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Starship Prototype Unveiled

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Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#201

Post by choonway »

antod wrote: post #134
hinkley wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't the Russians use a lot of steel in their Space Age era rockets? It always seemed to me like we went too high tech too quickly and the Soviets were practical to a fault, and the truth should be something in between.

From memory the MiG-25 interceptor had quite a lot of steel in it for thermal reasons. Titanium was too difficult to work with for them at that time (or something).

too expensive (resource wise). they did build a sub out of titanium though - and they called it the golden fish or something.

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#202

Post by 4684455 »

35787 wrote: 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.

The "single piece" method he is talking about is that the individual _rings_ will be made of a single piece with a single weld, and the rings are then stacked. You can see it already in the Starship under construction in Florida. (Look at the unstacked rings.)

https://twitter.com/FarryFaz/status/1170535411678101504/phot...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ED6Tva7XYAESQJJ?format=jpg&name=...

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#203

Post by wurst_case »

doomlaser wrote: post #186
hoorayimhelping wrote: post #20

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…

I'm no rocket scientist, so bear that in mind, but something has been bugging me about the flight paths for this vehicle [0]. It has to make some very large, specific orientation changes several times during descent, using the heat shield on one side of the vehicle, and then only rotating to upright orientation in the lower atmosphere, after quite a lot of falling sideways. The orientation maneuvers seem much more co…

Learning how to reliably control the damn thing on descent is certainly their greatest hurdle. Refueling in orbit being the second biggest. I expect things to go boom at least a few times before they learn to land properly. Saying people Wil go to orbit within a year is most likely not to happen.

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#204

Post by toomuchtodo »

chasd00 wrote: post #142
drchewbacca wrote: post #89

I 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 t…

working on it outside definitely gives the pictures a "bunch of guys with some metal and a lot of free time" feel haha.

“Field Of Dreams”

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#205

Post by quotemstr »

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #20

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…

SpaceX has a good design philosophy. They use cheap, reliable, and sturdy components, take the hit on payload fraction, and just make really big rockets to make sure _total_ payload is adequate. I'm reminded of the old quip apocryphally attributed to Stalin: "quantity has a quality all its own"

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#206

Post by quotemstr »

computerex wrote: post #80

I just want to point out that SpaceX has not yet successfully put a human in LEO. The moon seems well beyond their technical capabilites at the moment and Mars seems like a fools dream at this point in time.

They could if they wanted to. I'd fly on SpaceX's current hardware given the chance, "human rated" or not.

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#208

Post by SECProto »

anonytrary wrote: post #199
ryanmarsh wrote: post #166

How do they plan to get 100 tons of cargo from atop the starship down to the surface of Mars? Do you use a crane? I mean, cranes are heavy, right?

I think you're getting downvoted because of your flippant tone, but I am also curious how the cargo would get on/off the ship.

Pop open a hatch, crank out your jib crane [1], use a long steel cable to lower loads down. Pay attention to weight distribution inside starship to ensure it doesn't tip over.

[1] like this old-fashioned warehouse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pl_gdansk_zuraw_dlugiepob... or the more modern style https://www.acklandsgrainger.com/en/category/Jib-Cranes/Cran...

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#209

Post by zaroth »

wurst_case wrote: post #203
doomlaser wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no rocket scientist, so bear that in mind, but something has been bugging me about the flight paths for this vehicle [0]. It has to make some very large, specific orientation changes several times during descent, using the heat shield on one side of the vehicle, and then only rotating to upright orientation in the lower atmosphere, after quite a lot of falling sideways. The orientation maneuvers seem much more co…

Learning how to reliably control the damn thing on descent is certainly their greatest hurdle. Refueling in orbit being the second biggest. I expect things to go boom at least a few times before they learn to land properly. Saying people Wil go to orbit within a year is most likely not to happen.

Elon said they learned a lot of what they need for orbital refueling just from docking with the ISS.

Re: Starship Prototype Unveiled

#210

Post by hinkley »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #170
hinkley wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pillsbury rolls come to mind. The tube is under pressure from the leavening agent, and you apply torsion on the tub until the can ruptures along the spiral seam.

That would not go over well with the occupants.

I recall the rolls scaring the shit out of a fair number of people and those were with the promise of warm, flaky goodness, not hot, fiery death.

This of course matters if the seam is weaker than the rest of the metal.

I've been assured time and again that you can make welds that are stronger than the rest of the metal, but my lizard brain thinks they're all liars.

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