totm nov 2023 SpaceX Discussion Thread

[zolotiyeruki]

I suspect/hope that dramatically reduced launch costs will dramatically increase demand, for two reasons:

1) Supply and demand curve.  Drop the price of something, and you'll get more customers.  The lower price, IMO, will unleash all sorts of ideas that have never been considered before because of high launch costs.
2) Lower launch costs per ton will have a compounding effect on the cost of the actual payload, because your launch costs per kilogram are now $333 instead of $10,000 (or $2,500ish on F9).  You no longer have to spend boatloads of money on engineering the lightest parts with the strongest (expensive) materials in order to fit within a tight weight budget.  Since you can now launch 10x as much payload for the same cost, you don't have to worry quite as obsessively about failure rates, either.  It may also enable more of a "throw science at the wall and see what sticks" approach.

I watched the Smarter Every Day video about how they measured each layer of JWST's sun shield, within a few thousandths of an inch, in a clean room environment, just so they could validate their computer simulation model of how it would behave in space.  This effort took several people several years, and is a teeny tiny portion of the overall engineering cost of the project.  If SS/SH reduces costs as much as it's projected to, all sorts of lower-engineering-cost alternatives become viable.

If I were NRO, I would be salivating right now.  Apply JWST's folding mirror approach to a spy satellite, scale it up so it just barely fits in SS, and all of a sudden you're reading Putin's mail.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Interesting thought: related to current events - any chance ESA decides to license some rockets from SX to avoid reliance on RU engines?

[magnemoe]

3 hours ago, Terwin said:

Beyond this, how many launch consumers are waiting to send ~ 100t to LEO for less than $60m on Starship compared to ~60t to LEO for $90-150m for Heavy?

Hyping your next-gen product(that is both much better and much cheaper) does bad things to your current sales, even more so when the new product is expected to be available in a time-frame similar to the lead-time for both the current product and your ability to make use of it.

In that case you design for falcon heavy and switches to Starship if it become available before launch. Pretty sure spaceX is happy to transfer you  

 

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

That's interesting from a classic economics standpoint.  If they're 'leaving money on the table' - why?  Low prices often drive up demand; do you think that's what they're doing? *

On a different note; satellite internet services certainly stand to be a money maker, given humanity's insatiable need for connectivity... but I don't think it is yet a profit center.  It's also something that once saturated likely doesn't have much competition.  So in that sense, Starlink is likely a brilliant hedge against sunk costs moving forward to keep developing SS.

*Presumably they're making a profit, and clearly gaining in market-share... but if demand is there, just offering slightly lower prices along with their reliability makes them plenty of money (which is what I suspect will happen once Musk is no longer driving the show; you get the idealist/innovator out of the way - and the investors just care about profits).

Satellite internet services is also multiple layers, tire 0 is low bandwidth stuff who is still interesting for internet of things and down the line for broadcast, 1 Is iridium and similar, 2 is starlink, 3 is something who work with your phone perhaps you need an 10 cm antenna on your hat or backpack at the start.  

[Beccab]

NASA document on HLS!
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/20220003725/downloads/22 3 7 Kent IEEE paper.pdf

[CatastrophicFailure]

Wow, it’s cool to finally see some work on the “details” and interior, such that it is. And these pics are probably “ancient” and way behind what’s actually being done now, too. 

Still curious about the white paint on Lunar Starship, what’s the point? If they need thermal rejection, isn’t the bare shiny steel better? Insulating blankets, maybe?

[Beccab]

Also: https://www.redorbit.com/spacex-partners-with-university-of-arizona-for-aerospace-surgery-fellowship/

"SpaceX is partnering with the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix to offer a one-year fellowship to study space surgery. The fellowship offers training on austere surgical care, which involves surgery in extreme and resource-restrained environments like space.

It will also include six months of spaceflight-related research and activities with SpaceX. The person who receives the fellowship will work with flight surgeons to learn about participating in commercial spaceflight activities."

[StrandedonEarth]

26 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Wow, it’s cool to finally see some work on the “details” and interior, such that it is. And these pics are probably “ancient” and way behind what’s actually being done now, too. 

Still curious about the white paint on Lunar Starship, what’s the point? If they need thermal rejection, isn’t the bare shiny steel better? Insulating blankets, maybe?

