totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[Cunjo Carl]

59 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Interesting design, but I think the final Starship will be built horizontally in factories, similarly to Falcon 9.

Sorry, it looks like I should have put a </s> tag at the end of that!  I think the technique in the video would be perfect for a shorter something like hopper because it's very easy to position metal sections for attaching and everyone gets to stay on the ground which lets them work faster. But, unlike hopper or a grain bin, Starship will be 16+ stories tall and made of heavy steel! They definitely won't be using jacks on it, for stability reasons if not anything else. All this said, I wonder if they'll assemble starship in rings like a submarine or whether they have another approach?

 

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

This is the same basic technique for how they build construction cranes. They are modular and recursive. The top of the crane is able to surround a tower section. So they winch up a tower section and install it. Then the base of the top of the crane crawls up to the new top of the tower. If the crane needs to be higher, they just do it again.

Yeah, I've seen those before- they're really cool! It's a bit strange to watch a building build itself... It makes them feel eerily alive in some sense of the word, but maybe that's just me.

Edited June 15, 2019 by Cunjo Carl

[CatastrophicFailure]

58 minutes ago, Cunjo Carl said:

But, unlike hopper or a grain bin, Starship will be 16+ stories tall and made of heavy steel! They definitely won't be using jacks on it, for stability reasons if not anything else. All this said, I wonder if they'll assemble starship in rings like a submarine or whether they have another approach?

Heavy is relative.  IIRC, Musk compared it to a balloon tank that doesn’t need to be pressurized to maintain integrity. They’ve got two teams competing to see “what works best,” and they’re both building vertically—that tells me that such may be in their construction plans. That steel looks thin enough that if they built horizontally, the structure might sag without a lot of internal bracing. Outfitting a crew cabin that’s going to be used vertically is probably also easier if it’s actually vertical. Not to mention the engine section, Boeing is building that vertically for SLS, too. Easier to work inside. 

I think what we might see, if not full StarShips, is sections built vertically like we’ve already seen and then mated horizontally, once they can support their own weight. Saves on floor space, too.  

[Ultimate Steve]

25 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Heavy is relative.  IIRC, Musk compared it to a balloon tank that doesn’t need to be pressurized to maintain integrity. They’ve got two teams competing to see “what works best,” and they’re both building vertically—that tells me that such may be in their construction plans. That steel looks thin enough that if they built horizontally, the structure might sag without a lot of internal bracing. Outfitting a crew cabin that’s going to be used vertically is probably also easier if it’s actually vertical. Not to mention the engine section, Boeing is building that vertically for SLS, too. Easier to work inside. 

I think what we might see, if not full StarShips, is sections built vertically like we’ve already seen and then mated horizontally, once they can support their own weight. Saves on floor space, too.  

Keep in mind that during re-entry, the starships must be able to support several times their weight horizontally. Granted, this is over half of its surface area plus fins, but the point still still somewhat there.

[CatastrophicFailure]

9 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

Keep in mind that during re-entry, the starships must be able to support several times their weight horizontally. Granted, this is over half of its surface area plus fins, but the point still still somewhat there.

Right, but at that point they’ll have baffles, tank domes, various and sundry internal structure, and be at flight pressure. 

[Cunjo Carl]

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Heavy is relative.  IIRC, Musk compared it to a balloon tank that doesn’t need to be pressurized to maintain integrity. They’ve got two teams competing to see “what works best,” and they’re both building vertically—that tells me that such may be in their construction plans. That steel looks thin enough that if they built horizontally, the structure might sag without a lot of internal bracing. Outfitting a crew cabin that’s going to be used vertically is probably also easier if it’s actually vertical. Not to mention the engine section, Boeing is building that vertically for SLS, too. Easier to work inside. 

I think what we might see, if not full StarShips, is sections built vertically like we’ve already seen and then mated horizontally, once they can support their own weight. Saves on floor space, too.  

Yeah, building in sections vertically and then integrating horizontally sounds like the easy approach. Just like a submarine, right?

(image from http://www.hisutton.com)

Edit: I feel like I'm not writing well tonight, so just to be clear what I'm getting at, I'm thinking the easy approach would be to construct starship just like the grain bins in 10m segments, then turn them horizontal to be integrated together. The ~~10m segment size sounds convenient to me, because it should have good rigidity while being tall enough to tip easily (for maneuvering), but also not tip *too* easily like hopper's hat. I know, they'll be doing the real ones indoors out of the wind, but still, it's a lot safer to work on something that has a 0% chance of toppling no matter how you lift or load it, right? Well, I guess we'll get to hear about what the SpaceX teams have come up with soon enough! That's cool they're set to compete with construction methods, I hadn't heard that.

I'll see if I can find it, but I remember Gwynne saying once that for assembly buildings, vertical and horizontal space winds up costing fairly similar, with horizontal being a bit cheaper. It sounded like you're basically paying for the volume by the time it's all told!

Edited June 15, 2019 by Cunjo Carl

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, wumpus said:

They might fish the second stage out of the Pacific, but there's no way that the second stage is returning to Vandenburg.  I don't think it was a Falcon Heavy either, which would make it easy to make that mistake with the two "return to launch site" boosters.

Someone typed second stage instead of first. 

Think second stage disintegrates, part of engine and its mount probably splashes down but not anything useful. 
It was some talk about reusing the second stage but that has been scraped for starship. 

Has been some speculation about using an second stage to test starship reentry but don't think they do that unless they get starship delays or problems. 

