Well that was a bit of an underwhelming event. The biggest news probably being that if the EIA is quite negative they'll move to CC. This obviously throws the usefulness of BC into some doubt. But then again they were never going to be able to do the spaceship launch's at scale from BC anyway. I'm still curious as to how/where they plan to launch them offshore. I'd agree that he didn't answer Eric's questions.
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If I recall correctly, Elon said that even after FAA launch approval BC would primarily be used for R&D anyway, not for launching high numbers of Starships for trips to Mars.
Elon talked about the ocean platforms being 20 to 30 miles offshore so as to minimize the noise of launches and landings. I assume that a booster and a ship will be barged out to a platform, hoisted up and then lowered onto the launch mount. So the platforms would be near the location where Starships are being produced.
But the offshore platform will also need to be supplied with vast quantities of CH4 and O2. That’s a lot of barge operations. You could have O2 production done on the platform but that takes a lot of energy and there won’t be space for fields of solar panels. All the CH4 will need to be brought out to the platform.
I see offshore launch operations as being logistically difficult and costly and question whether they will ever become a reality at scale. Seems far simpler to do launches from land in places far from towns and cities. Even operating from KSC is going to be complex because Elon wants to do multiple Starship launches per day and there are already other launches by other companies and organizations happening regularly at CC and KSC. And when Blue Origin starts launching that will add to the traffic.
When regular launches do start at BC, even if they happen only once a week, I expect that all the remaining village residents will give up and move. I do wonder how loud the launches will be for Brownsville residents. I’m sure they will be audible. 33 Raptors at full thrust is going to make a hell of a racket.
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What about the Baja? Is there no way to do from Mexico? Is it not enough flight over the baja gulf? Most of that coast is pretty desolate.
Otherwise we are looking at what, the far northern Hawaian islands, like midway? Not sure Midway is large enough to launch and host any population.
Otherwise we are looking at what, the far northern Hawaian islands, like midway? Not sure Midway is large enough to launch and host any population.
Agree on the noise. I just can't see it being something that works beyond a few test flights. After that they need to find a home. I don't even see CC being a workable solution.
petit_bateau
Active Member
It is no big deal to run gas pipelines and risers and power lines out to the sort of floating offshore platforms they have purchased. They seem to have bought some old semi sub drill ships (MODUs in the lingo) but there are closely related variants that act as production vessels, and they have these piping etc systems. A mixture of rigid and flexible (ish) connections that would be capable of handling much more than is required for a typical launch even. So produce the CH4 and O2 onshore and launch offshore. I imagine they'd have an offshore subsea pipeline & power manifold about 20-30nm out, and then moor a series of these semisubs in a row at about a 1-5 mile spacing, and run a set of connections to the manifold. That way if a wipe-out event happens on one semi you just shut the remote operated valves at the manifold on the seabed, and the CH4 and O2 inventory to feed the incident is limited.
Lifting an empty Starship or Super Heavy off a barge and onto a semisub with the correct equipment will be do-able. Yes, you won't want to do it in the Bay Of Biscay on a windy day with a lot of swell, but it can be done. Offshore workforces and offshore tools are very used to this stuff, not just the oil & gas folks but also the wind turbine folks.
This comment applies to any of the point-to-point terminal locations around the world.
petit_bateau
Active Member
I listened to the briefing this morning. Much more realistic timeframes. I was struck by the two things at the top of his to-do list being the optimisation of the Raptors (vary coolant fluid dispersion and max thrust w/o melting); and the FSD challenge. So the dogs that didn't bark were 4680 batteries and everything else. Especially 4680 batteries. Yay. Not a rate-limiting constraint at present. Whooopee.
Originated in SLS thread.
What blows my mind is that this is the early version of Starship and SH. Given time, I don't think we'll see quite as dramatic improvement as we did with Falcon 9 but I have little doubt that it will be improved. I can see that every aspect of the design will be fine tuned and even made purpose built for different types of missions once the design is proven out. We've seen the fine tuning done on F9 to the point where it has proven to be utterly reliable. The first landing happened SIX years ago.
The next 5 years will tell the story imo. In 5 years we'll know how reliable it is, how safe it is, how much it cost per launch.... all of it. We may not even land on the Moon by then, let alone Mars, but I'm pretty confident that by then we'll know what we've got.... whether a self-sustaining city is in the cards, or a pipedream.
There is a whole industry (or industries) of people waiting eagerly for this whole dream of Musk to crash and burn, so that they can do back slapping and say, 'I told you so', and go back to the ways they were doing earlier. This also includes politicians and media alike who stand to gain from his failure.
100% agree. Fortunately Elons got the resources to make it happen regardless. He'll brute force it if need be.
What I'm looking forward to is someone confronting politician's that backed SLS having to eat their hats. I'm so sick of hearing how essential it is and how nothing else can provide what it does.
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Money, (donors and lobbyists), controls both the media and politicians.
I agree. And SpaceX accomplished all that with F9 when it was a startup operation. Now the company has broad expertise and deep institutional knowledge and I expect it to iterate and improve Starship design even more rapidly. The next decade is going to be amazing…
Yup. Hell of a time to be alive. I actually feel bad for the last couple generations.... 50 years of people who had such great expectations for what would follow Apollo. Then nothing but meh from the shuttle and ISS.
And the companies themselves, via more reputable streams like shareholders.
Before SpaceX, every rocket company in the world had either been a) state run or b) a public company (or c...more or less both...). In all cases, long OBE Apollo-era logic like "failure is not an option" has been a driving force for rocket development programs. The result of that kind of charter is hyper systems engineering a vehicle to the point where its reliability and performance on day 1 are more or less set for life. Certainly incremental updates are a constant (pretty much every rocket--or at least the commercial ones--are snowflakes), but the cumulative product level impact from those improvements are pretty inconsequential. Only when major technology options are implemented down the timeline (like Ariane 5 going from the original hypergol upper stage to the cryo upper stage) does performance really change.
SpaceX has basically been the antithesis of the approach. Most of the industry thought the performance and price of the original F9 was laughable, but as is self evident now, at least to at least most of the new entrants in the industry, the iterate on flight vehicles approach is clearly a more efficient method of bringing a new vehicle to market.
What remains to be seen is how the SPAC-with-the-devil growth model that blew up in the space industry last year impacts some of the new entrants ability to...uhh...grow. ASTR clearly has seen what happens when a launch fails. RKLB, SPCE...are they in the same boat? Will investors inhibit their ability to maintain the fail fast and iterate philosophy that most other tech companies have been doing for years? What's Relativity going to do? Firefly? Stay tuned, I guess...
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