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#726 2020-06-18 16:37:11

Oldfart1939
Member
Registered: 2016-11-26
Posts: 2,451

Re: Starship is Go...

"For GW Johnson ... I decided to go back to 2009, when you started ExRocketman, and was delighted to find your remarks critical of Nixon for his inexplicable decision to kill the pending Apollo flights.  I read somewhere that he was afraid the success would not continue, and he would have lost crew on his watch."

A point that no one here has picked up on, was Tricky Dick's undying hatred of John F. Kennedy. He was unable to kill the Moon Landing program any earlier because of the popular support from the man in the street. It wasn't a safety consideration, but rooted in his emotional dislike of all things Kennedy. So...when fingers are pointed at who seriously killed off any Mars missions in the 1980's, Tricky Dick leads the pack.

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#727 2020-06-18 18:09:49

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,431

Re: Starship is Go...

The evanescent claim that I am not a crook still rings from the past...

Starship much like sls is a big ship once flying that is in search of uses for missions as only the government and rich can afford to fund one going...
While the moon is promising its still not a trip to mars as that a much larger scale factor for everything and the kitchen sink to through at such a mission for either ship.

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#728 2020-06-19 07:12:42

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Starship is Go...

So that's why he ended the Vietnam War...

Oldfart1939 wrote:

"For GW Johnson ... I decided to go back to 2009, when you started ExRocketman, and was delighted to find your remarks critical of Nixon for his inexplicable decision to kill the pending Apollo flights.  I read somewhere that he was afraid the success would not continue, and he would have lost crew on his watch."

A point that no one here has picked up on, was Tricky Dick's undying hatred of John F. Kennedy. He was unable to kill the Moon Landing program any earlier because of the popular support from the man in the street. It wasn't a safety consideration, but rooted in his emotional dislike of all things Kennedy. So...when fingers are pointed at who seriously killed off any Mars missions in the 1980's, Tricky Dick leads the pack.


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#729 2020-06-19 11:58:06

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,797
Website

Re: Starship is Go...

Nixon was elected in 1968 and re-elected in 1972.  The Vietnam War ended (for us) in 1974,  and for South Vietnam 1975.  It could have ended a year or two earlier,  but Nixon and Kissinger actually prolonged it for domestic political advantage by sabotaging one of the negotiation meetings with the North Vietnamese. 

I do remember the parody re-election slogan for the 1972 election very well,  just because it was so funny:  "Don't change Dicks in the middle of a screw;  Richard M. Nixon in 72".  People were chanting that quite frequently,  most of them his opposition.

Nixon's 1972 executive order did not just kill Apollo,  it specifically forbade human spaceflight outside low Earth orbit.  NASA at that time had the manned Mars mission on the books for 1989,  having been pushed back two oppositions from the original 1983 date at the time of Apollo 11.  The baseline enabling propulsion for that mission was a NERVA-powered upper stage for the Saturn-5,  replacing the S-IVB. 

It was just completing ground readiness testing,  and the next big test was to be a flight test on the Saturn-5.   All that died because Nixon's order killed the Mars mission.  NASA killed NERVA because "who needs the engine if we aren't going to go?"

Electing somebody of sufficient character not to screw everything up just to exact petty political revenge,  really does make a difference.  Nixon hated Kennedy precise because of the TV debate outcome in 1960.  Unfortunately,  as recent years prove,  we Americans do NOT learn very well from history. 

Mr. Trump's hatred of everything-Obama comes from being made fun of over the "birther" nonsense,  at an Obama speaking engagement where he could not respond.  Trump's announcement he was running followed soon after.  The rest is all history we have seen before,  but had forgotten,  unfortunately.

Good versus bad personal character does make a real difference in the White House.

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#730 2020-06-19 16:38:30

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,431

Re: Starship is Go...

We have a ship capable of building on orbit structures to pave the way for the monster sized starship but without using the tools we have we a in a holding pattern.

