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Starship Prototype Unveiled

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21–30 of 342 posts

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#21
That was a very dense an informative presentation last night, but I think the main take away is that rapid reusability is a game changer. In fact, game-changer is probably an understatement, basically every intuition and rule-of-thumb we have about space launches and travel will have to be rethought. And this will be true even of SpaceX falls well short of meeting their stated targets (2020 orbit, 150t capability, multiple refights per day, etc.

Musk stated (I think he just did some mental napkin math at one point) that if they meet their goals, the world's launch capacity will be expanded by two orders of magnitude. How often does any new development in any field bring about two orders of extra capacity? How does this incredible capacity change how you use this thing?

First consider prices. A launch would cost fuel + support operations + amortized cost of rocket. The last two will tend towards zero as they can be increasingly automated and will be a small fixed cost. IIRC, fuel costs roughly $60-100 per kilo to LEO, a 100kg person with 100kg of supplies and life-support equipment can reasonably expect to get to LEO for $20000 in fuel costs. Ok, so you need to "rent" the rocket (you want to stay there at least a few days), pay operations, SpaceX margin, R&D etc. Even then, imagine weekend LEO launches for $50,000 in the late 2020s. That's astounding. Given millenials' propensity for "experiences", they're going to have hoards of people buying this.

But what about risk? They've been trying to launch Crew Dragon for many years and still haven't. Well, with expandable rockets, you have to establish a safety record, it takes multiple flights, it's extremely expensive, you need a new rocket for each one. With fully reusable rockets, you can literally establish a safety record for an individual rocket within a matter of weeks, not years. Even launching once every three days (ie, far from their daily targets), it would take only a year to do more launches than Falcon or Arienne 5 have made in decades. Also, people are far more willing to take risks than organizations like NASA. Consider a thought experiment: SpaceX does 100 launches of Starship and establishes a safety record of 99% (1 blew up). They then start selling tickets, will people still buy, fully signing away any liability? Yes, you'll still have hoards of people lining up for a chance.

Finally, this is going to change science as well. Today, sending a 1 ton rover to the surface of Mars is a Really Big Deal. Hence, probes are made very carefully, very expensively and very very slowly. Not just design and build (it takes a decade), but operations as well (Curiosity traveled only 20km in the last 8 years). Everything is essentially super-low bandwidth. But once you know you can get a cheap ride to Mars (of anywhere else) any time, you don't have to go to such extremes. You can easily send more rovers, more radio relays, they can travel further, experiment more, take more risks and if you lose one, it's just not a big deal anymore!

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#22
post #15

Eventually the shell will be a single large roll of steel that is unrolled, bent into a tube with a seam going hotdog that is welded. It will be very strong, lighter than the current patchwork, and extremely beautiful. More similar to the renderings. Can’t wait.

Definitely not hotdog (assuming that's from stem to stern). Musk wasn't totally clear when describing it, but he said mk3 would be in three months. The circumference of starship is 28.26 meters. For a single weld the entire length of the ship, the roll itself would need to be that wide.

The largest rolling mills in the world are ~4 meters wide[1]. They require backup rollers[2], ie rollers that push down the rollers that push down the rollers that push down the metal. Bending deflection increases with width^2. A 28 meter wide rolling mill does not exist AFAIK and cannot be built in three months.

[1]: https://www.aleris.com/company/rolled-products/

[2]: http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/metallurgy/types-of-rollin...

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#23
post #15

Eventually the shell will be a single large roll of steel that is unrolled, bent into a tube with a seam going hotdog that is welded. It will be very strong, lighter than the current patchwork, and extremely beautiful. More similar to the renderings. Can’t wait.

How do you picture them rolling a piece of steel 50 meters wide? As far as I know, the widest rolling mills in existence are 5 meters wide.

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#24

That was a very dense an informative presentation last night, but I think the main take away is that rapid reusability is a game changer. In fact, game-changer is probably an understatement, basically every intuition and rule-of-thumb we have about space launches and travel will have to be rethought. And this will be true even of SpaceX falls well short of meeting their stated targets (2020 orbit, 150t capability, mu…

SpaceX is completely changing the opportunities of getting to space. The reduction in price has been nuts.

According to NASA the space shuttle was ~$450 million per launch, or $16,364 per kg to LEO. The Delta 4 Heavy is $12,156 per kg. For some launches it's even higher- the Air Force paid $15,109 per kg for four launches.

The Falcon 9 is $62 million, or $2,719 per kg to LEO. The Falcon Heavy is $2,351 per kg when expendable or $1,411 when reused.

