.

I’ll freely admit I’ll be making no physical or financial contribution to advancing human spaceflight in the near term. All I expect to be able to do is continue posting comments to forums such as this by way of getting ideas of mine – that I am immodest enough to believe have some merit – out there in public. Perhaps, then, you can tell me how to “think forward about reusable BFRs and what can be done with them” differs in any substantive way from what I’ll be doing – or not doing?

your space pathetic unachievable cadet dreams that you refuse to even think about

This manages to be simultaneously insulting, condescending and internally incoherent in only a handful of words. An impressive achievement, even if of a decidedly pointless and unproductive type. How exactly is one even able to refuse to think about one’s own dreams?

If you don’t think reusable BFRs are coming I can’t help you.

No help required, fortunately. Why is it that you imagine I, or any of quite a number of others who comment here, do not share your belief that reusable BFR’s are coming? I certainly believe reusable BFR’s are on the way. The 1st-generation FHR should fly in about a year. Upgraded versions with second stages based on paired Merlin 1-D’s or a single Raptor could follow quickly. Within five years, SpaceX seems all but certain to roll out a reusable Raptor-based BFR, followed by a triple-core BFRH version. The latter should be able to put over 500 metric tons into LEO, perhaps for less than $100 per pound.

There are a number of people who comment regularly on this site who are unpleasant when one disagrees with them. You have the singular distinction of being equally unpleasant when one agrees with you.

It is evident you think rather highly of yourself and rather little of anyone else. Based on your posted comments of the past several days, I confess I detect no slightest trace of any basis for imagining that you are in any way deserving of what seems to be your baselessly high level of self-regard. Having encountered quite a number of people in my six-plus decades who were comparable legends in their own minds, I would like to invite you – speaking strictly for myself at this point – to either show us all some moves or to take your tiresome self somewhere else.

This observation I have made! First off, I am totally in favor of a heavy lift rocket. But the way NASA is currently going about it, is completely wrong. SLS is but a sliver of what the originally proposed Ares 5 rocket was to be. It isn’t being designed with Lunar spacecraft in mind at all; just that moronic Asteroid Retrieval Mission. It serves NO purpose, beyond visiting a bagged meteor sample, (parked in cislunar space); and even that silly idea might not come to pass. SLS does NOT look like a powerful enough rocket to accommodate new manned lunar vehicles. The Saturn 5 was built concurrently with the specific lunar craft that were planned to carry out the overall Apollo mission. SLS, by contrast, appears to have NOTHING in mind for the Moon, at all. (Other than its gravity well, as a rendezvous point.)

What will they do with the SLS, once the meteor sample has been rendezvoused with? Could some tiny lunar lander possibly be fitted atop of it, with an accompanying earth departure stage, and maybe sent to low lunar orbit, unmanned, to await the arrival of a crewed lunar orbital craft; as in the Golden Spike concept? (Both such spacecraft would need to be capable of decelerating themselves into lunar orbit, individually.) Would the Orion or whichever other manned lunar orbiter, require the same exact heavy lift launcher to begin its lunar trek, implying a double launch of SLS within a short span of time, or would a smaller launcher be utilized? Further, if the lunar landers to be used are no bigger than the old Apollo ones, wouldn’t this put constrained limits upon what size of cargo-only lunar lander, that we’d eventually develop, based on the manned sortie mission version? (Which would primarily be that same vehicle, minus the ascent rocket-stage requirement; hence a lander which goes down one-way, with no one on board.)

In short, I see a lot of difficulty & narrowed possibilities for future manned Moon applications, if the SLS turns out to be NASA’s only near-term expression of the heavy lift concept. I’m concerned that it may not be powerful enough, nor thought-out thru enough, to handle a manned Lunar agenda; and that it might indeed be decommissioned, just like the Russian Energia rocket, following even a successful asteroid-rock-retrieval, since its potential for upgrading for future deep space uses will be too limited.

“They Told You So”

I’m only noting that the SLS looks vaguely similar to a smallish BFR, unfortunately not reusable, indeed, not even capable of making orbit. Replace the SRBs with something that looks vaguely like multiple FHRs, replace the SSMEs with something that look vaguely like Blue Origin BE-3s, or even just add something in the center that looks vaguely like a BE-3 or a J2X and then you have something that could go to the moon. If you don’t think reusable BFRs are coming I can’t help you.

By 2017, however, SpaceX and – one hopes – others will have put enough fresh facts on the ground that the new administration taking office in January of that year will feel it can safely excise the fiscal tumor that is SLS from NASA’s flesh without suffering significant adverse political or other consequences.

— Donald

Well enjoy your minimum of three more years of waiting for cancellation then. And even then the chances of it getting canceled again are very low, since the previous cancellation worked out so well for you, right?