Even when starship is made as light as it can the bfr first stage booster must be ever so much be capable of supporting that huge mass on its structure.

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#731 2020-06-20 03:40:22

elderflower
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Registered: 2016-06-19
Posts: 1,262

Re: Starship is Go...

SpaceNut wrote:

We have a ship capable of building on orbit structures to pave the way for the monster sized starship but without using the tools we have we a in a holding pattern.

Even when starship is made as light as it can the bfr first stage booster must be ever so much be capable of supporting that huge mass on its structure.

The tanks of the booster will have to be pressurised before the second stage loads come on the top, when the assembly goes vertical, in order to prevent the tank walls from buckling. That isn't difficult in principal but you need to maintain the pressure whilst fuelling and you must not contaminate the tanks.

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#732 2020-06-20 07:11:04

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 7,818

Re: Starship is Go...

Spacenut and Elderflower,

Your posts have prompted me to think of some potential methods of recovering from and avoiding a total cascade failure of a stack.

It potentially would add costs to implement the notions, but I might save money, as if they worked, a lesser loss might result.

As a curtesy I will do in it the Alternate BFR topic, some time this weekend, I expect.

A article I read was claiming that the Starship system may cost only as ~much as 1.28% of what the NASA system may cost.  I think then they would have a margin to expend, to provide for more safety and recovery potential.

Done.


End smile

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#733 2020-06-21 17:22:51

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,431

Re: Starship is Go...

GW Johnson wrote:

Add another title to my "exrocketman" list for the category of "Reverse Engineering Spacex Vehicles & Engines".  That would be "2020 Starship/Superheavy Estimates for Mars",  dated today at 21 June 2020. 

Turns out Starship really can enter low Mars orbit,  and still successfully land,  but only with a fairly trivial payload,  and only from a Hohmann min-energy transfer orbit.  Anything heavier or faster is a guaranteed fatal crash.

So much for aborting a direct landing,  if something like a giant dust storm with high winds strikes while on the way to Mars.

I have yet to look at Starship to the moon with the newer 2020 numbers,  but I will.  And I will tell you when I do. 

GW

That means along the trip we need to convert the co2 and waste water into fuel to allow for a better mission performance or there needs to be a mars landing refuel depot in mars orbit to satisfy that task once getting into low mars orbit.

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#734 2020-06-21 17:36:10

tahanson43206
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Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,383

Re: Starship is Go...

For SpaceNut re #733

I'd like to try to encourage you to develop your idea .... the expedition (one ship or many) will have lots of time and ** lots ** of sunlight to harness on the way to (and from) Mars.  The ships that will remain in space can be fitted with permanent solar arrays and light reflectors of various kinds and shapes.

The products of human activity can be reprocessed just as you suggest.

However, there ** is ** another capability that I've tried to bring up before, and which (I think) deserves occasional repetition.  The expedition can include tanks of water for radiation protection and for use as needed by the crew.  That water can be electrolyzed to fill storage containers with hydrogen and oxygen, and those components can then be liquefied to top off the landing vehicle tanks.

In addition, those components can be fed into fuel cells to answer ongoing power needs for the human quarters, and for ship operations, as a supplement to batteries which need to be kept topped up throughout the voyage.

I ran across an article recently, reporting on Toyota's continuing collaboration with a Japanese manufacturer of utility boats.  This particular article was about use of fuel cells to increase the range of utility boats while eliminating noxious fumes from waterways adjacent to cities.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-06-21 17:36:43)

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#735 2020-06-21 18:05:10

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,431

Re: Starship is Go...

The first hurdle for starship on order orbital refueling since you only have a 100 to 150 mt of fuel to fill a tank that needs 1200mt is the main problem for mars before the starship can go to mars. Next up is the solar on mars surface which even with a landed cargo of the same is problematic for the number of panels and batteries to make a single ship refillable from insitu resources. We estimates that 5 ships were required just for the batteries and panels to accomplish that task. That is why starship currently fails.
I think GW did the same for the bfr tanker starships counting and why we need something else first.

