Do y'all think the Space-X Super heavy/Star ship would work out?

[kerbiloid]

They may revive the old idea.

Spoiler

(Then we need Infernal Robotics to mod)

Edited February 10, 2019 by kerbiloid

[DDE]

16 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

Is someone suggesting to add a fully functional dragon v2 into a cargo starship?

Evidently. It has all the required functionality, and enough crew capacity for early missions to Moon and Mars. A Mars mission will likely eat up the rest of the cargo space with habitat equipment.

Or... or... we could create a vertical stack of several Dragons!

28 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

They may revive the old idea.

It's unnecessary due to vehicle configuration and width.

Also, I love the look of a crew transfer tunnel blister.

[kerbiloid]

6 minutes ago, DDE said:

Evidently. It has all the required functionality, and enough crew capacity for early missions to Moon and Mars. A Mars mission will likely eat up the rest of the cargo space with habitat equipment.

Or... or... we could create a vertical stack of several Dragons!

After landing the rockets on a barge ADS, a ship with a trampoline net, and a 1950s style steel rocket, we hardly can get to wonder...

[Xd the great]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

Or... or... we could create a vertical stack of several Dragons!

NASA continues screaming in agony

Imagine starship releasing 3 dragon capsules to dock with the ISS.

"Dragon 1 Big Brother has been released from the ISS, Dragon 2 Big Brother commencing docking procedure."

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, DDE said:

we could create a vertical stack of several Dragons!

 

20 minutes ago, Xd the great said:

Imagine starship releasing 3 dragon capsules to dock with the ISS.

A long time ago, when KSP was 0.1x...
 

Spoiler

 

[DDE]

12 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

A long time ago, when KSP was 0.1x...

I think they still have that as their hab design.

[kerbiloid]

18 minutes ago, DDE said:

I think they still have that as their hab design.

That was Mars One, so unlikely :(.

But KSP remembers.

Spoiler

 

[Starman4308]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

They may revive the old idea.

  Hide contents

(Then we need Infernal Robotics to mod)

That... actually gives me an idea. I'd been assuming a Dragon mounted in the top, with a pyrotechnically separated panel in case it needed to separate in a hurry. But what if... we bolted a Dragon to the side of the Starship? Relatively minimal modifications to the Starship, less damage to the Starship if the Dragon separates in a low-stress environment (such as if the Starship heat shield isn't fully trusted yet)...

It'd play havoc with the aerodynamics, yes, but with the sheer excess of payload capacity and non-trivial gimbaling capacity on the Superheavy, it might be doable.

[sevenperforce]

6 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Dragon has an integrated service module in lower part.  Now add that the side of starship and the escape pod not the bottom will be heated during normal reentry. 

That's the problem -- how to create an escape capsule that still works in nominal entry.

[DDE]

26 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

That's the problem -- how to create an escape capsule that still works in nominal entry.

Hm. With such a challenge, my old gal the Martin 410 comes to mind.

If you use two of such lifting body RVs, you’d only need to replace the ablator on one following a nominal entry - or perhaps you could even equip them with a non-perishable TPS of some kind, and/or link them to the main Starship coolant loop.

Finally, if you don’t mind completely losing the Starship after LES activation, locating all of your pods on the leeward side, with their single-use ablator inside the main hull, is probably the best option.

[sevenperforce]

Another view:

I wonder...if we imagine ripping that giant hatch off entirely? The "crew Starship" would comprise a standard cargo LV with a drop-in hab and crew vehicle, with no other modifications to the OML. A vehicle could be validated for crew launch by multiple cargo launches and then "retired" back to cargo service only once a certain number of crew launches were completed.

With that kind of volume, I wonder if a wider (8-9 meter) Dream Chaser style crew vehicle, mounted inside that space, would be workable. Somewhere between Dream Chaser and a truncated version of the lenticular Apollo design. The forward canards of Starship could even be incorporated as the wings of the escape capsule for passive stability at abort.

[Rakaydos]

33 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Another view:

I wonder...if we imagine ripping that giant hatch off entirely? The "crew Starship" would comprise a standard cargo LV with a drop-in hab and crew vehicle, with no other modifications to the OML. A vehicle could be validated for crew launch by multiple cargo launches and then "retired" back to cargo service only once a certain number of crew launches were completed.

With that kind of volume, I wonder if a wider (8-9 meter) Dream Chaser style crew vehicle, mounted inside that space, would be workable. Somewhere between Dream Chaser and a truncated version of the lenticular Apollo design. The forward canards of Starship could even be incorporated as the wings of the escape capsule for passive stability at abort.

Sounds reasonable, if you ignore the elephant in the room for any abort system. What kind of explosive bolts work when you need it, but not when the thing they're attached to is 1200 degrees? The Hot Structure design (where needed heat shield performance is reduced by using structural members as a heat sink) means SPaceX is using pure mechanical systems... but can a mechanical system be fast enough to handle an abort scenerio?

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

Let me suggest a probably new idea of a mass escape system for BFS.

So, the BFS nose contains a passenger cabin.

Let's make a pole along the cabin longitudal axis, and attach the individual seats radially to the pole with individual hinges, so they can always align along the acceleration vector.

When something happens, we uncover the top of the cabin, and ignite the spin engines.
The pole starts quickly rotating.

Spoiler

Once the pole is rotating enough fast, we detach the seats from the pole, so they get safely spread out of the cabin by the centrifugal force. Then they use individual chutes.

We can name it Rotary Escape System.

