totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[Xd the great]

2 hours ago, tater said:

That has no abort mode.

You'd need an LES system. Given the relatively inexpensive construction modality, I'd say build a capcule on top that can separate, throw some super dracos on it, and go (assuming they were gonna mess with crew).

Oh, so a Crew Dragon on top of the Starship. Just that additional steel platingis used on Crew Dragon.

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

The Starship starts looking more and more similar to GK-175 / Enerrgy-2 2nd stage.

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

(The nose shroud is heat-protected and retractable + hinged. The wings, fin, orbital engines, avionics are native Buranian.)

Both carry 100..150 t of payload in cargo bay with door(s), both have  ~1000 t total mass.
Both contain the 2nd stage propulsion system.
Both are more or less winged and finned.
Both now have heat-protected nose.

See in ITS BFS BFR Starship series, season 2:
Ep1. "Teflon (donkey)". Starship receives heat protection from one ("bottom") side. ('cuz why fry only nose when you can glide and dissipate the heat with bottom?) (hi, full-steel last-winter Starship!).
Ep2. "Wheels saga". Starship receives horizontal landing and wheels. ('cuz why land vertically when you glide horizontally).
Ep3. "Light steel". Starship receives alumium hull instead of the steel one. ('cuz why need heavy steel when the bottom is anyway heat-protected).
(To be continued).

Keep in mind that starship needs to land on Mars. So unless Elon decides that Marsship will replace Starship in going to Mars, Starship will not have wings.

Edited August 18, 2019 by Xd the great

[kerbiloid]

8 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

Keep in mind that starship needs to land on Mars.

Does it? Ever did it?

P.S.
I keep in mind the Red Dragon which needed to land on Mars...

Edited August 18, 2019 by kerbiloid

[tater]

6 hours ago, Xd the great said:

Oh, so a Crew Dragon on top of the Starship. Just that additional steel platingis used on Crew Dragon.

Crew Dragon would be a decent starting point---the pressure vessel, not the outer mold line.

[magnemoe]

32 minutes ago, tater said:

Crew Dragon would be a decent starting point---the pressure vessel, not the outer mold line.

Crew dragon would be ridiculously overbuild also no way to enter the rest of the ship. Think new Shepard crew capsule. 
However with super drako engines who would probably be simplest.

Use the large compartment with the picture window, you want an floor here anyway, hatch in floor to the rest of ship. Seats here, they can be stowed or rearranged for long trips. 

[sevenperforce]

12 hours ago, tater said:

Not really.

The Shuttle accidents were failure modes from the very start of flight, particularly Columbia.

SpaceX, should they ever put people on Starship, I think are of the mindset of making it as safe/redundant as possible, then just doing it. Airliners have some failure modes that are survivable (ditching, or belly landings for loss of engines), but they have others that are not really survivable. SS would be similar. If it tips over at the very end, it could be a total loss, or it might be like United 232 (Sioux City). All engines failing would be like an airliner losing the empennage. I'm pretty skeptical of SS as a crew vehicle, but that's what they are likely thinking. Early, test versions could have a crew capsule that could abort, presumably.

LOCV failure modes for a commercial airliner include loss of control surface authority and catastrophic structural breaches. If the elevators fail, the pilot can't control pitch and the plane crashes. If the wings break up, the plane crashes. SS has the same failure modes; if it has a tank breach or a loss of control fin authority, it crashes. 

[ZooNamedGames]

10 hours ago, Xd the great said:

Shuttle cannot do remote controlled flying.

Really? NASA cannot? What do you think Artemis 1 is? There's only 2 reasons I can imagine you'd say this- Orion is just a boilerplate so not real- or- based on the Shuttle's crewed first flight. At which point there's so many things to point out. 1- Orion may be a boilerplate but if NASA wanted to waste the time and an additional SLS, there's nothing technologically preventing them from making a real 100% crew ready vehicle and launching it without crew. Hell the real thing will be largely computer flown anyway. The only real difference is that the life support won't diminish (which I'm sure will affect the vehicle in other ways). If you're referring to the 1981 Space Shuttle STS-1 flight bare in mind that it was in an era where computers were still large and bulky. Also don't forget that by the time the Buran flew- they had literally had more than 2 dozen Shuttle flights and flight data to go off of. NASA did not. They knew how it would behave during descent but it never had flown beyond the speed of sound, never had to account for functional launch systems, OMS fuel, life support- it was an entirely new beast unlike anything that had flown before. Could they have flown unmanned? Maybe (the launch was autonomous anyway).

