[X] My Assistant

[AscendingNode]

So I've been thinking a lot lately about the BFR (Big Fantastic Rocket) being developed for the NASA manned spaceflight program, the Ares V. And I was wondering what sort of robotic missions it would make possible that before weren't possible.

At first I was thinking you could take something like the proposed Europa Explorer mission... which launches on a Delta IV heavy and orbits Europa.... and you could take that spacecraft and put it on a bigger rocket and do things like add extra radiation shielding so it could last longer or add extra propellant so that it could orbit Callisto, Ganymede, and Europa or something like that.

But that's just an improvement to an existing concept... what about things that no one has really thought about because they've been just thinking about things that could fit on existing rockets.

Sure, we could do things like putting an armada of spacecraft on one vehicle... but that would cost a lot of money for all of the separate power systems (RTG or Solar) and avionics... and that concept could be done anyway with multiple launches of existing rockets.

But with a BFR, we could do a Cassini style mission to Neptune (i.e. get to Neptune fast and carry enough propellant to stop from a high-speed encounter and do a tour). Or we could maybe carry enough shielding to orbit Io

So, what do y'all think? How would you fly a BFR?