The BFR is supposed to have 2.5x the payload for 8% of the cost: $46 per kilogram. Even fully expendable it's $2,233 per kg. That's INSANE. It's space elevator money:

> For a space elevator, the cost varies according to the design. Bradley C. Edwards received funding from NIAC from 2001 to 2003 to write a paper, describing a space elevator design. In it he stated that: "The first space elevator would reduce lift costs immediately to $100 per pound" ($220/kg).[1]

If the BFR actually becomes reality it turns a journey to orbit into an airplane ride. A $10,000 airplane ride that will shake your fillings loose, but make no mistake: that completely changes everything about space. It makes putting satellites in orbit around Jupiter as hard as visiting the north pole. Fucking TV hosts will be able to go for a quick jaunt around the moon.

If the BFR happens, we'll have a mars base just because it would be so cheap it's a no-brainer. Building a new ISS would be about as hard as building a new Sealab.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator_economics

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#25
post #23
post #15

Eventually the shell will be a single large roll of steel that is unrolled, bent into a tube with a seam going hotdog that is welded. It will be very strong, lighter than the current patchwork, and extremely beautiful. More similar to the renderings. Can’t wait.

How do you picture them rolling a piece of steel 50 meters wide? As far as I know, the widest rolling mills in existence are 5 meters wide.

Think of it like a paper towel tube. It's a spiral.

Single helical weld.

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#26
post #24

That was a very dense an informative presentation last night, but I think the main take away is that rapid reusability is a game changer. In fact, game-changer is probably an understatement, basically every intuition and rule-of-thumb we have about space launches and travel will have to be rethought. And this will be true even of SpaceX falls well short of meeting their stated targets (2020 orbit, 150t capability, mu…

SpaceX is completely changing the opportunities of getting to space. The reduction in price has been nuts. According to NASA the space shuttle was ~$450 million per launch, or $16,364 per kg to LEO. The Delta 4 Heavy is $12,156 per kg. For some launches it's even higher- the Air Force paid $15,109 per kg for four launches. The Falcon 9 is $62 million, or $2,719 per kg to LEO. The Falcon Heavy is $2,351 per kg when ex…

$100/lbs is pretty inexpensive but still high enough to cause some to spend some time with Jenny Craig before their flight.

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#27

380s for ISP for the Raptor vacuum engine seems durn good, considering the tradeoffs between hydrogen and methane. The most efficient engines we've flown, the RL-10 [0] (used on the Delta IV and Atlas rockets as part of the Centaur Upper Stage) and the RS-25 [1], (the Space Shuttle Main Engine) get around 450-460s for their specific impulse. These engines use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The issue with liquid h…

Here's a Wired article about the raptor engine - it's "a full-flow staged combustion engine, only the third engine in history to employ this technique ... The previous two attempts at such an engine, one in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and another in the US in the early 2000s, never made it beyond testing."

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/spacex-raptor-engine-starshi...

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#28

380s for ISP for the Raptor vacuum engine seems durn good, considering the tradeoffs between hydrogen and methane. The most efficient engines we've flown, the RL-10 [0] (used on the Delta IV and Atlas rockets as part of the Centaur Upper Stage) and the RS-25 [1], (the Space Shuttle Main Engine) get around 450-460s for their specific impulse. These engines use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The issue with liquid h…

Here's a Wired article about the raptor engine - it's "a full-flow staged combustion engine, only the third engine in history to employ this technique ... The previous two attempts at such an engine, one in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and another in the US in the early 2000s, never made it beyond testing." https://www.wired.co.uk/article/spacex-raptor-engine-starshi...

[deleted]

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#29

380s for ISP for the Raptor vacuum engine seems durn good, considering the tradeoffs between hydrogen and methane. The most efficient engines we've flown, the RL-10 [0] (used on the Delta IV and Atlas rockets as part of the Centaur Upper Stage) and the RS-25 [1], (the Space Shuttle Main Engine) get around 450-460s for their specific impulse. These engines use liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. The issue with liquid h…

https://youtu.be/Sdwy9fzQzl4 Scott Manley does a great job explaining such things!

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#30

I totally understand why they've gone for that design but the welded together steel plates really make me think of the sort of thing Wallace and Gromit would build.

he addressed in presentation, from what i remember it had a lot to do with cost. Like $130k/ton with carbon vs $3k/ton with steel. He mentioned a few other factors. Also it allowed them to build outside, not sure if t that is true in production.
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