Anyway, NASA doesn't need to have crews onboard solely for test data. NASA easily could if they need to. It's more a case that NASA knows how this vehicle behaves as they've tested it in every conceivable way, and have a legacy of 60 years of manned spaceflight experience. NASA does know what can go wrong. NASA literally wrote the book that Musk and his cronies will be referring to when looking to potential flight failure modes on the way to and from the moon.

[Nothalogh]

57 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

LOCV failure modes for a commercial airliner include loss of control surface authority and catastrophic structural breaches. If the elevators fail, the pilot can't control pitch and the plane crashes. If the wings break up, the plane crashes. SS has the same failure modes; if it has a tank breach or a loss of control fin authority, it crashes. 

And at some point, you've just gotta accept that yes there is risk, even in an airliner, specifically during certain flight regimes.

There is, today, a culture of unserious safety-consciousness, where everyone has become risk averse to the point of absurdity and for all of the wrong reasons.

 

Von Braun would have told most of these kind of people to simply get lost.

[tater]

38 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Really? NASA cannot? What do you think Artemis 1 is? There's only 2 reasons I can imagine you'd say this- Orion is just a boilerplate so not real- or- based on the Shuttle's crewed first flight. At which point there's so many things to point out. 1- Orion may be a boilerplate but if NASA wanted to waste the time and an additional SLS, there's nothing technologically preventing them from making a real 100% crew ready vehicle and launching it without crew. Hell the real thing will be largely computer flown anyway. The only real difference is that the life support won't diminish (which I'm sure will affect the vehicle in other ways). If you're referring to the 1981 Space Shuttle STS-1 flight bare in mind that it was in an era where computers were still large and bulky. Also don't forget that by the time the Buran flew- they had literally had more than 2 dozen Shuttle flights and flight data to go off of. NASA did not. They knew how it would behave during descent but it never had flown beyond the speed of sound, never had to account for functional launch systems, OMS fuel, life support- it was an entirely new beast unlike anything that had flown before. Could they have flown unmanned? Maybe (the launch was autonomous anyway).

Shuttle could not be flown without crew. This is simply a fact.

I have no idea what Orion has to do with Shuttle, but Orion also cannot fully function without crew (it can be sent on a trajectory, but it is incapable of docking without crew)

Buran is entirely irrelevant.

 

38 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Anyway, NASA doesn't need to have crews onboard solely for test data. NASA easily could if they need to. It's more a case that NASA knows how this vehicle behaves as they've tested it in every conceivable way, and have a legacy of 60 years of manned spaceflight experience. NASA does know what can go wrong. NASA literally wrote the book that Musk and his cronies will be referring to when looking to potential flight failure modes on the way to and from the moon.

What does NASA have to do with Starship?

NASA doesn't do the things, their contractors do the things. For certain projects, NASA is a very involved customer, but they are a customer. Boeing, LockMart, Grumman, those are the entities that build the things (now SpaceX, as well). Testing stuff on the ground is a reasonable substitute for flying the vehicle, but flying the vehicle is better.

That is why when they had a larger budget they flew everything. Apollo hardware was rigorously tested---in flight, after ground testing. The current push for massive ground testing, and virtually no flight testing is NASA cutting corners (because as expensive as ground testing is, it's cheaper than flying current projects like SLS/Orion. In the Apollo era, they would be flying).

[Nothalogh]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

The current push for massive ground testing, and virtually no flight testing is NASA cutting corners (because as expensive as ground testing is, it's cheaper

If only that's how bad things truly were.

It's worse, way worse.

That style of testing lengthens the development stage for a program, thus allowing an increased rate of money harvesting for the contractor, with a lower rate of being expected to actually deliver anything of value and meaningful performance.

Why build something that works, when you can make ten times as much money making something that never has to work?

[tater]

Saturn 1:

10 unmanned tests before...

