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SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

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Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#81

Post by nickik »

ceejayoz wrote: post #34
bryanlarsen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Closeness to the water is a requirement so that if a rocket fails it doesn't land on people. And you don't want to launch to the West so that you can take advantage of the Earth's rotation rather than fighting it. (Launch sites on the West coast are for polar orbits which launch either North or South). Given those requirements, there's no location that isn't vulnerable to hurricanes. Boca Chica actually doesn't get m…

> Closeness to the water is a requirement so that if a rocket fails it doesn't land on people. Not if you're Russia/China. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/26/chinese-rocket-crushes-house...

China is moving away from that as well. China did this because of the threat of capitalist invasion but the realize its dumb.

Russia is a bit different and they couldn't really move it further east because it would be to far from their industrial centers. They had a hell of a time transporting the Buran system to launch already.

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#82

Post by Tuna-Fish »

asdff wrote: post #41
bryanlarsen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Closeness to the water is a requirement so that if a rocket fails it doesn't land on people. And you don't want to launch to the West so that you can take advantage of the Earth's rotation rather than fighting it. (Launch sites on the West coast are for polar orbits which launch either North or South). Given those requirements, there's no location that isn't vulnerable to hurricanes. Boca Chica actually doesn't get m…

Can you launch over the great lakes? Or a desert? Also, what about the east coast? Sure, there was Sandy, but it was nothing compared to what happens in the gulf with regularity. Part of my hunch is that the regulatory environment is favorable in nowhere, TX to bring in potentially polluting industry. No chance Elon could have had a launch site built on the tip of Montauk, for example, although he probably would have…

You want to launch east to get a boost from earth's rotation, and as close to the equator as possible. Even ignoring that, the great lakes are not big enough for sufficient safety area (if that sounds preposterous, consider that Cuba, that is a thousand miles away from their launch site, actually limits available inclinations from Boca Chica), and there are no deserts in the Americas that don't have cities between them and the east coast.

I get that people want to work the political angle here, but Boca Chica was definitely the best remaining place to launch rockets from continental US, no arguments from regulatory environment needed.

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#83

Post by souprock »

asdff wrote: post #41
bryanlarsen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Closeness to the water is a requirement so that if a rocket fails it doesn't land on people. And you don't want to launch to the West so that you can take advantage of the Earth's rotation rather than fighting it. (Launch sites on the West coast are for polar orbits which launch either North or South). Given those requirements, there's no location that isn't vulnerable to hurricanes. Boca Chica actually doesn't get m…

Can you launch over the great lakes? Or a desert? Also, what about the east coast? Sure, there was Sandy, but it was nothing compared to what happens in the gulf with regularity. Part of my hunch is that the regulatory environment is favorable in nowhere, TX to bring in potentially polluting industry. No chance Elon could have had a launch site built on the tip of Montauk, for example, although he probably would have…

A desert would be excellent. We lost a Space Shuttle due to humid Florida air leading to condensation, ice, a heavy torn-off chunk of foam, a fractured wing edge, and heat-induced structural failure.

Southern Arizona would work, especially at high altitude. We used to do that, but moved to Florida after Mexico complained about debris crossing the border.

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#84

Post by ncallaway »

SEJeff wrote: post #57
ncallaway wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but Starship wasn't going to be orbital in 2020 even without the pandemic. It was a wildly unrealistic estimate to begin with that characterizes "Elon time" as a concept. Starship development has been blindly fast, and even still is a maybe on getting to orbit this year. I just don't think the pandemic pushed their timeline back significantly. I could be wrong, but that's my take from the outside looking in

Sometimes Elon time is spot on even if it is very optimistic. There was an interview with him in 2008 saying he thought Tesla could deliver 500,000 vehicles a year by 2020 and they basically made that even with the pandemic. My hot take was that they skydiver maneuver and landing flip would be the hardest part for starship. They've actually done that part perfectly three times now, but haven't fully nailed the landin…

> My hot take was that they skydiver maneuver and landing flip would be the hardest part for starship.

I mostly agree with this.

I put both the landing flip maneuver and the heat-shield system on about the same level of difficulty for Starship.

I think they've worked through the hinkiest bits of the landing flip with SN10 (though with some raptor relight stability being potentially a long-ish tail of improving).