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#736 2020-06-23 16:43:00

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Starship is Go...

Oh sheet...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cu5YKGrZbYw

Another Starship bites the dust...well, one of their tanks does.


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#737 2020-06-23 16:48:17

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,431

Re: Starship is Go...

I finally can watch a video if I do not do it to often eating up my data allotment.

The ship begins to oscillates before harmonics take over and it shutters, tilts and bursts from the internal pressure that builds from boiloff...

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#738 2020-06-24 06:56:59

elderflower
Member
Registered: 2016-06-19
Posts: 1,262

Re: Starship is Go...

You would think that nobody knew anything about cryogenic tanks and that no such thing had ever been built before. Meanwhile LNG is shuttled around the world by ship and every hospital and innumerable labs and industrial undertakings have LOX and LN2 tanks and vaporisers.

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#739 2020-06-24 08:22:38

GW Johnson
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From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,797
Website

Re: Starship is Go...

Two points:

(1) The difference between a ground cryo tank and a flight cryo tank is thin vs thick material.  The flight tank must be lightweight,  or it cannot fly.  But that does make it very fragile.  The least mistake or flaw is going to cause trouble. 

(2) Spacex has chosen the path of try-fail-try again to learn what they must learn about how to manufacture these things.  Inherent in that will be spectacular failures,  because this is flightweight-type hardware. 

Analysis:

They are learning the hard way that rocket science ain't just science.  It's only about 40% science (the part that was ever written down),  it's about 50% art (the part that was never written down),  and it's about 10% blind dumb luck.  And that's in production work with a test-proven design.  The art and luck portions are higher in development work,  which is what they are doing with Starship.

They'll have to go down this same path with Superheavy.  Brace yourselves for it. It's a lot bigger.  I watched pretty much the same stuff decades ago with Atlas,  Centaur,  and the rest.  Between 1955 to 1965 the track record for the whole industry was pretty poor. Because nobody knew any better.  About most anything.

The "art" portion of rocket "science" was never written down because (1) no one wanted to pay for writing it down,  or (2) it was to be kept as a trade secret,  or both.  It got passed on from experienced hand to newbies one-on-one on-the-job,  but only if there were experienced hands around to fill that teaching need. "Experienced hands" are usually 55+ in age. Everybody else with enough experience to know better (45-55 years old) is usually way too busy to teach anybody.  I know,  I've seen it. 

Spacex hires no one over 45 years of age.  Their competitors aren't going to give this art to them.  So they have to recreate it from scratch the hard way.  Which is exactly why they are using the "try-fail-try again" approach.  And exactly why their path is littered with busted tanks.

Perfectly understandable,  really.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2020-06-24 09:14:04)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#740 2020-06-24 08:23:03

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,383

Re: Starship is Go...

For elderflower re #738

Your comment in this post inspired me to find out a bit more about standard practice for cryogenic tanks.  I'm assuming that tanks that have to withstand 7 atmospheres or more are outside the norm, but had no data to go by.  I'm inviting forum members to fill out the data that may exist for cryogenic tanks.

I did pick up the distinction between psi and psig (guage).  That distinction is the difference between the internal and external pressures.  That is a useful distinction, for a tank that is intended to serve in vacuum.

Here is one snippet ...

350 psig
Cryogenic liquid cylinders
They come equipped with safety relief valves and rupture discs to protect the cylinders from pressure buildup. These containers operate at pressures up to 350 psig and have capacities between 80 and 450 liters of liquid.

Liquid nitrogen - Air Products

14.7 is a figure offered by www.britannica.com for sea level air pressure on Earth.  That would equate to 23.8 atmospheres inside the tanks quoted above.

However, those tanks are not built to fly in a vehicle.

