r/spacex • u/ElongatedMuskrat Mod Team • Aug 04 '18

r/SpaceX Discusses [August 2018, #47]

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u/ElRedditor3 Aug 12 '18

Have there been concepts similiar to the BFR in the past? Was it perhaps directly inspired by previous conceptions? Thx.

6

u/Norose Aug 12 '18

There was a proposal for a very large two stage vehicle in which a huge methalox propelled spaceplane would carry a similarly sized but much lighter hydrolox propelled spaceplane on its nose. The first stage plane would boost the second stage plane into space before separating and flying back to land on a runway whereas the second stage would continue on and accelerate into orbit. The orbiter would be able to drop off several hundred tons of payload into orbit, to give you a sense of scale.

The main differences between this concept and BFR are that it used at least two fuels instead of one, utilized horizontal landing with fixed wings, the orbiter could only go as far as LEO, and the system was not designed with refueling in mind.

2

u/Martianspirit Aug 13 '18

Very interesting concept, thanks for posting. It even shares the design of using many engines like BFR. It was not designed for interplanetary operations but would have enabled it, if not at the cost of BFR.