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2 hours ago, mikegarrison said:

Ithacus.

Not sure where the name came from.

Someone eventually told Douglas that "Icarus" is a bad name for an aerospacecraft.

1 hour ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

or the Russians will jerk him around, refuse to sell it to him, and he’ll get fed up and make it his dang self only better and cheaper...

I'm not sure even he'll put up with the maintenance costs on this one:

1-103.jpg

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3 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Is actually a thing, for reasons...
 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

Well, according to Google they may be retiring the USS Truman in the next few years... I’m sure no one would object to selling Elon Musk a surplus nuclear-powered aircraft carrier... I mean, if they can trust him with gigantic missiles already... <_<

...or maybe he’ll try that rekajiggered Pykrete thing...

...or the Russians will jerk him around, refuse to sell it to him, and he’ll get fed up and make it his dang self only better and cheaper...

IceX.

An aircraft carrier is probably too small and wrong designed you are not putting 5000 ton at the front or the back of a ship and then suddenly remove it. 
An nuclear powered  aircraft carrier is also very expensive to run as its an large warship. 

If they make an offshore installation I would use an series of oil platform like structures on legs to the ocean floor, one as an launch pad, one as an landing pad, one who is hangar for refurbishment, payload integration and storage. This could be integrated with landing pad as in land on the roof but using an separate platform might be easier. You also need fuel storage, oxygen storage and production crew quarters. 
Latest is an issue as even if you spread this out a bit its no way you can armor it against an kiloton blast, putting the bunker underwater might work. 

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8 minutes ago, Terwin said:

starlink: 500–573 lb 

Starship: 100-150 tons

Your selection of units gave me whiplash.

8 hours ago, magnemoe said:

An aircraft carrier is probably too small and wrong designed you are not putting 5000 ton at the front or the back of a ship and then suddenly remove it. 

Move the bridge (possibly below deck so it doesn't get blown away) and take off/land midship. Mass should be no problem. It's just a fraction of a ship that size.

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1 hour ago, Shpaget said:

Move the bridge (possibly below deck so it doesn't get blown away) and take off/land midship. Mass should be no problem. It's just a fraction of a ship that size.

An aircraft carrier is the wrong platform, as its an fast purpose build warship. I converted an oil tanker or other massive but pretty simple ship. you would almost need to cut it in two for the flame trenches. for one.  you still need the fuel and oxygen tanks and systems and you need hangar space and an landing pad and an crane to move stuff around. 
Benefit of an ship is that you can easy return to shore, still it will be an thigh squeeze I think. 

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Fully loaded, the newest US aircraft carriers weigh about 100,000 tons. (Tons and tonnes are pretty similar, so don't let that worry you too much.)

A F-18 Super Hornet MTOW is about 30 tonnes, and a SpaceX starship is supposed to be about 1,300 tonnes. So the rocket is way heavier than an airplane, but still less than 2% of what the ship weighs. I'm sure they could figure out some way for the ship to deal with something that heavy if they had reason to.

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2 hours ago, cubinator said:

How many Starlinks would fit on a Starship again? A couple thousand?

fairing size seems to suggest in the 420-480 range

5 minutes ago, mikegarrison said:

Fully loaded, the newest US aircraft carriers weigh about 100,000 tons. (Tons and tonnes are pretty similar, so don't let that worry you too much.)

A F-18 Super Hornet MTOW is about 30 tonnes, and a SpaceX starship is supposed to be about 1,300 tonnes. So the rocket is way heavier than an airplane, but still less than 2% of what the ship weighs. I'm sure they could figure out some way for the ship to deal with something that heavy if they had reason to.

starship and superheavy clock at around 5k tons

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Why not make mega catamaran out of tankers? Gap between two hull is a flame trench on its own with landing pads on both end and launch pad in the middle and such size can accommodate giant methane plant, inspection and refurbishment facility easily.

Edited by derega16
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I know it's massively impractical, but I'm curious how much CH4+O2 a nuclear aircraft carrier (or a cargo ship retrofitted with a reactor) could produce from desalinated seawater and atmospheric CO2. I love the idea of a mobile launch platform that produces its own rocket fuel. If it's used exclusively for refueling launches then it could spend months or years away from port.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Jaelommiss said:

I know it's massively impractical, but I'm curious how much CH4+O2 a nuclear aircraft carrier (or a cargo ship retrofitted with a reactor) could produce from desalinated seawater and atmospheric CO2. I love the idea of a mobile launch platform that produces its own rocket fuel. If it's used exclusively for refueling launches then it could spend months or years away from port.

 

 

In theory a lot. In practice, CO2 is 400 ppm in the atmosphere. That's a lot of air-sucking to do.

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