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Starship / Super Heavy

faa.gov

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Re: Starship / Super Heavy

#51

Post by wongarsu »

trevyn wrote: post #44
wongarsu wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When launching rockets on land you need flame diverter trenches to deal with exhaust and water deluge systems to deal with the sound (the water droplets absorb sound). When launching on water, dealing with the exhaust is more straightforward, but sound travels much better in water than in air, so it's a much bigger problem (mostly for marine life). One idea is to create a curtain made out of air bubbles that effectiv…

Wait, the water they spray on a land launch is only for sound suppression?

Yes. Without it large rockets like the space shuttle might create more than 200db at lift off, enough to kill someone or to damage the rocket

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_suppression_system

Re: Starship / Super Heavy

#52

Post by graderjs »

I find it a little weird that FAA handles space stuff. I think they should coordinate, but basically they are for aircraft. There should be a FSA that handles space traffic.

Re: Starship / Super Heavy

#53

Post by wongarsu »

sneak wrote: post #46
zaroth wrote: post #3

The FAA recently updated this page as part of the new Environmental Assessment at Boca Chica which is required before SpaceX can be approved for orbital flights. Their current approval is good for testing (vertical) flights of Starship and Superheavy, but does not currently permit orbital flight from Boca Chica as I understand it. They are currently in a public comment period thru Jan 22.

What's the environmental impact delta between a 12km launch and landing and an orbital launch and landing? I can't imagine the difference to the ground environment is that significant.

The Super Heavy Booster has an order of magnitude more engines than the Starship prototype that did the 12km hop. I don't think Starship can reach orbit without the booster (it can reach space, but not orbital velocity)

Re: Starship / Super Heavy

#54

Post by ncallaway »

graderjs wrote: post #52

I find it a little weird that FAA handles space stuff. I think they should coordinate, but basically they are for aircraft. There should be a FSA that handles space traffic.

There's really just not enough commercial space traffic yet to warrant its own agency.

I think that's becoming less true with LEO megaconstellations of satellites, but it's still probably too low volume for now to warrant an entirely separate federal agency.

Re: Starship / Super Heavy

#55

Post by zbrozek »

jonplackett wrote: post #14
electriclove wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many others also have 'essentially unlimited resources' but it is the execution and quick iteration that is unique to both Tesla and SpaceX.

Lots of places seem like they should have unlimited resources. I would have thought VW would be pretty high on that list - but they have their resources tied up. SpaceX / Tesla seem to be more free to use their resources in daring ways.

There's tons of places with effectively unlimited money. But very few places that have nearly unlimited resources. Some key resources are usually inversely correlated with money: decision-making latency and throughput, clear focus, and iteration speed. That's because money buys headcount, not good leadership.

Re: Starship / Super Heavy

#56

Post by woah »

jonplackett wrote: post #15
jcheng wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure he wasn’t talking about Apple?

He said ‘other competitors’ or something like that and I assumed he meant Tesla despite it being at the time of Apple launch - building gigafactories takes a lot more resources than anything Apple has done so far. Word is Apple won’t even manufacture the whole car anyway like Tesla does.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple has produced many times more iPhones by weight than Tesla has produced cars

Re: Starship / Super Heavy

#57

Post by ashtonkem »

electriclove wrote: post #12
jonplackett wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In another article about Tesla VW CEO described them as having ‘essentially unlimited resources’. I guess spaceX probably falls under a similar category. Unlimited resources + not wasting ANYTHING is a killer combo.

I think many others also have 'essentially unlimited resources' but it is the execution and quick iteration that is unique to both Tesla and SpaceX.

Unlimited resources often slows things down, paradoxically.

Re: Starship / Super Heavy

#58

Post by TylerE »

doomlaser wrote: post #47
mabbo wrote: post #9

> The fully integrated Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle will be approximately 400 feet tall and 30 feet in diameter. For reference, the Saturn V rocket from the Apollo program was 363 feet tall. It was 33 ft wide at the first stage, while Starship is 30 ft wide all the way to the top. It's just massive. And it's fully reusable. What a game changer.

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

I guess the counterargument is that as long as you bring it down in a "safe" area, you don't really need a 100% success rate.

If you can reuse it, great, if not, well, it's a rocket.

Re: Starship / Super Heavy

#59

Post by Rapzid »

mrlonglong wrote: post #21
colechristensen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site has extensive solar power, I'm not aware of environmental concerns for solar-powered desalination. I would guess that it is driven by a real need for water and a hedge against environmental assessment difficulties.

What are they going to do with all the brine. It's quite toxic and I don't think it's a good idea to dump that back in the sea.

The sea can handle it, it's just a matter of how it's introduced back into it.

Re: Starship / Super Heavy

#60

Post by ashtonkem »

colechristensen wrote: post #19
londons_explore wrote: post #4

Why the desalination plant? Is there not piped water? Is it just another eco friendly sounding thing to put in the plan? Is it to hedge against newspaper headlines saying how much water spacex is wasting? Desalination has to be more expensive than piped water (both financially and environmentally).

The site has extensive solar power, I'm not aware of environmental concerns for solar-powered desalination. I would guess that it is driven by a real need for water and a hedge against environmental assessment difficulties.

If you desalinate enough water, getting the salt back into the ocean without killing local marine life can be a bit tricky.
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