Beccab Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 Wait, so the inner Superheavy engines will have the same exact configuration as the Falcon 9 engine block? Curious Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerbiloid Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said: Perfect yard dart shape Spoiler Edited May 29, 2021 by kerbiloid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beccab Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 (edited) https://m.imgur.com/pjtEneh Looks like the air force is trying to invest into starship point-to-point capability, making at least a test flight to an "austere site" in 2022. The name "starship" is not explicitly said, but "the current multi billion commercial investment to develop the largest rocket ever, and with full reusability [...] to deliver cargo anywhere on Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capability" doesn't leave many doubts Edited May 29, 2021 by Beccab Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 16 minutes ago, Beccab said: https://m.imgur.com/pjtEneh Looks like the air force is trying to invest into starship point-to-point capability, making at least a test flight to an "austere site" in 2022. The name "starship" is not explicitly said, but "the current multi billion commercial investment to develop the largest rocket ever, and with full reusability [...] to deliver cargo anywhere on Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capability" doesn't leave many doubts Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 2 hours ago, Beccab said: Looks like the air force is trying to invest into starship point-to-point capability, making at least a test flight to an "austere site" in 2022. The USAF: Would be veeeery interesting to be a fly on the virtual wall during those Air Force/SpaceX zooms... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nothalogh Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 2 hours ago, Beccab said: https://m.imgur.com/pjtEneh Looks like the air force is trying to invest into starship point-to-point capability, making at least a test flight to an "austere site" in 2022. The name "starship" is not explicitly said, but "the current multi billion commercial investment to develop the largest rocket ever, and with full reusability [...] to deliver cargo anywhere on Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capability" doesn't leave many doubts Obviously they're talking about SLS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceman.Spiff Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 4 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said: The USAF: Starship could make a decent ballistic missile…. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 150 Raptors capable of actually firing. How many functional Be-4s does ULA have? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YNM Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Spaceman.Spiff said: Starship could make a decent ballistic missile…. Better yet : Quote "An S&T investigation of the potential ability to air drop a payload after re-entry" "Complete initial AFRL wind tunnel testing to asses novel trajectories needed for air-drop capability, and high-speed separation physics" Spoiler Soviet Union's nightmares of Shuttle Orbital Bombardment is getting closer... (article, another article) Edited May 29, 2021 by YNM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CatastrophicFailure Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 41 minutes ago, tater said: How many functional Be-4s does ULA have? Well, they’ve got that one... it functions perfectly, as a mock-up... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SunlitZelkova Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 5 hours ago, Beccab said: https://m.imgur.com/pjtEneh Looks like the air force is trying to invest into starship point-to-point capability, making at least a test flight to an "austere site" in 2022. The name "starship" is not explicitly said, but "the current multi billion commercial investment to develop the largest rocket ever, and with full reusability [...] to deliver cargo anywhere on Earth in less than one hour, with a 100-ton capability" doesn't leave many doubts https://falsesteps.wordpress.com/2017/08/25/man-very-highproject-adam/ It is somewhat ironic as the Air Force once laughed at the concept of suborbital transport of military things. 2 hours ago, Spaceman.Spiff said: Starship could make a decent ballistic missile…. I disagree. Mission-wise, there is not much of a difference between a 25 megaton warhead and the larger warheads that could be carried by Starship. The US doesn't have megaton level missile warheads anymore anyways. If Starship was MIRVed, it would create a bigger threat to the strike force, as more warheads on fewer missiles means it is easier to take them out (unless they were to build both lots of MIRVs and lots of Starships). But Starship takes hours to fuel anyways, so regardless it would be vulnerable to a nuclear first strike. 1 hour ago, YNM said: Better yet : Reveal hidden contents Soviet Union's nightmares of Shuttle Orbital Bombardment is getting closer... (article, another article) If the Air Force project goes forward, it will be interesting to see whether China and Russia have similar perceptions, and what their response will be (both in terms of defences and a potential counter). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YNM Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 5 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said: But Starship takes hours to fuel anyways, so regardless it would be vulnerable to a nuclear first strike. If you can tell which payload is the "hot" one, and which is just a stack of Starlinks... