Topic: Interesting stuff about SpaceX Starship (hate the name)

[Nemesis]

A youtube site,  There are non Starship and non SpaceX things as well. 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBNHHEoiSF8pcLgqLKVugOw/videos

[Nemesis]

SpaceX Employee on SN4 explosion: "Hey Boss, we blew up another one."
Elon Musk: "Well, don't just sit there, roll the next one out to the test stand!"

Not literally of course.  They had to dismantle the test stand and pretty much immediately began assembling another.  They have at least the next 3 in varying stages of assembly so the project isn't being much slowed down.  Amazing to see a rocket literally being developed with a production line of units ready to take up where the prior one fails. 

[Tulwar]

The Soviets weren't much on test stands.  They seemed to like figuring out what went wrong with their engines by the way they destroyed entire vehicles.

[Nemesis]

I think this is 4 that SpaceX has blown up in this line of prototypes.  First time I know of the stand going with it.  They were impressively fast at getting a new stand well underway, they had to have the material on hand just for it. 

[Nemesis]

I've known this for days but I find it impressive that SpaceX is not only being allowed to reuse the Crew Dragons capsules but allowed to launch them on reused Falcon 9 rockets. 

[Nemesis]

They did a 150 meter hop with a prototype using 1 off center engine.  Looked like a flying silo with no fins or nose cone.  Seemed really stable in flight.

[Nemesis]

They did a 2nd hop with a different prototype. 

They are preparing another (3 engines installed) for a hop up to 15 or so kilometers.  After some test fires they should install the nose cone on this one.  The engine section has its (operable) fins and the nose cone is having its fins installed.

[Nemesis]

Some thoughts.

The Eagle:

SpaceX has the Falcon and the Starship can be considered to be one of the several code names for a new rocket.  I would love it if SpaceX when finally launching a orbital mission were to formally rename it as The Eagle class. 

Space Station:

Mars colonizing via Starship requires a space station.  Why?  Starships are equipped with 6 engines, 3 for sea level use and 3 for vacuum.  The vacuum engines can handle Mars and Lunar landing and launch so why carry the sea level Raptors all the way to Mars and back?  So the extra engines should be dismounted at a space station and the Starships going beyond LEO should be dedicated to that.  Since they would no longer be able to land on Earth they could pick up cargo at the station.  It might even be best to have that station in Lunar orbit with fuel delivered from the Moon.  2 bonuses one the ships can take more cargo and two the extra engines get to be reused. 

How to build the station? 

Make a Starship engine section with no nose cone and mount a cargo module there.  The cargo module separates once final orbit is achieved and the engine module returns to Earth Base for reuse.  The cargo shell itself could become part of the station adding substantial volume.  It wouldn't take many launches to equal the size of the ISS. 

Back in the 70's one of the methods of building a station was to inflate a balloon and build up the station shell inside the balloon by successive coats of sprayed on aluminum.  So a cargo shell could carry up a balloon and the mechanism to inflate it as well as the spray mechanism and the first supply of aluminum.  Other loads could add more aluminum, balloons or fittings.  No reason this couldn't be used to build a spinning ring station. 

The Not so Heavy Booster (NsHB):

Even with Mars and Lunar fuel manufacturing there is the problem of minimizing the amount of fuel a Starship needs to take on in orbit.  So how about sending a Starship that is intended to have the cone/cargo section removed to use as a base building and have the engine/fuel section function as a booster for another starship for launch to orbit.  The booster returns to refuel on the surface and the Starship enters orbit either fully fueled or nearly so.  Fewer fueling launches.  Fueling Starships aren't needed in the same number.  Fueling Starships get the same boost so again they carry more fuel per trip. 

Remember lifting the Starship onto the NsHB is easier in the lower gravity of Mars or the Moon. 

Going Further Out:

For further out from Mars not only refuel in Mars orbit but rendezvous with a fully fuel NsHB in high Mars orbit and either the Starship can go further or carry even more cargo. 

Potentially you could have a StarshipM where a ship going further out is modified by having extra cylindrical sections added to the cargo/crew section to the nose cone or remove (in orbit) the engines and fuel tanks with the NsHB being permanently mounted as the engine section.

Why keep building Falcons?

Use a cut down Super Heavy booster (or maybe the NsHB) to replace the Falcon 9 first stage.  Fewer engines as Raptor is more powerful,   Standardized components between two classes of booster.   Even a Falcon heavy would just be a modified super heavy with an intermediate number of engines and fuel sections.    Of course and adapter would be needed to take current Falcon cargos like Crew/Cargo Dragons.

