@MrTyTheGreat did you ever see a shuttle in the hangar? but the most funny thing is that the bfr travel stuff trailer shows pretty much what was originaly planned for the shuttle. a orbiter on topp of a big rocket safety like the apollo programm and a potential for upgrades. every one claims that the victor writes history but the number of idiots that od it is greater: hitler, trump, the usaaf on the shuttle program search it and find it. most funny on all of this was a guy wich planned to bomb people into space and nope its not the orion concept.

@Irobert55
I agree with that.

@MrTyTheGreat the best option realy (or the best we have at the moment but i dont hink that the EM drive is realy a thing but i digress). its the lightest, has the best thrust to wheigt ratio and allows for both throw away and reusable booster systems with controlablr thust. only downside is that the engines have exactly one part that has a tendency to burn out quick: the pumps and to reuse them you need to dissamble the whole engine. and thats spacexs biggest weakspot: they still need to dissasemble the whole engine to check those buggers. but even that could change with the possible upcommign of piston pumps or electrical pumps in rockets (piston pumps are harder to kill and electrical pumps have a need for a repairdoor next to them).

@Irobert55
I didn't count them as problems. They functioned perfectly. I was intending to mean to clarify that they weren't the first reuseable orbital booster. Believe me, I know all of the upsides and downsides of different fuel types. I once wanted to build a small rocket, and considered everything, but for what I wanted it to do, liquid as the only option.

@MrTyTheGreat the boosters weren controlable because they used solid fuels. you cant controll solid fuel bosters. and stabilizing is also not possible with them. so dont count this as problems because this is theyr nature by build.

@Irobert55
The shuttle had two reusable external SRBs. They detached, making it not an SSTO. Also, don't get excited about the reusable boosters. They were parachuted down, and by themselves were practically useless. (Uncontrollable, not stabilised) Also, airplanes were originally deathtraps too. It takes time and development to get things done, so throwing away an idea because it's too dangerous is not helpful. After plenty of unmanned flights of BFR, maybe it will prove itsself, and be ready for human transport. We'll have to see. The idea's not perfect, but that's because it's an idea. We're fairly new to space travel, anyway. (Relatively, I mean, we have 60 years' experience.) And about N1, I meant that they never static tested all engines at once.

@MrTyTheGreat they fired the n1 with all engines thats my point there are videos of this thing crashing. and he still uses turbopumps nothing against them but vibrations can still kill them of. also did you know that the space shuttle had only one throw away part? the tank was disposable and i am not shure but it looks a bit like that the space shuttle was actualy a single stage launcher. fun fact beside this: the bfr travel thing animation shows a space shuttle like it was planned before the airforce interveened. and the claim 45 minutes to every where turns it into : please let me live (rocket fuel is super explosive and to have a fueled rocket fire ready is better done with small rockets like icbms or with other words: to make it better tkae your seat wait for hours start)).

@Irobert55
He's already gotten 27 engines to work. The 31 of BFR is four away. Not to mention that this is 50 years in the future, from the N1. The N1 failed because it was never test fired with all of its engines together. That's why the vibrations were never discovered. SpacX always test fires when the rocket is assembled. With BFR being such an important rocket, they'll have it fully assembled on the pad to test fire it.

@MrTyTheGreat the bigest problem that i can see with the bfr is that it has the potential to end up like the biggest rocket flop of all time. the soviet moon rocket used tried and testet engines.... and never worked at all because they managed to somehow get the rocket into vibrating in its own kill frequency wich means: the rocket starts, the rocket start to vibrate a bit, one engine fails one minute later every engine is dead.

@MrTyTheGreat the bigest problem that i can see with the bfr is that it has the potential to end up like the biggest rocket flop of all time. the soviet moon rocket used tried and testet engines.... and never worked at all because they managed to somehow get the rocket into vibrating in its own kill frequency wich means: the rocket starts, the rocket start to vibrate a bit, one engine fails one minute later every engine is dead.

@Irobert55
You've neglected the part where only one of those is proven to work...

@MrTyTheGreat the idea os esa explained: the rockets themlseves are only big presure tanks so they are dort cheap but a bit weak because of the fact that most disposable rockets a build so thin that they cruble without fuel. seas idea: build aplane arount the engine (or modified for falcon nine. around the engine block) and let this thing land. the rest is light/weak to make the way back. also you can utilise atmospheric drag to brake. musks idea: build a super hughe rocket that has potetial problems with the fuel capacity because it can land and is probably over engineered when ready. it happened and humans are incapable of learining from past mistakes.