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AVaughan Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 2 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said: Mission-wise, there is not much of a difference between a 25 megaton warhead and the larger warheads that could be carried by Starship. Why mention megaton? Starship would enable 100+ tons of conventional explosives. (Or cluster bombing using 100 tons of conventional bombs). Even a tanker version of Starship is potentially 100+ tons of fuel air bomb. (Although it probably wouldn't get good dispersion for an effective fuel air explosion). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 (edited) Spoiler ^^^there's yer problem right there Edited May 30, 2021 by tater Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceFace545 Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 I don’t really believe this 2 days per rocket engine stuff. Either they have magically reduced engine mania factoring time from years to hours or they have a sweat shop pumping these things out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CollectingSP Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 7 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said: I don’t really believe this 2 days per rocket engine stuff. Either they have magically reduced engine mania factoring time from years to hours or they have a sweat shop pumping these things out. Same, I'd take it with a grain of salt. to me it just seems like another one of elon's ambitious goals, and far less like reality. 4 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said: Well, they’ve got that one... it functions perfectly, as a mock-up... As a ULA fan, Yeah, that's about accurate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 10 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said: I don’t really believe this 2 days per rocket engine stuff. Either they have magically reduced engine mania factoring time from years to hours or they have a sweat shop pumping these things out. Before SpaceX was reusing so many boosters they were building a Merlin a day. 2 minutes ago, CollectingSP said: Same, I'd take it with a grain of salt. to me it just seems like another one of elon's ambitious goals, and far less like reality. No, I'd take that to the bank as reality. 2 days per engine is not that fast, it's twice what a Merlin takes. A car plant produces over 1000 cars a day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beccab Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 2 minutes ago, CollectingSP said: Same, I'd take it with a grain of salt. to me it just seems like another one of elon's ambitious goals, and far less like reality They didn't say they "want to reach" one every 48 hours though, they said they are close to that. Which would mean elon is completely lying, that wouldn't make any sense whatsoever. Plus, *internal* reports from months ago said they had already gone under a raptor per week, so it does not seem unlikely Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CollectingSP Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 it's just kind of hard to believe I guess. if that's the truth, then that's amazing. but I had no idea about 1 merlin/day before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 They can already build a rocket larger than the whole Shuttle stack every month or so. The next testing regime is orbital reentry, and first stage. Both require expending vehicles until they nail it. 35 engines per test. Every ~2 days is about the min they need to test at a reasonable pace of a few times a year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nothalogh Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 24 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said: I don’t really believe this 2 days per rocket engine stuff. Either they have magically reduced engine mania factoring time from years to hours or they have a sweat shop pumping these things out. Posts like this give me a hearty chuckle. Either this was a woefully inadequate attempt at concern trolling, or there are people here who still cannot grasp the scale of the game SpaceX is playing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 2 minutes ago, CollectingSP said: it's just kind of hard to believe I guess. if that's the truth, then that's amazing. but I had no idea about 1 merlin/day before. They were aiming for a 2 week launch cadence, and every F9 is 10 engines. 5 working days a week, they need to make 1 per day. It makes no sense to build a rocket factory at Boca Chica and not be able to supply it with engines. Until they get orbital flights going, then recovered, they need to expend all the vehicles. Look at the tank costs. they are building their own GSE tanks, no longer buying propane tanks for the "tank farm." Propane tanks are cheap. ~$25,000 for a 100,000 gallon tank. They've built a tank factory now, so they build their own GSE tanks—but if building their own cost a lot more, they'd certainly just buy them. So SS or SH (the tank parts, not engines, etc) possibly costs hundreds of thousands per vehicle. Not hundreds of millions. The similar sized SLS "core stage"—which is just a 8.4m tank costs billions (hard to nail cost, but NASA got 3 tanks for 6.something billion, suppose we'll have a better idea when there is a contract for the next ones). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceman.Spiff Posted May 30, 2021 Share Posted May 30, 2021 (edited) 22 minutes ago, tater said: 2 days per engine is not that fast, it's twice what a Merlin takes Well Merlin is about as simple as a pump-fed engine can be. Raptor is significantly more complex. I would be pleasantly surprised if they can achieve that production cadence. Edited May 30, 2021 by Spaceman.Spiff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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