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Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: You may be right but that sounds like another SpaceX fuckup in the making. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: Originally Posted By redoubt: Yes. Starship is meant to be caught on the tower, too. Lunar Starship and probably the first Mars ships will have landing legs. But the LEO one's won't. You may be right but that sounds like another SpaceX fuckup in the making. If RTLS and tower catch, then there is no need for landing gear. Obviously Lunar or Mars ships will need them, but for Earth LEO the weight penalty for a landing gear that will never be used just doesn't make sense. |
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“There is no sound, no voice, no cry in all the world that can be heard... until someone listens.”
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free and live in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." |
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Originally Posted By ScaryBlackGuns: Now, I am not a engineer, or even the holder of a STEM degree, but I doubt that Starship would be capable of a pad abort using only raptors. Even with hot staging, I don't think lighting three to six raptors and burning 100%+ over a methalox bomb until clear would be a great idea. From the Super Draco tests it appears that the capsule gets the fuck outta town in a hurry. I can't see 3 raptors, 6 if county the vacs, performing like that from zero-zero. View Quote Ultimately, nine raptors. |
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Preferred Pronoun: Space Lord Mutherfucker
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Originally Posted By AZ_Sky: I disagree. If RTLS and tower catch, then there is no need for landing gear. Obviously Lunar or Mars ships will need them, but for Earth LEO the weight penalty for a landing gear that will never be used just doesn't make sense. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By AZ_Sky: Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: Originally Posted By redoubt: Yes. Starship is meant to be caught on the tower, too. Lunar Starship and probably the first Mars ships will have landing legs. But the LEO one's won't. You may be right but that sounds like another SpaceX fuckup in the making. If RTLS and tower catch, then there is no need for landing gear. Obviously Lunar or Mars ships will need them, but for Earth LEO the weight penalty for a landing gear that will never be used just doesn't make sense. |
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I've seen better riots at Walmart on a black Friday - SrBenelli
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Originally Posted By HeavyMetal: Originally Posted By ScaryBlackGuns: Now, I am not a engineer, or even the holder of a STEM degree, but I doubt that Starship would be capable of a pad abort using only raptors. Even with hot staging, I don't think lighting three to six raptors and burning 100%+ over a methalox bomb until clear would be a great idea. From the Super Draco tests it appears that the capsule gets the fuck outta town in a hurry. I can't see 3 raptors, 6 if county the vacs, performing like that from zero-zero. View Quote Ultimately, nine raptors. View Quote By the time Starship is manned, I'm confident there would be at least two launch towers at KSC, so landing/capture would not be the limiting factor. Even if Booster could be shielded enough to withstand 4M+ lbs thrust of a full throttle hot stage, Starship still could not accelerate fast enough to escape with any real margin of safety. Using 9x raptor 3 engines producing 538k lbs thrust each and the 2.9M lb weight of Starship (does not account for extra weight of the planned lengthening of Starship or the extra 3 engines) gives a thrust/weight of 1.66 providing 16.2 m/sec2 acceleration. Super Draco's push Dragon at ~5.5Gs or 53 m/sec2. Assuming instantaneous ignition, it would take Starship 3 sec to get 70m separation (one booster length) from Booster. |
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Originally Posted By shooter_gregg: There really isn't much of a weight savings because it has to carry extra fuel for the landing maneuvers. I think it was a way to push the design of landing gear down the road. Ultimately it will have to be designed and built because of landing on unimproved surfaces. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By shooter_gregg: Originally Posted By AZ_Sky: Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: Originally Posted By redoubt: Yes. Starship is meant to be caught on the tower, too. Lunar Starship and probably the first Mars ships will have landing legs. But the LEO one's won't. You may be right but that sounds like another SpaceX fuckup in the making. If RTLS and tower catch, then there is no need for landing gear. Obviously Lunar or Mars ships will need them, but for Earth LEO the weight penalty for a landing gear that will never be used just doesn't make sense. But I do agree that at some point landing gear will most certainly have to be designed into the ship - it just isn't needed now, or for quite a while imo. |
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“There is no sound, no voice, no cry in all the world that can be heard... until someone listens.”
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free and live in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." |
Wild-ass proposal: if Ship survives the detonation of Booster in Texas, and the tower is wrecked, boost hard for Florida at sub-orbital across the gulf. Land with chopsticks at FLA tower.
"It's just crazy enough to work!" 🤪🤪🤪🚀🚀🚀 Feel free to rip theory apart. I'm dead inside. Best, JBR |
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"I do not avoid women, Mandrake. But I do deny them my essence."
