tater

Can make a final decision when we get to OKC. Have dinner, and either stay there, or drive towards that SE corner and try to find a place to stay. Prices are jacked... but I figure I thought about flying to the NE, so anything less than a couple grand in hotel cost for a night is savings, lol.

Son and I are leaving soon. Plan is to stay in OKC I think, then make a decision from there. 3 hours to path in an arc from S to E. Can get up early and head where weather looks favorable. Will be funny if we stay at some regular motel place. The one time we did when the kids were little, a tiny voice from the back seat said as I pulled up in front and my wife ran in to get a room, "Where's the guy who takes the car?" Yeah, not that kind of hotel... Honestly, the most expensive place in OKC is cheap as dirt, like $188 for a regular room, can probably get a suite for what we usually pay for a normal room, lol. Actually, the most expensive room with 2 beds is 188/193, so yeah, that's the upper limit unless we drive on to AR—then I can pay nearly $400 for a room that a week ago was under 100. AR looking like a decent choice.

https://www.star.nesdis.noaa.gov/GOES/conus_band.php?sat=G16&band=GEOCOLOR&length=24 This has a button to add eclipse path, BTW

With 3mm steel (vs 3.6mm), and giving it LOADS of slop (considering the stage a cylinder), the steel is ~26.5t. Assuming it still needs 6 engines, that's ~9t. So we're at ~37t. Add some wide legs (use the LSS ones shown), that's a few tons—but makes the stance now 21m across, and much less tippy. I think with fitting out, it's maybe in the mid 40t range? Thinner steel also possible—this is a spacecraft. Call it 45t. Full it has 12.3 km/s of dv. A 100% propulsive round trip from LEO to the lunar surface and back to LEO is 12.2 km/s. This vehicle could crew up in LEO, do a lunar mission and return home. 3 expended Starship 3 stacks could fill it—or probably 4 with partial reuse (expend ship, keep booster). Each 0.11mm reduction in 304L thickness drops the vehicle mass by about a ton. A larger version could also work for a dedicated Mars vehicle, and would have more crew volume. for the same prop load and mass as the current vehicle.

Prop volume is on the order of 1700 m3 (just assuming 27m height, 9m dia, feeling lazy) for current ship (chime in if there's a better number). I wonder what the max dia a ship could be, if configured more like a fairing? A 13m dia ship could hold the same prop volume with only 46% of the height (~13m). The entire craft could be half the height, and 13m in dia (legs sticking out more when deployed). Obviously it could be taller. Or closer to F9 fairing proportions. Obviously they'd then need to rig up larger diam jigs, etc. 13, 14, however many m diameter they want. This for space-based vehicles. I left the tiles on out of laziness, obviously lunar has PVs—though a tug/ferry version could keep a tile side to do aerobraking to LEO from cislunar.

Where in TX? Dallas?

Given he talks about most Mars vehicles staying on Mars, I wonder if the stretch could be more of a LEO thing? Dedicated space versions could in fact be different in many ways assuming they are open to specialization.

Said ideally internal cost to LEO for SS3 would be $2-3M per launch.

Edited down version the removes pauses, etc.

Already thinking about alternatives cause of crap weather https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/list-total-solar.html 2026, Spain. 2027. Southern Spain/Northern Morocco. 2028 Australia. All are doable, all in summer, too (here, anyway, winter July in Oz).

Boo

Source of that NWS map: https://www.weather.gov/bou/2024SolarEclipse Updates in 15 minutes

Friends of ours retired to Madrid... maybe 2026 is a good time to visit.

Yikes. And I'll have an 11 hour drive ahead of me, unconstrained.

My SW TX initial plan seemed ideal before the weather scuppered it. Now... east on I-40 to near the path, get up early and drive to a likely spot and hang out

Gonna be get into a circle of X hours driving, then fight the traffic jam that is likely if everyone needs to move to that patch of blue over there...

SpaceX is targeting Friday, April 5 for a Falcon 9 launch of 21 Starlink satellites, including six with Direct to Cell capabilities, to low-Earth orbit from Space Launch Complex 4 East (SLC-4E) at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. Liftoff is targeted for 7:31 p.m. PT, with backup opportunities available until 11:25 p.m. PT. If needed, additional opportunities are also available on Saturday, April 6 starting at 7:25 p.m. PT.

Berger linked to this: http://arctic.som.ou.edu/tburg/products/realtime/eclipse/ useful

Yeah, SW TX is very much like NM... blowing dust I would expect, total overcast is rare. Course it's closer to the coast than what I really know as SW TX (more towards El Paso).

Launch tonight in about 4.5 hours.