@Irobert55
The thing is, is that it's not a race just yet. It's just progress. You can go to Mars, you can be the first to get there, and you can go there ten times, but if you do it the same way, with obsolete disposable rockets, you're only going to Mars, and that's all. It will be expensive, and wasteful. If you land the rocket, you are at least making progress. Almost nothing is wasted, so the price drops, and the more you progress that, the more you can sell to people. Glenn Curtiss didn't invent the airplane, but he was extremely influential to aviation, his JN-4 started general aviation in America. Henry Ford didn't invent the car, but he made it accessible to everyone! Elon is trying to be the opposite of "Good ideas need a price tag", considering that his Falcon Heavy is twice as powerful as the nearest competitor, at one-THIRD of the cost! NASA can't do that! Know why? They don't land their rockets! The Shuttle, even, was a complete failure at reusability because it was anything but cheap. (The whole point of reusability.) The fact is, is that if nobody tries to compete with SpaceX, then SpaceX will succeed. Customers will look at the prices and, see that their satellite is 1/3 of the price of the other companies, and that's it. We can't make progress if we can't make things available to the public. It's as simple as that. SpaceX is leading the way to public space travel, and until someone tries to match them, I'll be on their side.

@MrTyTheGreat spacex didnt invented its rocket. they simply bought some guys and they arent even that succesfull it looks like a victory but they still operate on a big loss. also his world view is that good ideas need a price tag (tesla is dumb because he didnt wanted a price for his electricity grid. his role model is by the way one of the most bond vilenous persons ever). i have my doubt that spacex will win the race against slownsteady. tortoise (i dont like the word we germans use the same word for both with a simple sea or land on it to mark the habitat but i digress) will beat the hare. he wasnt the first to get an electric car on high speeds (first 100 km/h car was electric) and he disregards safety for the sole purpose of a victory. i am not shure if we look at a savoir or a bond villain. and yes i am a fan of thunderf00t but i like the video about the juicero press more than most of his musk clips.

@Irobert55
He's not an inventor, the idea's been around for ages, but ever noticed how he's the first guy to do any of it? He's leading the way. The shuttle was a flop, and I can't find anything on your ULA launch, but Elon has reused 12 boosters, now. He's not the first to have the idea, he's not the first to try the idea, but he is the first to make that idea practical. And I frankly could care less about hyperloop, so don't bring that up.

@MrTyTheGreat the first reused engine (not the rocket body itself) was used this year. the guy might be a genuis but he isnt a inventor only a sales man look up vac trains to see what i mean.

@Irobert55
Give him a year or so. Now that they're done redesigning F9, he can focus on, a. disposing of the old ones, b. building the new ones, and finally, c. getting the turnaround time down. Then, he'll be far superior to the shuttle.

@MrTyTheGreat the problem of the falcon is that musk hasnt even delivered yet (realy there was only a hand full of reused rockets on his list yet. they needed more time than the space shuttle to refurbish their rockets).

@Irobert55
At this point it seems like they're trying everything to avoid landing the whole rocket! XD

@MrTyTheGreat and here comes the esa concept to build a plane around the engine (yupp thats the idea you would loose some money but it only needs one or two chutes).

@Irobert55
You mentioned reusable rockets being limited, well, spaceplanes would be even more limited. I'm fine with space planes, but they're hard to build. Again, we don't have to drop anything in the ocean. Elon's proven that they're not very limited either. Well being a bit tedious, and difficult, refueling in orbit would allow BFR to go to mars, and only lose the consumables and a handful of explosive bolts. (Aka "Pyrotechnic Fasteners") I don't think that having to rebuild the rocket for every flight is progress, even if you save the "only part that is really necessary."
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Then I do math.
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I did a little bit of math, and while it may not be entirely accurate, if you saved the first stage engines on the falcon 9, and dropped the rest of the 1st stage in the ocean, you'd lose about $15.43 million dollars every launch. While that's less than the engines, It's a lot of money, and every single launch, you waste $15.43 million. That does, however, include all of the (now useless) landing apparati, but you still need 9 parachutes, and the extra fuel capacity to compensate, I'll give you a good $10 million wasted every launch. I might recalculate that, but I'd say It's a good ballpark estimate for that. Not to mention the parachutes. I tried to find the pricing, but I was unable to find how much the parachutes would cost, so let's say that they repack the parachutes. But what If they don't? A ballistic recovery system for a Cessna Skyhawk costs $13,499, but since the weight is lower for an engine, I rounded that number down to $12000. x9 engines, and you have $108,000 wasted per flight if you don't recover the chutes. So, a grand total of $10,108,00 of wasted hardware every flight (Not including 2nd stage, which is never recovered anyway). For a flight to GTO. Again, this is very rough, but even then, It's a decent guess.

@MrTyTheGreat there is a company out there who wants to build a space plane and if this works the need for rockets would decrease. that was the plan for the space shuttle before the airforce intervened. ok not to build a single stage launcher but to decrease the need for rockets the space shuttle was basicaly the baby of the silbervogel bomber before the intervention. oh and the only part on a rocket that is realy neccessary is the engine and that was in the end the cost killer on the shuttle (the engine refurbishment).

@Irobert55
I meant, what if planes did that? Imagine how much would be wasted every flight? Why should we drop anything in the ocean, it we have the ability to not do so.

@MrTyTheGreat thats what the ESA wants to do and i think its the best way because the engine is the only part that realy counts.

@Irobert55
What if airplanes only saved the engine on landing, and all the people/payload were jettisoned and parachuted down?