I would venture a guess that the number of individual humans who have ever attempted reaching the cryogenic pressures needed for space craft while at the same time maintaining the lowest possible weight is in the low hundreds, world wide, and most of them are no longer working.

I am frequently reminded of the perishability of human knowledge. 

Assuming Elon's team achieves mastery of the art needed for this application, they will temporarily own whatever skills are involved.

Every last one of them will eventually retire.  Finding people able to maintain the frenetic delivery pace Elon is calling for will be a constant challenge.

Call for Contribution: I would appreciate anyone with a bit of time finding more information that might be available on cryogenic tanks needed for space craft propulsion, as distinct from commercial tanks which have unlimited mass budgets and much lower requirements.

(th)

Last edited by tahanson43206 (2020-06-24 08:24:17)

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#741 2020-06-24 08:39:09

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,797
Website

Re: Starship is Go...

Tahanson43206:

An awful lot of what is in the SAE boiler code applies to cryo-tanks,  just not everything. 

First up is tank mounts to keep the shell loaded ONLY by its internal pressurization,  not any externally-applied loads.  The "thrust puck" violates that.

Second is sizing basic shell thickness from material strength AT TEMPERATURE with the hoop stress equation,  with due allowance for weld strength knockdown factors.  Going hot,  stress capability is usually the critical item.  Going cold,  it is strain. Spacex's tank structures have to go both hot and cold.  That's a VERY tough row to hoe.  NO ONE has ever done that before!

Third up is using spherical segment ends to reduce their stress,  to size those membranes with the spherical hoop stress equation.  They can be thin if hemispheres,  or at least segments of spheres with a thick attach ring.  The conical shapes around the "thrust puck" violate that.

Fourth up is making sure you have (1) doublers or a thick attach ring at the dome-cylinder joint (both sides),  and (2) sufficient strain capability AT TEMPERATURE to allow survival of the strain mismatch between sphere and cylinder,  again with due allowance for weld strength knockdown factors on both stress AND STRAIN.  Welding same-thickness sheets together everywhere violates that.

I would also point out that Starship entering very nearly dead broadside will experience rather high wind pressures on the windward side only.  These act to crush the tank.  You must inflate it to sufficient pressure to resist the externally-applied air loads.  That will very probably set the inflation pressure they have to resist,  and they have to resist it hot,  when the material is very weak.  The leeside tank shell must reach somewhere in the 1000 F range in order to radiate absorbed heat away,  during entry. The shell is too thin to be its own heat sink during the peak heating transient.  They currently plan to put heat shielding only on the windward side.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2020-06-24 09:21:16)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#742 2020-06-24 10:24:41

tahanson43206
Moderator
Registered: 2018-04-27
Posts: 19,383

Re: Starship is Go...

For GW Johnson re #741

http://newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php … 34#p169334

SearchTerm:CryogenicTank
SearchTerm:CryogenicTankSpace
SearchTerm:CryogenicTankReturnFromSpace

(th)

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#743 2020-06-24 10:33:41

elderflower
Member
Registered: 2016-06-19
Posts: 1,262

Re: Starship is Go...

I noticed that the latest effort, using type 304 L stainless (a much better selection, in my view) had a sharp change in curvature where the domed top connected to the conical bottom. There's a reason why pressure vessels are made with smooth transitional curves and theres also a reason why you don't see circumferential welds within these transitions. I could have saved them millions, and I'm not a pressure vessel specialist.  I know they have to make them as light as possible but a stress raiser is still a stress raiser!

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#744 2020-06-24 11:23:45

louis
Member
From: UK
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 7,208

Re: Starship is Go...

Yes, it is fascinating what you write GW...how there must be a lot of art involved which Space X cannot get access to.

I think they should compromise on mass for the moment, if that helps ie make some of these structures more able to withstand pressure.
Let's suppose they could only get 50 tons per Starship, I think they should still be able to mount the mission, with an increased number of Starships. They don't seem to have difficulty in putting them together, and the engines seem to work OK.





