Starship News

[ruffdog]

Sounds like he plans to use steel plates that has water pumped through them INSTEAD of the flame trench and massive water flood.

 

[otlski]

As speculative as anyone else, but I believe that Starship launch is shutdown for a while now, perhaps up to a year before next near-orbital attempt. The environmental lawsuit is just the tip. I expect various civil cases, and the wrath of government bureaucrats to tie Musk up for months.

The original FAA delay smelled of politics; no cajoling from Musk seemed to impact the timeline. Now, claimed (and real) personal damages by locals, the general dislike of Musk and/or all space-related activities, the rich-guy hatred by constituents of both parties alike, will bog this down in the legal courts, courts of public opinion, and federal agencies.

I think Boca Chica will not be a viable long term launch option unless SpaceX can snatch up a lot more buffer land.

 

[ruffdog]

You have to admit that Musk taking short cuts on the launch site design was a huge blunder.

 

[JasperFrank]

It blew up, and NASA pays for another one.. Cheers!!!!

 

[WM75Guy]

He needs to move to the Kennedy Space Center. The locals hate that every time SpaceX runs a test, wants to launch, or just for some unknown reason, Hwy 4 is shut down for hours or days. From Brownsville, it is the only way to get to the beach south of the Brownsville Ship Channel. Many years ago in the 80s, we would drive to Boca Chica Beach, turn right, and drive all the way down the beach to the Rio Grande to fish. The Hwy 4 pavement literally ends at the beach. The Mexican nationals would be fishing on the other side, sometimes no more than 100 yards away. You would see an occasional Border Patrol vehicle but not a big presence. Border crossings were not that big of a problem. Now the launch facility is just before the road ends, plus you have to drive past Starbase and the tracking station. The road is tore all to pieces and traffic is bad.

 

[MTGreen]

"Rapid unscheduled disassembly"

 

[ruffdog]

In the description of this video, it gives links to ebay sales of concrete rubble from the failed launch pad.

 

[ruffdog]

Here is a rendering of the next launch pad design with the water cooled steel pad.

Renderings of the SpaceX Water Cooled Steel Plate | NextBigFuture.com

 

[sd455dan]

Moving forward on water cooling

Flight termination tank test

Engine testing 6 Raptors on ship 25 maybe this weekend

Maybe a launch possibility with ship 24 or 25
Super Heavy Booster 7 or 11 possibly

6/15 - 12/15/23
Hopefully as a next flight window

 

[ArlyA]

Practical Engineering by Grady Hillhouse did a great video about the launchpad failures. I like this guys videos.

 

[ruffdog]

Looks like a giant money pit to me.

 

[sd455dan]

Looks like a giant money pit to me.

Speed costs Money.

How Fast do they want to Go?



LOTS of Progress at Starbase

The stage zero is being repaired at an impressive rate.

Well on their way to launching the next Starship #25, " if " SpaceX can get launch approval.

Lawsuits pending over the concrete excavation.

 

[ruffdog]

Speed costs Money.

How Fast do they want to Go?


The stage zero is being repaired at an impressive rate.

Just say'un...It was also "impressive" how fast the pad came apart during the last launch.

 

[sd455dan]

Just say'un...It was also "impressive" how fast the pad came apart during the last launch.

Yes a Successful
Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly
of the concrete base.

I bet the ground shaking and sound of the launch would have been quite an experience for those actually around Boca Chica with all that power being expended. I would Love to see a launch, but driving there is a Long way.

 

[ArlyA]

As Grady Hillhouse discribes, it wasn't really built to not come apart. It was under built.

 

[ponytug]

As Grady Hillhouse discribes, it wasn't really built to not come apart. It was under built.

Waaaay under built in my opinion.

Plan B looks almost worse, for basic physics reasons.

SpaceX is proposing to put around 17-20 million pounds of force onto a flat plate with holes in it. And manage to pump enormous quantities of water through the holes; NASA's system manages 500,000gpm, perpendicular to the engine thrust pattern, for lower thrust launch payloads. So that puts SpaceX in the 1-2Mgpm range through all of those holes, with far more back pressure because the SpaceX design has holes that have the entirety of the thrust acting as back pressure.​

I think that NASA has the right design idea on this one...

You read it here...

 

[sd455dan]

Waaaay under built in my opinion.

Plan B looks almost worse, for basic physics reasons.

SpaceX is proposing to put around 17-20 million pounds of force onto a flat plate with holes in it. And manage to pump enormous quantities of water through the holes; NASA's system manages 500,000gpm, perpendicular to the engine thrust pattern, for lower thrust launch payloads. So that puts SpaceX in the 1-2Mgpm range through all of those holes, with far more back pressure because the SpaceX design has holes that have the entirety of the thrust acting as back pressure.​

I think that NASA has the right design idea on this one...

You read it here...

SpaceX surely has computer modeled it..??..

 

[ponytug]

SpaceX surely has computer modeled it..??..

I'm not a formally trained engineer and I don't play one on TV.

I'm sure some bright minds did model something...just like they previously modeled Stage 0, with the result that there were large concrete chunks a hundred plus feet in the air.

The amount of force required to send an 18" chunk of concretely cleanly through the corner of a shipping container is impressive. Seeing the much much larger pieces flying 1-200' in the air in the launch video is amazing, and definitely makes me wonder how many of the engine failures were caused by debris ricocheting around at launch.

"GIGO"

Just an opinion, fed by observational data and years of experience.

All the best,

Peter

 

[MossRoad]

...

"GIGO"

...

I said that in a meeting at work once when someone asked why something happened. They were not happy.

 

[ruffdog]

SpaceX surely has computer modeled it..??..

The first time or the now revamped version?