 

Edited February 10, 2019 by kerbiloid

[sevenperforce]

35 minutes ago, Rakaydos said:

Sounds reasonable, if you ignore the elephant in the room for any abort system. What kind of explosive bolts work when you need it, but not when the thing they're attached to is 1200 degrees? The Hot Structure design (where needed heat shield performance is reduced by using structural members as a heat sink) means SPaceX is using pure mechanical systems... but can a mechanical system be fast enough to handle an abort scenerio?

Notionally, the contingency abort vehicle would be mated to the remainder of the cabin module in much the same way that Dream Chaser was to mate to the top of an Atlas V or to the ISS: through the tail. Other connections, like the external hydraulic loops and prop feed lines, would have standard breakaway valves. The abort vehicle would contain head pressure bottles topped by the main system loops to fuel RCS (for nominal mission use) and hot-gas meth-ox thrusters for escape, ignited in the same way as the Raptors. 300 m/s should be enough.

If the forward canards double as wings, they can cock back for stability and then use thrusters or splashdown for landing.

[Rakaydos]

2 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Notionally, the contingency abort vehicle would be mated to the remainder of the cabin module in much the same way that Dream Chaser was to mate to the top of an Atlas V or to the ISS: through the tail. Other connections, like the external hydraulic loops and prop feed lines, would have standard breakaway valves. The abort vehicle would contain head pressure bottles topped by the main system loops to fuel RCS (for nominal mission use) and hot-gas meth-ox thrusters for escape, ignited in the same way as the Raptors. 300 m/s should be enough.

If the forward canards double as wings, they can cock back for stability and then use thrusters or splashdown for landing.

Oh. And here I thought you were describing a simple "crew payload module" for the chomper. the problems of which center on getting the chomper door out of the way.

But now it seems you're going back to the "saw Starship in half and make 1 of the halves a mini starship" plan.

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, Rakaydos said:

Oh. And here I thought you were describing a simple "crew payload module" for the chomper. the problems of which center on getting the chomper door out of the way.

But now it seems you're going back to the "saw Starship in half and make 1 of the halves a mini starship" plan.

Not at all. It's definitely still "crew payload module for the chomper" but with the the "chomper door" problem eliminated by detaching the chomper door altogether and making the escape portion of the crew payload (the "Dragon 3") integrate with the vehicle OML.

[Spaceception]

Feel like this fits better in this thread. I came across it in the SpaceX facebook group - I only started reading it, fyi.

Spoiler

 

 

[Nothalogh]

On 1/20/2019 at 7:56 PM, magnemoe said:

It missing parts like an escape system  

 

So did STS and Gemini

[YNM]

On 2/11/2019 at 12:47 AM, sevenperforce said:

I wonder...if we imagine ripping that giant hatch off entirely?

 

On 2/11/2019 at 1:24 AM, Rakaydos said:

What kind of explosive bolts work when you need it, but not when the thing they're attached to is 1200 degrees?

I was going to suggest an even crazier method :

The entire hinged section is the manned compartment.

[sevenperforce]

On 3/16/2019 at 11:57 PM, YNM said:

I was going to suggest an even crazier method :

The entire hinged section is the manned compartment.

With or without the hinge?

[kerbiloid]

A collapsible habitat.

Spoiler

 

[YNM]

25 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

With or without the hinge?

With.

If anything goes wrong,  you just have to undo the hinge - and that's it, abandon ship.

[sevenperforce]

1 hour ago, YNM said:

With.

If anything goes wrong,  you just have to undo the hinge - and that's it, abandon ship.

You need extra rockets for 0-0 abort.

You also need a single-use ablative heat shield underneath the hinged portion.

You need a way to break the hinge and blow free of the front end of the ship, because it comes up in a lip.

If your entire crew section is the capsule, then you need massive chutes large enough to land it safely; if not, then you need an internal interface to get into the permanent portion of the ship, but ones that can be severed instantly in an abort.

All of it is verrrry nontrivial.

[YNM]

53 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

rockets... single-use ablative heat shield... break the hinge and blow free of the front end of the ship... massive chutes...

All of it is verrrry nontrivial.

Yes, all of those will be needed.

No, I didn't say they're trivial matter.

But I suppose it highlights the difficulties in truly making mass launch of people into space to be a normal thing. We already freaked out because 346 people died from 2 crashes out of 376 airplanes, all of which combined already conducted hundreds of dozens of flight, probably carrying hundreds of thousands of people - that gives a ballpark of 99.9% reliability per passenger. Would we accept lower reliability for manned spaceflight ?

Edited March 19, 2019 by YNM

[magnemoe]

7 hours ago, YNM said:

Yes, all of those will be needed.

No, I didn't say they're trivial matter.

But I suppose it highlights the difficulties in truly making mass launch of people into space to be a normal thing. We already freaked out because 346 people died from 2 crashes out of 376 airplanes, all of which combined already conducted hundreds of dozens of flight, probably carrying hundreds of thousands of people - that gives a ballpark of 99.9% reliability per passenger. Would we accept lower reliability for manned spaceflight ?

In the next 25 years yes, as we know its an high risk activity similar to climbing Mont Everest. 
All know that mountain climbing is dangerous, same with many other high risk sports. 

Airplanes on the other hand are supposed to be safe.
Note that an lack of an crew escape system is my main issue with the Starship. Yes I know it has B-52 level engine out capabilities, but an crash of the dear moon project will hurt. 
But main objective as in starlink will not be much impacted by this.