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The belly flop is also how passenger variants will be landing so you do actually need a reliable program....
...eventually. They didn’t launch humans on the Falcon 9 for the first 10 years either. Lots of time to iron out the kinks (though it will likely be much less than 10 years this time)
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The belly flop is also how passenger variants will be landing so you do actually need a reliable program....
How many G’s will passenger experience when the ship transitions from the belly flop to the suicide burn? That looks like an awful lot of G’s that this maneuver is pulling there.
What are the odds of Starship working? It seems really complex. And that last phase where the ship flips vertical from the bellyflop, looks insane for human passengers inside. How many G’s is that maneuver pulling? SN8 appears 90% successful, but I’m wondering if that remaining 10% is the killer. As they say: You spend 10% of your time, solving 90% of your problem. And then you spend 90% of your time, solving the las…
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I don't think so. 50km up in Venus's atmosphere, the pressure and temperature are suitable for humans (though the atmosphere is not breathable), and human-suitable atmosphere is a lifting gas (like helium on Earth), so floating stations or cities are probably possible: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_of_Venus Mercury on the other hand swings in temperature from uninhabitably cold to about as hot as Venus's…
People who bring this up seem to miss that there is likely no practical way out of the Venus clouds. You'd be stuck until some next generation rocket tech comes along. Remember Venus has about 91% of earth mass, so a significant rocket would be needed to get into orbit. Maybe Starship could be a capable single stage LVO transporter, but I have difficulty seeing it floating in the clouds, fully topped up, tethered to…
I think getting off Venus from 50km up wouldn't be too bad. If you've got enough flotation to carry a research station or city or whatever, with water supply, food production, life support, etc., you can carry a fuelled up Starship and Super Heavy (if your base is smaller, use a smaller rocket [1]). Launching them seems like it would be doable: drop in belly flop orientation, it glides a bit away as it falls, then starts the main engines and pivots to upright, and away it goes. "Landing" or whatever arrival would entail seems more complicated, but you might be able to make a platform a bit like landing on a barge (but one that can go down to cushion the landing).
[1] A fully fuelled up Falcon 9 weighs more than the ISS, so we're talking a big research station for this to be feasible.
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> a non-rocket based launch system Do we have any feasible non-rocket options to do on Earth, though? Air-breathing first stage is all I can think of (but it's essentially still a rocket). Skyhooks and space elevators will have to wait for advances in materials science and will require orbital manufacturing capabilities. Launch loops seem to be too complicated either. Mini launch loops / big guns / other constructs t…
> Do we have any feasible non-rocket options to do on Earth, though? Not yet, no — but a decade ago we didn’t have powered landing and rapid reuse of first stages either. While that observation doesn’t guarantee future tech could (or should) be made, I am an optimist when it comes to tech.
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I'm really interested in seeing how it will perform its "belly flop" landing. Seems like a high risk maneuver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdTYMry7fq0#t=1m17s
They've already done it[0], and it was a complete success until a propellant pressure issue resulted in lower than needed thrust, and a hard impact on the pad. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qwLHlVjRyw
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I don’t mean to trivialize what SpaceX is accomplishing, but maybe we are overestimating the degree of difficulty of building rockets in the 21st century, given the advances in technology over the past few decades? With the immense improvement in compute power, materials, accelerometers, welding techniques, etc.. since the 60s, maybe SpaceX was the first to recognize that building rockets is not as hard as it used to…
Well, we actually have a large amount of companies trying to do it. Like 40-60 different companies. Not to mention government projects. Of all of those, only RocketLab has managed to do it, and their rocket is basically as tiny as you can build a orbital rocket. SpaceX did an orbital rocket bigger then RocketLab in 2008. RocketLab doesn't yet have real competition, despite many billions invested. SpaceX at the same t…
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I believe it requires a refuel in orbit to get to the moon. So, two missions, but still super impressive.
Genuine question, how will tankers get into space? If most of the ship's size is already dedicated to fuel that's burnt, that seems to leave little left for fuel payload. I also assume fuel payload would be much heavier than other types of payload, requiring more ship fuel to launch it, further taking up space. It seems like for every full refill you could provide in space it'd take an additional 3-4 ships just to ge…
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I'm really interested in seeing how it will perform its "belly flop" landing. Seems like a high risk maneuver https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdTYMry7fq0#t=1m17s
My guess would be it will still have a launch escape system for the passenger variant. So if the belly flop doesn't look right or if it doesn't stick the landing it just ejects the crew.
What are the odds of Starship working? It seems really complex. And that last phase where the ship flips vertical from the bellyflop, looks insane for human passengers inside. How many G’s is that maneuver pulling? SN8 appears 90% successful, but I’m wondering if that remaining 10% is the killer. As they say: You spend 10% of your time, solving 90% of your problem. And then you spend 90% of your time, solving the las…
Gs come from acceleration, either straight line or centripetal. I don't think there is enough control authority in starship's fins to create much centripetal acceleration the way a fighter jet's wings can. If the rocket is capable of it, it would do the same whether it was belly-flopping or dropping straight down the whole way. Any passengers will certainly get an inner-ear workout, but I can't imagine how the flip,…