totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[zolotiyeruki]

5 minutes ago, tater said:

I'm still unable to stop thinking about this.

Shipping oversize loads in the US can run "well in excess of $10/mi" according to a company that does that for specialized gear, but they also quote $3/mi as being common (those are surcharges past the normal base per weight I assume). Even if it cost $100/mi to ship the tanks available for sale in McGregor to Boca Chica, that's only ~$100k each. No idea what the tanks cost, but it can't be that much more than the alibaba price, right? 2X and $50k in shipping and it's $100k total cost, times 4.

That makes a Starship "hull" (tank? fuselage?) cost under $1,000,000, and SH maybe 1.5M$.

<blink>

 

 

It may also be an issue of delivery timing.  With the pace of fabrication on-site, SpaceX may have realized that, setting cost aside,  it would be faster to build their own tanks than to bid it out, select a supplier, wait for the supplier to get the materials, fit it into the supplier's schedule, and then somehow ship a 9m-diameter tank across some distance.  Time is money, after all, so even if it ends up being more expensive, they'd get it WAY sooner, and wouldn't have to worry about the specs/requirements being misinterpreted.

 

[tater]

9 minutes ago, zolotiyeruki said:

It may also be an issue of delivery timing.  With the pace of fabrication on-site, SpaceX may have realized that, setting cost aside,  it would be faster to build their own tanks than to bid it out, select a supplier, wait for the supplier to get the materials, fit it into the supplier's schedule, and then somehow ship a 9m-diameter tank across some distance.  Time is money, after all, so even if it ends up being more expensive, they'd get it WAY sooner, and wouldn't have to worry about the specs/requirements being misinterpreted.

 

They don't need a 9m tank, they need some tank capacity.

100,000 gallon tanks for this are off the shelf items, with existing stock.

12 are available NOW in McGregor, TX. About 466 miles to Boca Chica.

12 more are available Q1/Q2 this year.

That's just 1 supplier.

The tank they just built is the same as 4 of the 12 available right now. I don't think it's timing, though that might play some role. They effectively need 3 of the 9m tanks, or 12 of the ones above (and they already have some).

I doubt they would build a GSE tank for $10,000,000 if they could buy the same capacity for $500,000, right? So it's just a matter how much more they might be willing to pay to build their own (or how much less the other way). The tanks need not be cheaper per capacity, but they are not an order of magnitude higher in cost, that would be a crazy decision to make.

[RCgothic]

On my last project a missed delivery slot for a 30t payload for 150 mile transport cost on the order of $15000. Three times further for $45k sounds about right.

[sevenperforce]

We already knew this:

But now this. The man is nuts.

But in a good way. I think?

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

This is pure SciFi.  

 

Except fiction has to be plausible.  Reality can still amaze

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

SES-2, good orbit!

Also:

 

I'm amazed its no external strengthening here like the octaweb. 
I guess its internally there they can be double duty at bafflers. 

[Clamp-o-Tron]

 

[tater]

 

[kerbiloid]

A rubber rocket can be both inflatable to bring and elastic to land.

[Meecrob]

2 hours ago, tater said:

They don't need a 9m tank, they need some tank capacity.

100,000 gallon tanks for this are off the shelf items, with existing stock.

12 are available NOW in McGregor, TX. About 466 miles to Boca Chica.

12 more are available Q1/Q2 this year.

That's just 1 supplier.

The tank they just built is the same as 4 of the 12 available right now. I don't think it's timing, though that might play some role. They effectively need 3 of the 9m tanks, or 12 of the ones above (and they already have some).

I doubt they would build a GSE tank for $10,000,000 if they could buy the same capacity for $500,000, right? So it's just a matter how much more they might be willing to pay to build their own (or how much less the other way). The tanks need not be cheaper per capacity, but they are not an order of magnitude higher in cost, that would be a crazy decision to make.

The issue isn't sheer economics. Its quite frankly a hassle to ship custom-spec oversized loads, and if you could produce it on site, you would be a complete moron to outsource it.

[tater]

3 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

The issue isn't sheer economics. Its quite frankly a hassle to ship custom-spec oversized loads, and if you could produce it on site, you would be a complete moron to outsource it.

Nonsense.

It's not a hassle, you can go to the website that image was from, order 12 tanks, write a PO, and they show up in Boca Chica, probably in a few days, McGregor is a couple day drive, maybe 3 at oversize load speed?

It's an off the shelf item, and indeed SpaceX had a Nitrogen tank delivered to the site today on a flatbed with 16 sets of 8 (more?) wheels.

SLS core stages are arguably $1,000,000,000 each. Rockets are generally pretty expensive to make, even though they are in fact just tanks. Terrestrial tanks can of course be just overbuilt, and only experience 1g (unless wind loading can exceed that).

The GSE tank is simpler than the tanks on SS/SH, because maybe they don't bother with any baffles, etc. They are not grossly less expensive than SS/SH tanks, however.