"Yes... yes. This is a fertile land, and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land, and we will call it... This Land." |
Originally Posted By Hellion-Productions: Wild-ass proposal: if Ship survives the detonation of Booster in Texas, and the tower is wrecked, boost hard for Florida at sub-orbital across the gulf. Land with chopsticks at FLA tower. "It's just crazy enough to work!" Feel free to rip theory apart. I'm dead inside. Best, JBR View Quote |
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Life is about choices.
If you make a mistake once, it's a mistake. You make the same mistake again, that's a choice. |
Originally Posted By redoubt: In the future, most launches will be from Florida. So they're going to need a catch tower in the Azores. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By redoubt: Originally Posted By Hellion-Productions: Wild-ass proposal: if Ship survives the detonation of Booster in Texas, and the tower is wrecked, boost hard for Florida at sub-orbital across the gulf. Land with chopsticks at FLA tower. "It's just crazy enough to work!" Feel free to rip theory apart. I'm dead inside. Best, JBR Once they get the process down, they can station catch towers across the globe. Elon can license Starship's base edition to countries that host, making them orbital powers when they launch from them. Win win. Best, JBR |
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"I do not avoid women, Mandrake. But I do deny them my essence."
"Yes... yes. This is a fertile land, and we will thrive. We will rule over all this land, and we will call it... This Land." |
Originally Posted By AZ_Sky: I disagree. If RTLS and tower catch, then there is no need for landing gear. Obviously Lunar or Mars ships will need them, but for Earth LEO the weight penalty for a landing gear that will never be used just doesn't make sense. View Quote What happens with an abort situation? If the only abort option is RTLS that could be problematic to having it man rated...which may be hard anyway. |
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No one cared who I was until I put on the mask
USA
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Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: You may be right but that sounds like another SpaceX fuckup in the making. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: Originally Posted By redoubt: Yes. Starship is meant to be caught on the tower, too. Lunar Starship and probably the first Mars ships will have landing legs. But the LEO one's won't. You may be right but that sounds like another SpaceX fuckup in the making. It'll be funny when it is as commonplace as falcon 9 landings |
"It's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong"
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Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: What happens with an abort situation? If the only abort option is RTLS that could be problematic to having it man rated...which may be hard anyway. View Quote Man rating is far down the list. Dragon is already and is fairly cheap. The cargo and fuel launch demand for starship will always be huge compared to the bodies to space need. |
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Pretty sure those aren't THE plates. Probably something else. A work surface or forms or something. No slowing down though.
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Originally Posted By Orion_Shall_Rise: Man rating is far down the list. Dragon is already and is fairly cheap. The cargo and fuel launch demand for starship will always be huge compared to the bodies to space need. View Quote Although Starship by itself is going to have to be man-rated sooner rather than later, because of the HLS contract. ETA: Can something be man-rated for SOME activities, but not for others? Like could the HLS Starship be man-rated for docking in space and descending/ascending to the moon's surface and re-docking in space - and at the same time NOT be man-rated for being launched from the ground on top of the Booster? I'm guessing that Starship itself could be man-rated, but the Booster could not be, preventing launching people on Starship from the surface of earth, but still using it in space in its HLS form. |
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“A real man does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death. By doing this, you will awaken from your dreams.” -- Tsunetomo Yamamoto
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Originally Posted By DK-Prof: Although Starship by itself is going to have to be man-rated sooner rather than later, because of the HLS contract. ETA: Can something be man-rated for SOME activities, but not for others? Like could the HLS Starship be man-rated for docking in space and descending/ascending to the moon's surface and re-docking in space - and at the same time NOT be man-rated for being launched from the ground on top of the Booster? I'm guessing that Starship itself could be man-rated, but the Booster could not be, preventing launching people on Starship from the surface of earth, but still using it in space in its HLS form. View Quote |
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Originally Posted By DK-Prof: Although Starship by itself is going to have to be man-rated sooner rather than later, because of the HLS contract. ETA: Can something be man-rated for SOME activities, but not for others? Like could the HLS Starship be man-rated for docking in space and descending/ascending to the moon's surface and re-docking in space - and at the same time NOT be man-rated for being launched from the ground on top of the Booster? I'm guessing that Starship itself could be man-rated, but the Booster could not be, preventing launching people on Starship from the surface of earth, but still using it in space in its HLS form. View Quote Absolutely. Real example being the Apollo LEM. |
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Originally Posted By RiverSwine45: Absolutely. Real example being the Apollo LEM. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By RiverSwine45: Originally Posted By DK-Prof: Although Starship by itself is going to have to be man-rated sooner rather than later, because of the HLS contract. ETA: Can something be man-rated for SOME activities, but not for others? Like could the HLS Starship be man-rated for docking in space and descending/ascending to the moon's surface and re-docking in space - and at the same time NOT be man-rated for being launched from the ground on top of the Booster? I'm guessing that Starship itself could be man-rated, but the Booster could not be, preventing launching people on Starship from the surface of earth, but still using it in space in its HLS form. Absolutely. Real example being the Apollo LEM. +1 The only thing that makes this seem different is that the "lander" is the same architecture as a orbital launcher. They have always been so different that there was never a question. No one bats an eye that the LEM was not rated to launch people into space from earth. |
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" Laziness is an essential part of all walks of engineering."
