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Correct_Inspection25 t1_j6ajvw1 wrote

I love the Falcon program and the Merlin’s, but they fell short for economic heavy lift reuse beyond LEO/ and limited apogee GEO kg to orbit/deltaV. Starship and Raptor economics for heavy lift and deep space crewed missions are money better spent than upgrading SpaceX 2010-2012 technology for NASA.

Please provide SpaceX’s claims that the Falcon Heavy could make TLI in 3-4 days fully crewed with 26,000kg? All the articles I can find when asked, SpaceX told NASA and the press in 2018 if they couldn’t replace the SLS/crewed mission scope, and that the fully disposable Falcon Heavy theoretical max payload to TLI was 18,000kg, but without serious modifications, 16,000kg for crewed 3-4 day TLI transit.

Fun fact: This is shortly before SpaceX publicly completely abandoned upgrading the Falcon Heavy (BFR/Red Dragon) program, and announced the new starship architecture and Booster heavy lift program keeping only the Raptor engines in the late fall early winter of 2018.

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