[Nemesis]

I saw a online comment comparing a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket that had been launched and landed 7 times and how SpaceX hadn't yet managed 7 launches and landing.  I'm not registered on the site so I couldn't point out the BIG difference.  The 6 time reused Falcons actually were used to launch payloads into orbit, Blue Origin as far as I know has yet to make an orbital launch.  Returning from an orbital launch of cargo for reuse is harder than a suborbital test flight such as New Shepard has been doing so their 7 launches and returns for a single New Shepard is less impressive to me by far. 

Bezos was far richer than Musk when they started their "competing" rocket companies yet to date all Bezos has accomplished is tests.  Wake me when they have actual successful orbital launches. 

[Nemesis]

SN8 is now fully stacked with the nose cone, flaps and 3 Raptor engines.  It may do a 15 km suborbital hop sometime this week. 

From what I see the internals of the cargo/crew area is just hollow and there are no hatches through which anything can be passed to do the completion.  So this will ultimately be a throw away prototype when testing is done.  Nothing yet to indicate if this is the one that will be used for the first full orbital flight with a Super Heavy Booster, but I doubt it. 

[Nemesis]

No hop but they did do an engine test.  They then replaced one of the engines.  Apparently they have 50+ raptor engines on hand.  More than enough for a super heavy booster and Starship.

[Nemesis]

Still no hop and Musk is hinting that anything can go wrong from it blowing up on the pad to cratering on landing. 

So is he:
1/ covering his ass in case something goes wrong
2/ does he have reason to expect disaster
3/ making sure that his success looks doubly good for beating the odds

??

[Nemesis]

More testing and some type of undefined engine issue, possibly a component melted.  They'll need to do some disassembly and possibly even redesign before repeating test burns.  Apparently SN9 is approaching readiness to replace SN8 if there is a "rapid unexpected disassembly event".  Rapid prototyping at work.

[Panzergranate]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiD8nGD0Q6w

[Nemesis]

Liked the video.  Followed links to other related ones.  Enjoyed the time.  Thanks.

[Nemesis]

Still haven't seen detail on the issue other other than the pneumatic system was knocked out by the failure and that didn't allow some controls to work including venting the methane tank in the tip of the nose cone, a burst disk activated which kept the ship from being destroyed.  They have not only installed a vent on the nose cone to allow them to bypass but have swapped out the failed Raptor engine already so it was likely either an assembly error or a manufacturing defect.

If you notice that I referred to Starship as "the ship" that is because unlike everything done in spacecraft before (even the shuttle) didn't in my opinion rank as a Space Ship but Starship does. 

After writing the preceding I heard on a video I was listening too that the 3 engine burn was powerful enough to break through the ceramic coating on the concrete below the ship.  Shards flew up and out at considerable speed and severed an avionics control cable.  This could be an issue when the starship has to launch from unimproved sites on the moon or Mars (my conclusion).  They are armoring the cables with steel pipe and putting cooling pipes in the concrete (reinforces my conclusions on unimproved sites).  So not a failure of the Raptor but of the pad. 

I also saw pictures of the Chinese Long March rocket.  Interesting that they seem to want the English speaking world to know about it as it is labeled bilingually.

[Panzergranate]

It needs to be capable of interstellar voyages to be called a "Starship".

It's like Yugo naming a car "Reliable".

[Nemesis]

That's why I'd like to see it renamed Eagle.

[Nemesis]

Apparently they are about to launch a Falcon for the 7th time.  Yet another record.

[Nemesis]

Some more thoughts:

Musk was asked some time ago what is next after the Starship/superheavy 9 meter diameter craft.  He said 18 meters.  Now was he joking or serious?  I don't know.  But lets consider the potentials if he was not joking. 

1st assumption: He scales up the diameter but not the height This would increase the volume of the Starship and booster 4 fold.

2nd assumption: Cargo capacity scales in a linear fashion.  Cargo becomes 600 tons (4x150)

3rd assumption: this craft sticks to LEO operations and we will call it Enterprise a pure cargo vessel (no crew)

4th assumption: Starship and the 18 meter Enterprise coexist

So what use is Enterprise?

1/ Space station building (the ISS is ~420 metric tons) Components much larger than anything yet built in space can be sent up.  Imagine how big of an inflatable Bigelow style structure could be emplaced. Building a station as an industrial facility gets that much easier.  Building a resort is also easier.  It could operate as a base for dispatching missions from smaller craft such as Starship (or even smaller versions of starship)

2/ Refueling Starship for longer distance missions.  Starship carries up to 1200 tons of fuel.  2 Enterprise flights refuel it to 100% or 8 starship flights to do the same.

3/ Building nuclear powered interplanetary space ships (call it Prometheus).  Just like with a station you could send up much larger components at a time.  A Prometheus could carry multiple Starships for use as landers on Mars or operate independently from the main ship in exploring the Asteroid belt or the moons of any of the gas giants.  Building such a vessel only using Starships would be much harder and more expensive.  A Prometheus would reduce flight time and avoid the currently planned "Death Dive" to land a Starship.