[tater]

 

[mikegarrison]

11 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Someone typed second stage instead of first.

No, the tweet in question clearly understood what a "second stage" was and meant to say it. The claim was wrong, though.

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that possibly someone said "this picture shows the second booster stage that has landed at Vandenburg" and the listener heard "this picture shows the second stage landing at Vandenburg". The party game "telephone" lives on.

[tater]

Wasn't it the first RTLS at VAFB?

[Brotoro]

It's the first RTLS I recall seeing land at Vandenberg. Although they did have a previous first stage that they wanted to land there, but some other rocket company objected (because they had a rocket sitting on some other launch pad), so SpaceX had to land the booster on a drone ship off shore...so almost RTLS.

Edited June 15, 2019 by Brotoro

[Geonovast]

57 minutes ago, tater said:

Wasn't it the first RTLS at VAFB?

2nd.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/10/spacex-falcon-9-saocom-1a-launch-west-coast-landing/

[Guest]

Getting ready guys update for starship is on June 20th (tear won't be available to see it)

[tater]

My bad, forgot that landing, lol.

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, mikegarrison said:

No, the tweet in question clearly understood what a "second stage" was and meant to say it. The claim was wrong, though.

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that possibly someone said "this picture shows the second booster stage that has landed at Vandenburg" and the listener heard "this picture shows the second stage landing at Vandenburg". The party game "telephone" lives on.

It was also the second flight of that booster, which may also be a source of confusion. Second flight, second landing at VAFB (but not the same booster for both landings)

[ThatGuyWithALongUsername]

Can't wait until we actually get a Vandenberg RTLS that, y'know, we can actually see...

[NSEP]

1 hour ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

Getting ready guys update for starship is on June 20th (tear won't be available to see it)

Im crossing my fingers and holding my breath. I really hope we are getting alot more new information about Starship.

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

No, the tweet in question clearly understood what a "second stage" was and meant to say it. The claim was wrong, though.

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that possibly someone said "this picture shows the second booster stage that has landed at Vandenburg" and the listener heard "this picture shows the second stage landing at Vandenburg". The party game "telephone" lives on.

Yes, it makes sense, I just assumes reporters don't have detail knowledge about all fields they report on. 
The telephone game however is fun and threaten by ctrl-C ctrl-V. 
Remember we learned to send an message up and down an marching line of troops in the army. Some joker send an message backward saying the rear platoon had stopped

[Ultimate Steve]

42 minutes ago, NSEP said:

Im crossing my fingers and holding my breath. I really hope we are getting alot more new information about Starship.

I wouldn't get your hopes up. I think they planned to have the first real hop done before the presentation (only speculation, no concrete evidence) so they would have something really cool to show off. However, since the next testing window is NET the 20th, and they will probably do a static fire with SN 5 or whatever they are using before they do a hop (I think they reattached the tethers too) then in all likelyhood there will not have been a hop by the planned presentation date, so they may postpone it.

Which sucks because I'm leaving on vacation the 22nd.

[NSEP]

13 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

I wouldn't get your hopes up. I think they planned to have the first real hop done before the presentation (only speculation, no concrete evidence) so they would have something really cool to show off. However, since the next testing window is NET the 20th, and they will probably do a static fire with SN 5 or whatever they are using before they do a hop (I think they reattached the tethers too) then in all likelyhood there will not have been a hop by the planned presentation date, so they may postpone it.

Which sucks because I'm leaving on vacation the 22nd.

Im unsure what Elon means by 'probably', there is too little information. If have been following the NSF threads for a while now and some people speculated that the presentation would occur in Boca Chica because some of the containers used for construction was painted white (and it would be pretty cool to see it be presentated next to the real orbital prototype), but considering they now have delayed the Starhopper tests, i think its unlikely it will happend on June 20th in Boca Chica. So they will have to either wait, or the presentation occurs somewhere else.

 

[Barzon]

8 minutes ago, NSEP said:

real orbital prototype

eeh.

A construction of that quality will most definitely never reach orbit. Space, yes, orbit, no. However, I certainly believe the Florida prototype will reach orbit, due to the BC OTV nose not being, how do I put this, correctly mounted? But the Florida prototype is much, much cleaner.

[NSEP]

51 minutes ago, Barzon Kerman said:

eeh.

A construction of that quality will most definitely never reach orbit. Space, yes, orbit, no. However, I certainly believe the Florida prototype will reach orbit, due to the BC OTV nose not being, how do I put this, correctly mounted? But the Florida prototype is much, much cleaner.

It probably isn't going to reach orbit, but its definitely a prototype of the orbital vehicle.

[CatastrophicFailure]

6 hours ago, Barzon Kerman said:

eeh.

A construction of that quality will most definitely never reach orbit. Space, yes, orbit, no. However, I certainly believe the Florida prototype will reach orbit, due to the BC OTV nose not being, how do I put this, correctly mounted? But the Florida prototype is much, much cleaner.

What's not correctly mounted? This is the BC vehicle...

[NSEP]

4 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

What's not correctly mounted? This is the BC vehicle...

If you look closely you can see the top part didn't really fit well into its place and there is a big hole. This photo was taken when they first mounted the top, so they might have fixed it. But im not sure.

 

Also, from a certain angle, it looks a bit crooked, although it might be an optical illusion. (This is a much more recent pic, taken on June 11th)

I don't think its a massive concern, its just the nosecone, and they could probably repair it or make an entirely new one using the construction techniques of the Florida team.

[Barzon]

Certain pictures on NSF show a large gap.

[tater]