I'm curious to see how their heat-shielding mechanism works out. If they can built a heat shield system that works for orbital re-entry and is rapidly refurbishable, I'll be very happy that Starship will be able to meet the extreme goals SpaceX has created for it.

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#85

Post by bdamm »

baking wrote: post #63
bdamm wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the "Integration Tower" structure at the south side next to the new orbital launch pad. If the plan is to catch and re-fly then that would make sense.

I think the first structure designed to catch boosters will be away from the launch mounts. The primary advantage of catching is eliminating the mass of the legs. Quick relaunch capability is just a bonus and primarily useful at offshore launch sites.

It's possible they would build the "integration tower" first, perfect the catch, and only then build the launch mount.

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#86

Post by nickik »

ncallaway wrote: post #84
SEJeff wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes Elon time is spot on even if it is very optimistic. There was an interview with him in 2008 saying he thought Tesla could deliver 500,000 vehicles a year by 2020 and they basically made that even with the pandemic. My hot take was that they skydiver maneuver and landing flip would be the hardest part for starship. They've actually done that part perfectly three times now, but haven't fully nailed the landin…

> My hot take was that they skydiver maneuver and landing flip would be the hardest part for starship. I mostly agree with this. I put both the landing flip maneuver and the heat-shield system on about the same level of difficulty for Starship. I think they've worked through the hinkiest bits of the landing flip with SN10 (though with some raptor relight stability being potentially a long-ish tail of improving). I'm…

Surprisingly the delay actually happened because of the structures. Not the landing. It took them way longer then anybody thought to produce the large tanks.

If you look at timeline when they started in Boca, they thought they could do hops way sooner.

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#87

Post by _ph_ »

SEJeff wrote: post #57
ncallaway wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but Starship wasn't going to be orbital in 2020 even without the pandemic. It was a wildly unrealistic estimate to begin with that characterizes "Elon time" as a concept. Starship development has been blindly fast, and even still is a maybe on getting to orbit this year. I just don't think the pandemic pushed their timeline back significantly. I could be wrong, but that's my take from the outside looking in

Sometimes Elon time is spot on even if it is very optimistic. There was an interview with him in 2008 saying he thought Tesla could deliver 500,000 vehicles a year by 2020 and they basically made that even with the pandemic. My hot take was that they skydiver maneuver and landing flip would be the hardest part for starship. They've actually done that part perfectly three times now, but haven't fully nailed the landin…

Indeed. Before the first test flight, I was skeptical whether they can control the aerodynamic flight with those flaps. While they demonstrated their capabilities to control a rocket with the engines with the F9.

But the one thing that seems to be rock stable is the aerodynamic control in the belly-down flight phase. The only issues were with the soft landing phase and that was related to fuel and engine problems. So I am absolutely not worried that SpaceX is going to figure that out soon.

For me, there is only one big thing left to show: whether a starship with heat tiling can withstand the reentry.

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#88

Post by Mauricebranagh »

zlynx wrote: post #22
Mauricebranagh wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really want a fuel plant next to a launch site?

Why not? The fuel is next to the launch site, before they put it into the rocket. It can be protected from exploding rockets by berms, concrete, etc. It isn't as if an exploding rocket is a shaped charge; the force of an explosion would go up and out and be easily deflected.

Assuming nothing landed on top of tanks

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#89

Post by snypher »

monocasa wrote: post #52
ARandomerDude wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you only get stopped if you have brown skin Maybe, though I think it's fair to point out a large number of CPB agents on the border also have brown skin, if for no other reason than they need a huge percentage of native Spanish speakers.

You can be racist and of the same race. You just see yourself as "one of the few good ones" and internally hate yourself a bit.

This is the general law enforcement mindset, a classist superiority complex that overcomes even one's own racial identity.

Re: SpaceX reveals the grand extent of its starport plans in South Texas

#90

Post by snypher »

chasd00 wrote: post #67
908B64B197 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fly them from somewhere else?

It's probably all construction crews and heavy machinery operators at Boca Chica. Any engineers, or other high maintenance types, likely fly in for test launches and then fly right back out.

They might be high maintenance but maybe they remember the last engineers that stayed behind at a SpaceX outpost...

https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-rocket-engineers-isla...

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