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Originally Posted By RiverSwine45: Absolutely. Real example being the Apollo LEM. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By RiverSwine45: Originally Posted By DK-Prof: Although Starship by itself is going to have to be man-rated sooner rather than later, because of the HLS contract. ETA: Can something be man-rated for SOME activities, but not for others? Like could the HLS Starship be man-rated for docking in space and descending/ascending to the moon's surface and re-docking in space - and at the same time NOT be man-rated for being launched from the ground on top of the Booster? I'm guessing that Starship itself could be man-rated, but the Booster could not be, preventing launching people on Starship from the surface of earth, but still using it in space in its HLS form. Absolutely. Real example being the Apollo LEM. Good point. Duh. I'm dumb. |
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“A real man does not think of victory or defeat. He plunges recklessly towards an irrational death. By doing this, you will awaken from your dreams.” -- Tsunetomo Yamamoto
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Originally Posted By Orion_Shall_Rise: Man rating is far down the list. Dragon is already and is fairly cheap. The cargo and fuel launch demand for starship will always be huge compared to the bodies to space need. View Quote It can't be far down. Starship is supposed to land a diverse crew on the moon in 2025...maybe December but that will slip. |
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Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: That may happen. I just don't have confidence in the prospect and at this time would not fly on Starship anytime in the near future. View Quote Hell, they could practically just throw a dragon in the nose if starship gets man rated as a launch vehicle first and meet the goals. |
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Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: That may happen. I just don't have confidence in the prospect and at this time would not fly on Starship anytime in the near future. View Quote When Starship is ready for that job it’s going to be interesting to see if they can ever pull off that point to point airliner strategy they have proposed. Regardless it is going to be awhile until accredited astronauts fly on it. Let alone whatever schlub can scrape together the $$$ for a ticket. |
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SpaceX Starbase 4K Water Cooled Central Stainless Steel Plate Work First Look 6/29/23 Texas Day 332 |
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How SpaceX Will Guarantee Its Launch Pad Never Fails Again! [Part 1] |
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SpaceX Rolls Out Steel Deluge Plate |
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No one cared who I was until I put on the mask
USA
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"It's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong"
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No one cared who I was until I put on the mask
USA
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"It's dangerous to be right when the government is wrong"
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Originally Posted By Chokey:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz0Qc1EaMAA6sKN?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz0QdWKaMAEQCMv?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz0QdqoaMAUEFGB?format=jpg&name=large View Quote I actually thought at least the upper part of the sandwich plate would be thicker than that. |
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Originally Posted By Chokey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXpQCQ0l14U View Quote Whatever nanny made those guys get down off the plate should hang their head in shame. |
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Originally Posted By Element94: I actually thought at least the upper part of the sandwich plate would be thicker than that. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By Element94: Originally Posted By Chokey:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz0Qc1EaMAA6sKN?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz0QdWKaMAEQCMv?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz0QdqoaMAUEFGB?format=jpg&name=large I actually thought at least the upper part of the sandwich plate would be thicker than that. Id guess that you dont want it too thick or you could end up with the top face being melted faster than the heat will conduct through the plate to the water. Steel aint the best conductor |
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" Laziness is an essential part of all walks of engineering."
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SpaceX Starship Hot Staging Cinematic |
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God's grace is not cheap; it's free.