Blankets might be better, yes. But white rejects more heat than shiny steel. 

[magnemoe]

36 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

Wow, it’s cool to finally see some work on the “details” and interior, such that it is. And these pics are probably “ancient” and way behind what’s actually being done now, too. 

Still curious about the white paint on Lunar Starship, what’s the point? If they need thermal rejection, isn’t the bare shiny steel better? Insulating blankets, maybe?

It will have two airlocks, also an second door who  an backup docking port to use if the large door or elevator fails. it will use an wire and winch to get the astronauts up. 
So its an very redundant system, still they might want to shorten it even with the excessive payload, I want two rovers, second as an rescue, and I want an drill rig for core samples. 

[RCgothic]

The airlock picture has been identified as the interior of the NT lander, oops lol.

[Beccab]

 

[tater]

 

[mikegarrison]

On 3/11/2022 at 11:15 AM, StrandedonEarth said:

Blankets might be better, yes. But white rejects more heat than shiny steel. 

Yeah, steel isn't as "shiny" as you think. It's actually a dull grey.

But perhaps more importantly, it has a low emittance. There are two important factors here -- how easily the material absorbs heat, and how easily it rejects heat. Steel isn't terrible in terms of absorbing a lot of heat, but it is pretty bad at rejecting it once it has absorbed it. So even though it doesn't absorb heat easily, it's still going to just get hotter and hotter and hotter because what it doesn't reflect, it keeps.

Meanwhile, the right white paint reflects a lot of heat, but it also emits heat easily too. So the net result is that white is better for avoiding heat buildup.

[Beccab]

 

[KSK]

And maybe one day, Starship/Superheavy will be iconic enough that all new rockets are compared to it, rather than the Saturn V.

This isn’t meant as a snark - I think it’s a tribute to the Saturn V engineers and how far out of time they were that their work is still the benchmark for cutting edge rocketry over 50 years later.

Edited March 13, 2022 by KSK

[tater]

Probably booster 8.

[SunlitZelkova]

How does SpaceX plan to deal with payload integration? Rapid reuse will not mean much if it still takes a month to mate the launch vehicle and spacecraft.

[tater]

3 minutes ago, SunlitZelkova said:

How does SpaceX plan to deal with payload integration? Rapid reuse will not mean much if it still takes a month to mate the launch vehicle and spacecraft.

It took them a couple hours to mate SS with SH the first time they used the chopsticks.

[RyanRising]

On 3/11/2022 at 11:48 AM, RCgothic said:

The airlock picture has been identified as the interior of the NT lander, oops lol.

Here’s a picture of the interior of the NT lander mockup:

Doesn’t look very similar to the airlock shown to me, besides being white and cylindrical.

[CatastrophicFailure]

2 hours ago, RyanRising said:

Here’s a picture of the interior of the NT lander mockup:

Doesn’t look very similar to the airlock shown to me, besides being white and cylindrical.

I think maybe the airlock is below that?

[RyanRising]

8 hours ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I think maybe the airlock is below that?

National Team’s lander didn’t have an airlock, they just depressurised the cabin. I think Dynetics’ proposal did that too.

Seeing as the lunar starship airlock we saw was shown by NASA as progress by SpaceX, and that it doesn’t look like the NT mock-up, I think it’s reasonable to think those are two different things.

Edited March 14, 2022 by RyanRising

[tater]

Just now, RyanRising said:

National Team’s lander didn’t have an airlock, they just depressurised the cabin. I think Dynetics’ proposal did that too.

This. Neither had/have an airlock

[RyanRising]

11 hours ago, tater said:

It took them a couple hours to mate SS with SH the first time they used the chopsticks.

In this case, SunlitZekova I believe was talking about mating the payload to Starship inside its fairing, which should be a very different process indeed

[tater]

1 hour ago, RyanRising said:

In this case, SunlitZekova I believe was talking about mating the payload to Starship inside its fairing, which should be a very different process indeed

Sure, but that will happen before stacking.

Rapid reflight will be for one "cargo" only—residual propellants.

[StrandedonEarth]

While Boosters are supposed to be capable of “many” flights per day (4?). As long as they have a lineup of loaded Starships ready to go….