251–260 of 342 posts
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.
Try to relax.
What I loved the most was the optimistic outlook, the forward looking focus and the implicit belief that any problem will be solved and we'll advance. This is exceedingly rare in a pessimistic world drowning in the voice of Luddites and backwards-looking preservationists. Like always, technology solving real world problems versus politicians (professional or amateurs) creating (and never really solving) self-serving…
I suspect that having a sense of urgency and limited resources contributed to this phenomenal pace of development, it's in stark contrast to the glacial pace of the SLS project (Boeing/Nasa) which is much better funded.
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…
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.
Soyouz is simple.
Soyouz is reliable.
Soyouz is cheap.
Soyouz is in use for 50+
Soyouz is still there while NASA has no launcher available nowadays, despite decades of « on the edge innovation ».
Soyouz is great. Its an engineering marvel.
And Starship is likely to become even greater.
I would love to know what the "Day-in-the-life" of a welder working on those ships would be. Did they train specifically for aerospace welding? How did they land that specific gig. Must be so inspiring to wake up and work on that.
The https://www.spacex.com/careers/list ? There are currently several entries for Welder (Starship) and Tank Fabricator/Welder.
NASA is still waiting for SpaceX to complete the Crew Dragon spacecraft that will fly astronauts to and from the International Space Station. The space agency has picked SpaceX (and another company, Boeing) to provide commercial crew flights to the station. While SpaceX did launch an unpiloted Crew Dragon test flight to the space station this year, a subsequent abort system test failed, leading to the destruction of…
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?
The weight of the crane isn't a big factor, you open a hatch and lower stuff to the ground.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Model X doors are terrible. It's an SUV that you can't put a roof rack on. Does seem like a case of geek myopia over usability.
Or… optimized for a different case (ease of access for small kids).
The falcon doors also provide a surprising benefit: cover in the rain. And they are very practical with small children.
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…
RD-58MF - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RD-58 - uses kerosene (or syntin?) and has Isp of 372 s. Methane, which is cryogenic and less dense, ought to deliver more? Otherwise bigger tanks and operational issues will eat out the benefits.
For example, Merlin vacuum has a 1:165 expansion ratio. The RD-58MF has a 1:500 ratio. The Wikipedia article for the RD-58 family shows the increase in Isp from various expansion ratios.