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Originally Posted By SoCalExile: SpaceX already has an escape capsule in the Dragon, I would think translating it over to the SS wouldn't be a huge deal. View Quote There are more than a few obstacles to just using crew dragon on top of Starship. -Limits crew size -Requires the trunk (which adds another 10ft in length) for stability during escape and radiator/power while in orbit -Would need addition of complete external heat shielding to survive reentry attached to starship -Would have to detach in orbit and dock (with the docking port in the nose now covered with starship heat tiles) if Dragon capsule keeps it current heat shield |
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Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: You may be right but that sounds like another SpaceX fuckup in the making. View Quote View All Quotes View All Quotes Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: Originally Posted By redoubt: Yes. Starship is meant to be caught on the tower, too. Lunar Starship and probably the first Mars ships will have landing legs. But the LEO one's won't. You may be right but that sounds like another SpaceX fuckup in the making. I know people have this idea of Starship being exactly what Elon says it's going to be and taking off and landing exactly according to his aspirational goal of catching them with a tower and turning them around in a matter of hours like a 747 but I'd never dismiss the possibility of certain things getting scaled back as development progresses. I think there's a real possibility that the final 1.0 production version of Starship lands on legs like a Falcon and without people on board but still changes the world profoundly by enabling a total payload to LEO and cost per kg that exceeds anything that we've ever seen. That would be true even if Starship never launched and returned humans too. Even if the booster and ship catching is ultimately deemed a bridge too far, the tower design still retains it's utility for stacking and launching as has already been demonstrated with the first test flight. |
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Originally Posted By woodsie: I know people have this idea of Starship being exactly what Elon says it's going to be and taking off and landing exactly according to his aspirational goal of catching them with a tower and turning them around in a matter of hours like a 747 but I'd never dismiss the possibility of certain things getting scaled back as development progresses. I think there's a real possibility that the final 1.0 production version of Starship lands on legs like a Falcon and without people on board but still changes the world profoundly by enabling a total payload to LEO and cost per kg that exceeds anything that we've ever seen. That would be true even if Starship never launched and returned humans too. Even if the booster and ship catching is ultimately deemed a bridge too far, the tower design still retains it's utility for stacking and launching as has already been demonstrated with the first test flight. View Quote It should be apparent by now, that a guiding philosophy of Elon endeavors, is robust design that allows for a backup sure thing plan for more risky initial plans. The emphasis is on speed with a fail safe backup. Carbon fiber was abandoned. Not robust. Not flexible. Stainless steel was adopted. Cryogenic. The staple of significant chemical plant construction. The concrete failed. No big deal, austenitic stainless armor can be quickly constructed. |
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We went on vacation in South Padre last week and we drove over to Boca Chica/SpaceX on Monday morning, 6/26. No need to post pics, as there's plenty of pics online that are better than I can take. It was incredible! My two biggest takeaways were 1) gosh this place is remote. There's NOTHING out here. NO public facilities...I had to pee behind a dumpster. And 2) holy crap this place is busy! Everywhere you look was non-stop infrastructure expansion. I don't mean people standing around watching others work, I mean continuous construction, everywhere you look. Rockets being assembled here, megabay being constructed there, another building there, a trench with cables in it going from the Spaceport to the launch tower area, non-stop trucks, truck, and more trucks! Like, watch where you're walking so you don't get flattened! We parked right near the Rocket Garden and saw the Starships and Heavy Boosters there, as close as we could get. I met a photographer named Chief who works for What About It youtube channel, and he helped point out what I was looking at. I highly recommend going there if you get the chance.
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Water plate being lifted now.
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"Never attribute to malice that which can be ascribed to sheer stupidity." LTC (CENTCOM)
"Round is a shape, right? I have the body of a god...Just happens to be Buddah! Az_Redneck |
Originally Posted By Chokey:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz0Qc1EaMAA6sKN?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz0QdWKaMAEQCMv?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fz0QdqoaMAUEFGB?format=jpg&name=large View Quote Elon to the welding crews: “Okay, who wants a shitload of overtime?” |
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Originally Posted By AmericanPeople: It can't be far down. Starship is supposed to land a diverse crew on the moon in 2025...maybe December but that will slip. View Quote For landing and takeoff from the moon only. Different requirements. Thing like an escape system for earth launches would be pointless there. |
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Originally Posted By RinsableTick: We went on vacation in South Padre last week and we drove over to Boca Chica/SpaceX on Monday morning, 6/26. No need to post pics, as there's plenty of pics online that are better than I can take. It was incredible! My two biggest takeaways were 1) gosh this place is remote. There's NOTHING out here. NO public facilities...I had to pee behind a dumpster. And 2) holy crap this place is busy! Everywhere you look was non-stop infrastructure expansion. I don't mean people standing around watching others work, I mean continuous construction, everywhere you look. Rockets being assembled here, megabay being constructed there, another building there, a trench with cables in it going from the Spaceport to the launch tower area, non-stop trucks, truck, and more trucks! Like, watch where you're walking so you don't get flattened! We parked right near the Rocket Garden and saw the Starships and Heavy Boosters there, as close as we could get. I met a photographer named Chief who works for What About It youtube channel, and he helped point out what I was looking at. I highly recommend going there if you get the chance. View Quote And remember this is just their r&d facility. It's not at all the scale of what elon has in mind for the cape probably. |
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