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Look who also thinks this is a good idea SpaceX bought two oil rigs to convert into offshore launch pads for Starship
CEO Elon Musk previously revealed that the company was planning to build floating spaceports for Starship operations, after a job ad was posted looking for someone to oversee their development. Now, SpaceX has purchased two oil rigs to convert for this purpose
The rigs were originally designed for offshore deep water drilling, up to a maximum depth of 8,500 feet. They're currently located in Brownsville, a port city on the Gulf of Mexico near SpaceX's Starship development site in Brownsville, Texas.
These vessels measure 240 feet by 255 feet and will in theory be repurposed to support launching of Starship (and perhaps return landing, given their reusable design). Thus far, SpaceX has been launching and landing its Starship prototypes on land at its Boca Chica site, though it's only done lower altitude flights so far. The company also operates two drone ships, which are 300 feet long by around 170 feet wide, as autonomous floating landing pads for its current Falcon 9 rocket boosters.
Setting up manufacturing on the rigs would not seem to be all that hard, Electrolysis for sea water gets fuel and oxygen. Sunny oceans mean lots of solar energy to power operations....
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For SpaceNut re new topic ...
Thanks for opening this new way to track the adventures of SpaceX !!!
It is possible you may recall that FriendOfQuark had some thoughts about oil rigs, saved (somewhere) in the forum archive.
This is certainly an unexpected new direction for owners of now-idle oil rigs to look to unload their now useless properties.
(th)
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Was searching for Oil rig and another term is derrick...
In the power creation topic we swerved into the gulf of Mexico for capturing with to fuel production from sea water...
http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 64#p164464
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