GW Johnson wrote:

Two points:

(1) The difference between a ground cryo tank and a flight cryo tank is thin vs thick material.  The flight tank must be lightweight,  or it cannot fly.  But that does make it very fragile.  The least mistake or flaw is going to cause trouble. 

(2) Spacex has chosen the path of try-fail-try again to learn what they must learn about how to manufacture these things.  Inherent in that will be spectacular failures,  because this is flightweight-type hardware. 

Analysis:

They are learning the hard way that rocket science ain't just science.  It's only about 40% science (the part that was ever written down),  it's about 50% art (the part that was never written down),  and it's about 10% blind dumb luck.  And that's in production work with a test-proven design.  The art and luck portions are higher in development work,  which is what they are doing with Starship.

They'll have to go down this same path with Superheavy.  Brace yourselves for it. It's a lot bigger.  I watched pretty much the same stuff decades ago with Atlas,  Centaur,  and the rest.  Between 1955 to 1965 the track record for the whole industry was pretty poor. Because nobody knew any better.  About most anything.

The "art" portion of rocket "science" was never written down because (1) no one wanted to pay for writing it down,  or (2) it was to be kept as a trade secret,  or both.  It got passed on from experienced hand to newbies one-on-one on-the-job,  but only if there were experienced hands around to fill that teaching need. "Experienced hands" are usually 55+ in age. Everybody else with enough experience to know better (45-55 years old) is usually way too busy to teach anybody.  I know,  I've seen it. 

Spacex hires no one over 45 years of age.  Their competitors aren't going to give this art to them.  So they have to recreate it from scratch the hard way.  Which is exactly why they are using the "try-fail-try again" approach.  And exactly why their path is littered with busted tanks.

Perfectly understandable,  really.

GW


Let's Go to Mars...Google on: Fast Track to Mars blogspot.com

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#745 2020-06-24 11:55:08

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,797
Website

Re: Starship is Go...

I haven't seen anything yet where the 7.6 bar test pressure figure came from.  I would hope that equals or exceeds the expected entry inflation pressure,  and is not just set by some fueling concern.  If not,  they'd  better start thinking about that.  It'll be a factor,  even in suborbital flight test.  Just gets worse and worse as you fly faster and faster,  although the growth is a sort of a diminishing returns thing, past near-orbit speeds.

GW


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#746 2020-06-24 12:06:29

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 7,818

Re: Starship is Go...

As always, I value your input.

I would like to make a comparison between the Falcon 9 system, and a possible equivalent Starship system. 

That is to say, if you only developed the Starship system to have an expendable 2nd stage, where would you be economically?  Of course they want to do better than that, recover the 2nd stage, but could they get comparable $ numbers for a "Basic" system?

They claim stainless steel will be low cost.  Don't know relative to the cost of Falcon 9 and 2nd stage.

But the Raptors are supposed to be having a better performance.

Also, punching through the troposphere, should be easier I speculate, because the surface area to volume numbers should be more favorable.  Less friction I expect???

I am just doing this to try to get an apples to apples comparison.

I believe that they want 8.5 bars to have a 40% overkill on survival traits.  I read that 20% overkill is the industry standard.

Such a system would not have 2nd stage recovery capability, so you loose a lot of weight and cost that way.  Also you get to test the 2nd stage through the atmosphere, and in orbit.  So, to deliver Starlink items, would you have a better $ performance than the Falcon 9 system?

I believe that they can partially test the re-entry equipment using just a Starship itself, and would expect they will start there.  But at the same time they could initiate the Super Heavy, and get data on their Moon version in LEO, while delivering Starlink components to LEO.

They would not at first need the 40% margin for those early versions that go to orbit.

Also, I think that if you lower the margin to 20% for those un-crewed non-reentry versions, you could have a pressure relief valve with a drain to take care of issues where somehow things go wrong with the filling process, and it gets accidently over pressurized.