Saturn 1B:

4 Uncrewed tests before it was flown with crew.

Saturn V:

First 3 used for ground testing, 1 stage was upgraded, none of the other parts ever flew.

Next 2 were all up, unmanned tests (second of which was only partially successful).

Next 10 all crewed.

Last flew Skylab (uncrewed).

 

So when NASA had the funding, it flew Saturn/Apollo variants 16 times before they put crew on one.

[StrandedonEarth]

12 hours ago, Xd the great said:

Shuttle cannot do remote controlled flying. Starship can.

Shuttle could and did fly remote-controlled. The only thing that couldn't be wasn't automated was lowering the landing gear. Part of the reason for this, as I recall, is the astronauts' "union" wanting to have control of the vehicle, not just being passengers. That attitude went back to the days of Mercury, when the very capable test pilots selected for the program resented being "spam-in-a-can"; they wanted control of the vehicle. After the Columbia accident, they made jumper cables so the computer could lower the gear.

In fact, Shuttle was fly-by-wire, pilots never had direct control of the vehicle's maneuvering systems. The computer took the controller (joystick) input and controlled the thrusters and/or control surfaces to make the vehicle act accordingly.

I don't think that will be an issue with the new generation of crew vehicles.

Edited August 18, 2019 by StrandedonEarth

[kerbiloid]

Afaik Shuttle at least was able to perform landing automatically, just never did it irl, because of human pilots vanity.

And afaik it was always automatically performing aerobraking because it required frequent movements to keep it flying directly.

Ascending was automatic by definition.

So, as all most difficult phases of the flight were or could be automatic, unlikely Shuttle couldn't make something on its own, except docking. But in 1980s it had nothing to dock to, lol.
Buran could also dock, either auto, or remotely.
 

Spoiler

A conspiracy:
Shuttle pilots never had control, the control panel was a placebo. The gear handle, too.

 

Edited August 18, 2019 by kerbiloid

[tater]

Yeah, Shuttle could have been made to fly uncrewed, but it wasn't.

Sort of amazing that they flew STS-1 with crew, honestly.

[kerbiloid]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

Sort of amazing that they flew STS-1 with crew, honestly.

Another one is that only 2 seats were ejectable. Kinda tells about real purpose, like Buran's one.

[tater]

Just now, kerbiloid said:

Another one is that only 2 seats were ejectable. Kinda tells about real purpose, like Buran's one.

Yeah, the envelope for survivable ejection was pretty tiny, however. I think it was more like they'd eject instead of ditching, or if they were not going to make it back to the runway on nominal EDL. It's not like they could escape a launch accident.

[StrandedonEarth]

And this is what happens when you let the pilot control the vehicle. Granted, this was very early in the program... Someone should have told the pilot you can't touch-and-go a Space Shuttle. (just kidding, just a little PIO)

 

[ZooNamedGames]

59 minutes ago, tater said:

Shuttle could not be flown without crew. This is simply a fact.

I have no idea what Orion has to do with Shuttle, but Orion also cannot fully function without crew (it can be sent on a trajectory, but it is incapable of docking without crew)

Buran is entirely irrelevant.

 

What does NASA have to do with Starship?

NASA doesn't do the things, their contractors do the things. For certain projects, NASA is a very involved customer, but they are a customer. Boeing, LockMart, Grumman, those are the entities that build the things (now SpaceX, as well). Testing stuff on the ground is a reasonable substitute for flying the vehicle, but flying the vehicle is better.

That is why when they had a larger budget they flew everything. Apollo hardware was rigorously tested---in flight, after ground testing. The current push for massive ground testing, and virtually no flight testing is NASA cutting corners (because as expensive as ground testing is, it's cheaper than flying current projects like SLS/Orion. In the Apollo era, they would be flying).

My comment was based largely on the comment I had quoted. See the full comment.

Also- Orion isn't docking on Artemis 1 or 2. It only docks on Artemis 3. So it can fly on it's own. Also, you say the Shuttle can't fly on it's own, but from my research, it had autopilot launch sequencing and landing sequencing (first manual landing wasn't until STS-3 iirc). Perhaps in orbit maneuvers would require manual input- but an external addition to the Shuttle flight computer to input a few lines of code to tell it to flip 180 after X number of orbits and fire it's thrusters, then wait a few minutes before entering a command to rotate again- isn't beyond the scope of 1980s hardware. Ground control being a different topic. As the Buran was entirely computer flown except for the final descent.