If they are "rocket" expensive, (from a general industry standpoint), then they are orders of magnitude more expensive to build than to buy off the shelf GSE tanks. That BO, ULA, etc don't make their own tanks (BO's factory is next to the pad), is telling. It tells us that rocket boosters are more expensive than even custom tanks at retail prices, delivered.

For SS/SH this is clearly not the case.

 

[Meecrob]

Dude, you have no idea how hard it is to move 9 metre diameter objects. Flatbed? You are pulling my leg, surely.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Meecrob

[tater]

54 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

Dude, you have no idea how hard it is to move 9 metre diameter objects. Flatbed? You are pulling my leg, surely.

Why would they need a 9m tank?

I never once said they needed any 9m tanks. They need a certain VOLUME of propellant. 4 off the shelf 100,000 gallon tanks = 1 400,000 gallon tank.

If the 4 smaller tanks cost 10X less—delivered—than what they can make, they'd not make their own. The cost to make their own must be at least comparable to buying them.

[Meecrob]

Its a 9 metre tank...there is photo evidence.

 

[tater]

1 minute ago, Meecrob said:

Its a 9 metre tank...there is photo evidence.

The GSE tank they BUILT is 9m in diameter. It is about 25m tall. In gallons (since that's how off the shelf tanks for propane/methane are sold in the US), that's about 400,000 gallons.

Off the shelf tanks that fit on trucks (unsurprisingly about the same size as F9, since it was explicitly designed to be able to transport on trucks) are available as 100,000 gallon tanks (pictured by me).

4 of those tanks hold the same as the new steel GSE tank, and can be purchased for probably ~$100,000 (for ALL 4 combined). Shipping is probably 10k each? More? Noise.

What part of this are you missing?

[Meecrob]

The parts I am missing is why it would be financially beneficial to get a third party to do something you can do in house.

[Ultimate Steve]

23 minutes ago, Meecrob said:

The parts I am missing is why it would be financially beneficial to get a third party to do something you can do in house.

If the third party's options are lower cost than the in house options, it makes perfect sense.

[tater]

1 hour ago, Meecrob said:

The parts I am missing is why it would be financially beneficial to get a third party to do something you can do in house.

You are missing the fundamental observation.

Again, if SpaceX could buy the tanks for MUCH less, they would, period. There is zero reason for SpaceX to build a $1,000,000 GSE tank if they can buy the same capability off the shelf for a small fraction of that. There's no "in house" reason to do it if it costs a lot more.

The take away is... it DOESN'T cost them a lot more. It might not cost them more, at all.

This gives us some sense of what a Starship tank section actually costs. Apparently it costs about the same as buying 4 off the shelf 100,000 gallon propane tanks retail, delivered.

That's incredibly inexpensive. Musk said they picked steel because it was cheap. He said in some quote or tweet that he thought it might be cheaper to build a Starship than it is to build a Falcon 9.

It's gonna have a minimum of what, 34 Raptors? Right now that might be 100M$(?), but he aims to get them to .25M$/ea. The steel part could literally end up costing almost nothing. Like a few million, even with flaps, etc. Launch costs not amortized over 1000 launches to get the price/flight down, but cheap even if expended (cargo here, crew vehicle... not even sure I believe it will be a thing).

Edited April 8, 2021 by tater

[zolotiyeruki]

So....no big net to catch F9 fairing halves, but yes to a really, really big net for catching SS?  That's gonna be somethin' to watch...

WRT the tanks, it might also just be a matter of "Hey, the welding crew has a couple days with nothing on the schedule.  Since we're paying them anyway, why don't we get them to build us a GSE tank?"

[magnemoe]

18 minutes ago, zolotiyeruki said:

So....no big net to catch F9 fairing halves, but yes to a really, really big net for catching SS?  That's gonna be somethin' to watch...

WRT the tanks, it might also just be a matter of "Hey, the welding crew has a couple days with nothing on the schedule.  Since we're paying them anyway, why don't we get them to build us a GSE tank?"

And I guess you nailed it, or rater they made this during down times. Only weird this is that I expected them to insulate it. 

[JB182]

a weird thing happen at SpaceX! after SN11 Exploded, SN15 will Fly! but where is SN12, 13, and 14?

[tater]

11 minutes ago, JB182 said:

a weird thing happen at SpaceX! after SN11 Exploded, SN15 will Fly! but where is SN12, 13, and 14?

As far as anyone can tell, there was a design change, and parts that didn't incorporate that were already built for 12-14, so they scrapped them.

 

[JB182]

Just now, tater said:

As far as anyone can tell, there was a design change, and parts that didn't incorporate that were already built for 12-14, so they scrapped them.

 

oh ok

[Flying dutchman]

Imo Starship and super heavy Will Both have Legs in the forseeable future.. it's a Nice Idea but Starship should be able to land pretty much everywhere.

[derega16]

11 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

But now this. The man is nuts.

But in a good way. I think?