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SpaceX Discussion Thread


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1 hour ago, sevenperforce said:

I know the fairings are huge, but man, they are huge.

 

Yes you could pretty much fit an half length shipping container inside it and they make an longer version :) 
Now having an wire you could pull and an rubber fabric at the bottom part and you could float this very well. Still I guess splashdown will get so much seawater inside you need an full refurbish anyway. 

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Do yall think that the first super heavy booster will be a hopper like Grasshopper and Starhopper because I think it will be unable to mount starship on top of it and will just have a nosecone and be like F9R (anybody remember f9r) as both of the hoppers have fixed landing gear and the latest super heavy design has landing gear. I guess we'll know in a bit because we have images of the pieces of the booster.

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22 minutes ago, Delta dart said:

Do yall think that the first super heavy booster will be a hopper like Grasshopper and Starhopper because I think it will be unable to mount starship on top of it and will just have a nosecone and be like F9R (anybody remember f9r) as both of the hoppers have fixed landing gear and the latest super heavy design has landing gear. I guess we'll know in a bit because we have images of the pieces of the booster.

There's only going to be 2 engines, so I think it's safe to assume something like that. Even the second/third/however many boosters they need before they're comfortable with an orbital flight. On a side note, I'm personally thinking less than 5. They probably don't want too much of a gap between Starship and Superheavy tests, so I'm wondering if the testing phase will be more ambitious, with an increasing number of engines on each booster.

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28 minutes ago, tater said:

The big rolling transporter thing apparently went to the pad at Boca Chica...

Maybe they are gonna take SN8 back to the barn to get a nose?

Perhaps it's just going to wheel SN7.1's transport mount back, it's still at the launch site.

I'd expect them to just bring the nosecone to the launch site once it's finished, no point taking SN8 all the way there and back if they can just take the nosecone there in one shot.

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10 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

I don't understand -- what do you mean?

The nose is pointier than it needs to be.

Right now the tip of the nose is a ^ on top of a o (the header tank). Upside down, but like this:

r3xpC.png

Instead of that dead space between H and A in the diagram above (header tank of radius r), the nose will be a truncated cone with the header tank literally being the tip of the nosecone.

 

 

Ie: the nosecone will approach the header tank on line BF in the diagram, and the curve of the sphere is the tip.

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Pointiness is valuable in supersonic flow, but only when something is more pointy than the Mach cone. It's not generally valuable at all in subsonic flow. There are reasons why, for instance, this airplane has a long, super-pointy nose ...

Convair_YF-102_53-1785_on_Ramp_E-2550.jp

... but this airplane does not:

Jetstar_Airbus_A320_in_flight_(676808124

Edited by mikegarrison
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3 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Pointiness is valuable in supersonic flow, but only when something is more pointy than the Mach cone. It's not generally valuable at all in subsonic flow. There are reasons why, for instance, has a long, super-pointy nose:

Convair_YF-102_53-1785_on_Ramp_E-2550.jp

... but this airplane does not:

Jetstar_Airbus_A320_in_flight_(676808124

This is true but rockets tend to have rounded noses more like the below plane. 
Look at the fairings above, it would not be much problem making them more pointed, yes it would add a bit more weight but not significantly so. 
 

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1 minute ago, magnemoe said:

This is true but rockets tend to have rounded noses more like the below plane. 
Look at the fairings above, it would not be much problem making them more pointed, yes it would add a bit more weight but not significantly so. 

Rockets often have stubby noses because they spend very little time in dense parts of the atmosphere during supersonic flight. A supersonic fighter jet needs low drag for sustained level supersonic flight.

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Yep, and the other goal here is reduced mass. "The best part is no part." Why add a fairing over a rounded header tank if the tank itself can be the nose? (and the tank has good reason to be spherical)

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