Operator error?  Instrumentation malfunctions?  Gages wrong?  Thing is you can calibrate something 15 minutes before the activity, but that does not assure that a subsequent malfunction could not occur.

Later on of course they will have their procedures and instrumentation, controls more perfected, but for now, I would not be so confident.

If the performance and explosion potentials can deliver items to orbit for a reasonable price compared to Falcon 9, then that indicates that they may have a paying system.  Not the one they eventually want, but a precursor.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2020-06-24 12:19:01)


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#747 2020-06-24 12:39:47

GW Johnson
Member
From: McGregor, Texas USA
Registered: 2011-12-04
Posts: 5,797
Website

Re: Starship is Go...

I'm not at all sure that Starship compares to the recoverable Falcon-9 second stage that Spacex elected not to attempt.  Conditions entering from orbit speed at about 7.9 km/s are way to hell and gone more severe than a first stage entry at something in the 1.5-3 km/s range.  They could not do with the second stage what they did with the first stage.

If you look at Starship,  it does not enter tail first,  it enters not quite broadside,  at a 60-degree angle of attack (measured from the relative wind vector).  This is more like Space Shuttle,  which entered at 30-40 degrees angle-of-attack,  and which would have been destroyed if it exceeded those limits,  upper or lower.  The Starship engines are hidden from the wind blast inside the aft skirt,  rather similar to Shuttle.  There are ceramic heat shield tiles on the windward (belly) side,  very much like Shuttle.  And before they are done,  they may have to add an emissive black coating,  or a layer of Avcoat,  to the leeward (dorsal) side.  Shuttle had leeside insulation tiles and blankets.

There's a reason for those similarities:  both vehicles face the same extremely demanding entry physics and conditions.  Starship will have to face even worse ones:  shuttle was only "good" for LEO entry (7.9 km/s),  while Starship has to free-return from the moon (11 km/s) and Mars (12-17 km/s). 

I really don't think there's any comparison between these,  and what the never-attempted Falcon-9 second stage entry concept might have been. 

As for the tank pressure spec and safety margin,  the internal pressure must exceed the windward-side stagnation pressure,  which is max at max decel gees,  right around (but not the same) time as peak heating.  If insufficient,  the air loads crush the vehicle in almost exactly the same way as stepping on an empty beer can laying on its side.  The average windward pressure is lower than stagnation by considerable margin,  but the local pressure down the center of the belly is quite near stagnation,  and is stagnation underneath the passenger compartment at the nose.  That starts the dimple-in which starts the crush.

GW

Last edited by GW Johnson (2020-06-24 12:47:26)


GW Johnson
McGregor,  Texas

"There is nothing as expensive as a dead crew,  especially one dead from a bad management decision"

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#748 2020-06-24 13:52:39

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 7,818

Re: Starship is Go...

All very true and important to know I believe.

But perhaps I did not communicate well.

I believe that Falcon9/2nd stage can deliver payload to orbit for about $2000.00/kg?

I am wondering if Super Heavy/Starship (Stripped of re-entry gear), could also deliver payload to orbit anywhere near $2000.00/kg.

That is, to send a Lunar starship to LEO, they would use Super Heavy in the manner that they do Falcon9.  It would have large atmospheric stresses like the Falcon 9, and would within reason emulate its practices and not try to go to orbit.

As it is now the 2nd stage for the Falcon 9 system delivers payload to orbit, and then is directed to burn up in the atmosphere, and maybe crash in the ocean.  I think that this is what they do.

So, I am imagining a situation where they did the same delivery and disposal action with the 2nd stage (Stripped down Starship).

So that is where I would like to compare delivery capabilities per dollar cost per kg.

------

And also though they would be able to test out Lunar Starship capabilities.  Lunar Starship will have no re-entry capabilities that I am aware of.   But if their prototype for that were in LEO, they would be able to test thrust systems, and life support.  It would even be possible to link up to it in LEO with Dragon Crew, if that is what they wanted to do. 

