sh1pman

At which point will you agree that it’s a proven project? Orbital flight? Reuse of an orbital starship?

It’s an old design, from at least 2016. The engine is an upgraded engine from Energia boosters, they did some static fire tests. Upper stage will use the same engine as Soyuz-2. Rogozin speaks about the rocket on every talk or interview, that it’s a next generation launcher that will replace Soyuz rockets. Obviously, there’s nothing “next gen” about it, it’s not even partially reusable. Amur is FAR more interesting.

Will it be the tallest structure in the area?

Why bring up SLS in a SpaceX thread? One is a program dictated by Congress and the other is a commercial company. I don’t get your message. SpaceX doesn’t have powerful senators and representatives who order NASA to buy Falcon launches. On the contrary, when SpaceX won the HLS contract, we saw a torrent of negativity from those politicians, even from one representing Texas, if I remember correctly.

Schrödinger‘s orbit.

So, to sum up: 1) A requirement to complete an orbit is flawed because you can reach a stable orbit first, then do a deorbit burn before completing a full circle. 2) Periapsis above Karman line or another altitude - also flawed because the altitude is arbitrary, atmosphere doesn’t have a defined border, and a spacecraft in a 10,000 km x 99 km orbit will most likely complete many circles (ellipses?) 3) Reaching an orbital velocity - flawed because that velocity can be achieved while going straight up, and that’s definitely not an orbit. Hmm… I like @tseitsei89’s definition, but I’d change ground level to sea level because it’s less variable. It does imply a near-orbital velocity and near-circular trajectory, while not requiring to actually complete a circle. Also, Starship flight will count as orbital this way Are you a moderator or something? We’re discussing things because they’re interesting and relate to SpaceX in some way.

So, what’s the consensus here, does it count as “orbit” if periapsis stays in the atmosphere the entire flight?

- Please solve this college test for me! - Ok, what test? - Here’s a pretty picture!

Should call it "The Trampoline".

Due to its full and rapid reusability, launching on SS should be a lot cheaper than on Crew Dragon with rendezvous/docking/transfer. I see it as a discount for higher risk and no launch escape system.

Because obviously the goal of HLS is not to land on the Moon (that’s a secondary objective), but to keep various firms in business using public money.

Something wrong with twitter embeds.

1) install a nozzle at the rear end of your digestive system 2) eat a spicy shawarma or burrito, preferably with expired meat 3) wait 2-4 hours 4) pressure-fed rocket engine complete.

Musk wants to terraform it somehow. Not sure what I like more: an Earth-like gardenworld or a 40k Mechanicus forgeworld. The latter is probably more useful.

This design is much smaller, housing 100,000 or so. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_torus Yeah, for billions we’ll need to excavate the Moon. Send the stuff up with a mass driver.

If full and rapid reuse REALLY works as advertised, and the launch costs can be brought down to $5M per launch, total launch cost will be $50B, or 2-3 NASA annual budgets. No idea how much would it cost to build it in space.

Starship can be invaluable for building those. How much mass is needed to build one, a million tons? A fleet of 10 starships each launching thrice per day can do it in less than a year.

…and of course I forgot Argo (cargo), Argo-P (crew) spaceships and FOUR more variants of Amur rocket (potentially fully reusable, yes, including upper stage and fairing).

I’m in between these two. Pretty confident it’ll work for LEO and Moon, but Mars mission is likely very far away. Colony is even less likely during our lifetime.

Out of what, 60-80kg? Might decrease ISP by a few seconds. Not significant.

Three more Russian paper future rockets that I had no idea they existed (they keep coming!): That’s in addition to Soyuz 5, 6 and 7, reusable Amur, Angara A5M, A5P and A5V, reusable Krylo-SV, Yenisei (now almost fully reusable!), spaceships Orel, Orlyonok, LVPK and an unnamed spaceplane. Did I forget anything? More trampolines to the god of trampolines!

Admittedly, Proton with a crew ship does look ridiculous. The designs after N1 follow the “moar boosters!” approach. If no boosters are needed, make fuel tanks look like boosters (Proton again).

Can expect hydrogen rockets?

Your spaceship will perpetually accelerate, turn into a black hole due to its kinetic energy, eventually growing up to the size of the entire universe and consuming all matter. That’s why perpetual motion spaceships that break Newton’s Third Law are banned by the Galactic Code. Don’t even try building such a thing or they’ll send space marines after you.