Talk:SpaceX Starship development

Short tons and long tons

How about just using metric tons?

Orphaned references in BFR (rocket)

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of BFR (rocket)'s orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "ars20160918":

From ITS launch vehicle: although in an AMA on Reddit on Oct 23, 2016, Musk stated, "I think we need a new name. ITS just isn't working. I'm using BFR and BFS for the rocket and spaceship, which is fine internally, but...", without stating what the new name might be. Berger, Eric (2016-09-18). "Elon Musk scales up his ambitions, considering going "well beyond" Mars". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2016-09-19.
From Interplanetary Transport System: Berger, Eric (September 18, 2016). "Elon Musk scales up his ambitions, considering going "well beyond" Mars". Ars Technica. Retrieved September 19, 2016.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 05:09, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed N2e (talk) 12:53, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Old Rocket/New Article?

While I appreciate the notion of this rocket showing up in Wikipedia, the name BFR (Big Falcon Rocket) has been kicking around for quite some time and even the rocket itself is pretty much the same thing that was unveiled in the 2016 IAC meeting by Elon Musk last year. It is the ITS with just a minor name change and an updated design. From that perspective, why does the lead sentence suggest it is something that was unveiled... basically today? --Robert Horning (talk) 07:03, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The name of the rocket has indeed been kicking around for a while, as shown by many sources. The engines too are the same Raptors they've been developing since at least 2012.

However, the rocket is an entirely new high-level design (9m diameter rather than 12m; delta-wings on the booster now vs. none before; much shorter; 31 engines on the booster rather than 42, six engines on the second stage/spaceship/space tanker rather than nine; three versions of the second stage rather than only two in the ITS launch vehicle; ect. It is a very new design, albeit it is going to use some of the same materials (carbon fiber composite) of the old vehicle. N2e (talk) 13:00, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Those look like tweaks to the design of the same rocket, more of a refinement as is typical for any sort of design process as you move from concept to the final stage of development. You can find similar kinds of design changes on other rocket systems like even the Space Shuttle that changed considerably from the first draft of the design to what finally flew for STS-1 and arguably even over what happened on the Saturn V. I'm suggesting it is still the same vehicle and it is really stretching any sort of definition that this is something new and different.

From the perspective of Wikipedia, it seems like an article fork of the same topic, which is why I'm bringing this up. This is just a name change to the Interplanetary Transport System and talking about the latest design iteration for that rocket. Generally speaking, I'm against article merges and speak up against them, but in this case it really seems like the same thing. It even says in the ITS article that this is a design iteration of the ITS. --Robert Horning (talk) 17:16, 29 September 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Reference to BFG?

Unconfirmed from what I can tell but BFR looks a lot like a reference to BFG (Big Fucking Gun) from Doom.