And then when they disposed of it although it would not be equipped for re-entry, they could get some information on how it does part of the way down before it was destroyed.  I don't know how useful that would be without the flaps.

However I think I recall Elon saying that the Propellant version may not need the flaps.  Don't know if they still think that.  It would certainly need a heat shield.  But a propellant type coming back down would be the most light I believe, so just maybe part of the way down would work for testing.

Hope I am not exasperating you.  That is not my intention.

Later.....

I should be careful with that.  I am thinking that the propellant ships could be balanced by weight and air drag, as this should be uniform on re-entry.  Still thrusters may not be enough to navigate, so although that is recall reading from Elon (Supposedly), I anticipate there would need to be some surfaces to navigate with to get to the spaceport.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2020-06-24 15:12:21)


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#749 2020-06-24 17:29:59

SpaceNut
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From: New Hampshire
Registered: 2004-07-22
Posts: 29,431

Re: Starship is Go...

Void, I see that a disposable starship altered for lunar operations not to return to earth would make for a more capable starship compliment once lofted to orbit with just cargo for use. What I see for an issue is that we would need to use a starship taxi for a LEO transfer to the lunar starship since risk of not being able to return to earth on a cargo version for an aborted mission would not be possible for a stripped out version that does not have a heat shield. That crewed taxi could take propellant rather than cargo up to refuel the lunar starship.

With a different starship tanker doing the bulk of work for refueling. Even the tanker could be made disposable if one wanted to be able to increase that amount of payload fuel for the starship taxi crewed and lunar waiting on orbit. Life support for the moon would be different from that of a mars unit as well for mass savings.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2019/10 … r-landers/

https://futurism.com/the-byte/spacex-fi … rship-moon

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#750 2020-06-24 18:25:31

Void
Member
Registered: 2011-12-29
Posts: 7,818

Re: Starship is Go...

Thanks for the informative and considerate answer Spacenut.

For me, it is useful to compare the two systems at the basic level, and then the potential of 2nd stage recovery.

It is pretty certain that SpaceX/Elon Musk will not try for a mini-Starship to go on top of the Falcon 9, but they could have.

In a temporary world, they could develop the Starship without recovery of the 2nd stage.  I am sure that besides the Lunar/Deep Space version, they will go beyond that.  It is very well stated that they want Mars, so they have to do it eventually and probably asap from their point of view.

So, apples to apples for the simplified embryonic Starship vs Falcon 9.  At least what I think.

-Ratio of volume/mass to air resistance to reach orbit for Starship is likely to be better.
-Engines better for Starship.
-Cost of Launch $90 Million for Starship, $62 Million for Falcon 9.  But likely less cost per kg of payload for Starship.  I think my numbers are ~Correct.
-Size of Faring better for Starship, so could deploy large items that customers might want to have deployed.

So, that alone suggests where some of the achievement of cost goals come from for Starship.  Of course they want to recover the Hardware for reuse, to get the cost down to ~$700.00 per kg I believe.

I suppose they could have disposable Starships for propellants, or those could be repurposed, but I imagine the will want to progress to a recoverable propellant Starship asap.

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This makes me think that the propellant Starship would possibly be the first one that they try to recover to Earth.  For the reason that upon dispensing its fuel, it should always have the same weight, and also the same balance.  It seems unlikely that it would balance well at all altitudes by its glide characteristics, so they would have to have some movable air surfaces I am guessing, but those could possibly be much smaller, because they are dealing with a lighter load, and a load which would be consistently balanced.  Of course some method to drop the thing where they want it to land.  The small flaps I presume. No payload coming down, no life support or crew cabin or variable weight of crew involved.  Nobody to die either unless it crashes into a house.

I am no authority, I am just describing what it currently looks like to me.

Done.

Last edited by Void (2020-06-24 18:51:11)


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