Edited August 18, 2019 by ZooNamedGames

[tater]

 

Shuttle never flew without crew. What it might have done is irrelevant.

I read the 1 line you quoted, @ZooNamedGames, had nothing to do with Artemis-1.

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, tater said:

Yeah, Shuttle could have been made to fly uncrewed, but it wasn't.

Sort of amazing that they flew STS-1 with crew, honestly.

Odds of LOCV for STS-1 was determined retroactively to have been what...1:12? 1:9?

[ZooNamedGames]

1 minute ago, sevenperforce said:

Odds of LOCV for STS-1 was determined retroactively to have been what...1:12? 1:9?

And the irony is those pilots have flown on vehicles with worse odds. It's the life of a test pilot.

[tater]

My guess is that before any people sit on top of any SS/SH, it flies many times uncrewed. I’d still think that prudence would require some LES system for the crew compartment for early flights.

[tater]

Forget Shuttle talk, unless it's to compare the Starship flight surfaces in the images I just posted tweets about!

 

[Nothalogh]

18 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

those pilots have flown on vehicles with worse odds.

I doubt that

[ZooNamedGames]

7 minutes ago, Nothalogh said:

I doubt that

You only see the test pilots that survive the testing. Back in those days you probably had someone die every week from some issue, but none of it was news worthy because "it's just another death from a test flight". So I don't doubt they've flown worse. Google some of the stuff the USAF has come up with. You'd be surprised what kind of mad contraptions some of them had to operate in the name of experimental flight. Hell there were designs that were so roughly built that one design literally disintegrated around it's pilots in flight- and needed to be refueled after take off due to the spacing in the structure and fuel tanks- and fueled again once it reached altitude. This aircraft I'm referring to is the SR-71. Do I need to mention the lifting body designs built just to experiment with how lifting bodies function? How about the X-29 with it's forward swept wings? A design so unstable that it had redundant flight computers since control was so precise as it was so unstable that a pilot would greatly struggle with it flying.

So yeah... the shuttle seems quite sound by comparison. Especially when you don't launch outside of safe parameters (not launching when it's too cold), we only lost Columbia (the same vehicle) due to foam strike which wasn't even present on STS-1- it was paint. Though those chips still pose a threat, it was a different kind of threat. Moreover if there was a launch abort they had ejection seats to escape.

17 minutes ago, tater said:

Forget Shuttle talk, unless it's to compare the Starship flight surfaces in the images I just posted tweets about!

 

Welcome to the diversion and off topic discussion I get on my thread

[tater]

10 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

You only see the test pilots that survive the testing

You are making a positive claim, it should be easy to link to test pilot deaths to show you are correct if true.

 

10 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

Welcome to the diversion and off topic discussion I get on my thread

Talking about how poorly managed the SLS program is in the SLS thread is simply a statement of fact, proved true by the NASA accounting itself. Demonstrating that SLS is basically a "rocket to nowhere" since it cannot accomplish the goals retroactively assigned to it is also clearly true (too big for LEO, not actually big enough for useful missions in cislunar space given the only extant cargo, Orion).

 

Those subjects are entirely on-topic for an SLS thread.

I should add that SpaceX sometimes comes up in that thread in an off-topic way, but given that the now stated mission for SLS/Orion is "Gateway" then lunar surface sorties, SpaceX is now on-topic given that the likely LV for all the parts of gateway, and very likely for the lander is... Falcon Heavy, an enabling technology for SLS to have a function. NASA is now collaborating intellectually with SpaceX regarding orbital refilling operations (which they likely want for Gateway, and if SpaceX does it for SS, NASA gets the test data for free), and large lander plume interactions (again, SpaceX is likely to test this in a hands-on way that can provide invaluable data to NASA).

Some fanboyism in the SLS threads has certainly been off topic, but also, you yourself tend to introduce anti-SpaceX comments that cause some of the digressions.

Edited August 18, 2019 by tater