I'm surprised to hear Musk tone. He's not that friendly usually. Maybe it's because Tesla is a different business and its struggle got to him. Maybe it's because his inner child dreamt of this ship for decades..
Starship Prototype Unveiled
81–90 of 342 posts
Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled
#82I 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.
It reminds me of the F-104 Starfighter: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/Lockheed... Or the F-86 Sabre: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/39/F86F_Sab...
Is the surface of these less smooth than surface of normal rockets/planes, or is it simply the effect of mirror like surface making bumpiness easier to see?
Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Starship could have Falcon Heavy level of delays (which I think it will) and still beat SLS.
FH was 5 years+ behind schedule before it was built and launched. Starship already has multiple constructions going on, with multiple prototypes to test and multiple full-size vehicles planned quickly. In 2011, FH was supposed to have "arrival at launch site" by 2H 2012. It first launched in 2018 (after arriving at launch site in 2018 not 2012). The same level of delay would mean the first Starship does not reach orb…
The thing with the F9H is, that there was no real need for it for years, it almost got cancelled entirely. The F9 was improved to a point where it could do most missions which initially were thought to require a F9H. So the development of the F9H was done at a lower speed than if the business had depended on it. But as there seem to be some contracts requiring the F9H, they made it eventually. How often it will fly though, entirely depends on how quickly the Starship progresses.
Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled
#84I 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.
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Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled
#85I 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.
He also talked about how stainless steel has a high melting point (which means their re-entry heat shield doesn't need to be as thick) and gets stronger rather than weaker at very low temperatures.
Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
FH was 5 years+ behind schedule before it was built and launched. Starship already has multiple constructions going on, with multiple prototypes to test and multiple full-size vehicles planned quickly. In 2011, FH was supposed to have "arrival at launch site" by 2H 2012. It first launched in 2018 (after arriving at launch site in 2018 not 2012). The same level of delay would mean the first Starship does not reach orb…
FH is "just" 3 F9 strapped together. Doing that took them more than 5 years than planned. Keeping that in mind, having 5 year delay on brand new design, using totally different materials, new engine, etc isn't far fetched.
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Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled
#87380s 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…
Methane was chosen to a large extent because you could make it fairly easily on Mars which is necessary if you want to fly people there and then get them back again.
Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled
#88I'm surprised to hear Musk tone. He's not that friendly usually. Maybe it's because Tesla is a different business and its struggle got to him. Maybe it's because his inner child dreamt of this ship for decades..
I think it's been a good week for him. The Starship of course, but on the Tesla front they are coming up on the end of a quarter with record deliveries, shipping Smart Summon which might let them finally add the FSD revenue to the Tesla reports, etc.
Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled
#89I am so amazed by the genius of making it out of steel. It's just so completely counter intuitive but has accelerated their progress so much.
If they told you the stats of the material, better strength at cryo tempertures meaning mass reduction, higher melting point meaning minimal heat shielding and great thermal conductivity it would be easy to imagine it was some new super composite. Then your head explodes when they tell you it's 2% the cost of what they were using before and it's so easy to work with they don't even need a factory they can just weld it in a field.
Imo Elon is starting to get into contention for greatest engineer of all time.
Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's the dawn of the true space age. And though Musk isn't a fan, this could even make solar power satellites economical. The monolithic designs from the 1970s would be absurdly expensive, but modern designs like SPS-Alpha get economies of scale by using lots of small identical parts that self-assemble in orbit. According to the book The Case for Space Solar Power , a 2GW satellite would deliver electricity at 15 cen…
Aren't there some pretty serious health and ecological problems with such large-scale microwave transmission?
Not really. Even at the intended target, it's diffuse enough not to raise body temperature much. Birds could fly through without harm. Under the antenna, there'd be very little microwaves leaking through. Aim anywhere without a homing signal and you lose the coherent beam, making it much more diffuse.