Friday, October 23, 2020

The First Starship Gets Its First Sunrise

And it's a beautiful thing.  Sunrise this morning at Boca Chica, Texas, screen cap from Lab Padre feed.
The nose cone section was stacked last night around sunset and work proceeded on it all night.  This is the first time anyone has seen the full-sized Starship, approximately 50m (165') tall,  and a bit less than half the size of the final Starship and Super Heavy booster, a combination originally called Big Falcon Rocket (BFR).  People who talk far more than I do on the Lab Padre video refer to this as the opportunity to watch history being made, and it really is.  One step at a time, at a pace which sometimes feels glacial, but is like shooting Class VI rapids compared to everybody else.


Pic credit at the bottom; NomaddNSF.

I've run across a rather geeky and interesting space blogger named Casey Handmer, who is far beyond my meager math models in the things I've read.  He has a long but very technically astute post about Starship called "The SpaceX Starship is a very big deal" and if you're interested in what the buzz about this BFR is all about, it's a must read. 
Starship is the upper stage vehicle. It has a dry mass of 200 T, a fuel/ox mass of 1200 T, and a nominal payload of 150 T. Combined with high performance methane-oxygen vacuum engines, Starship is capable of over 7 km/s of Δv, which is very important.

Starship is boosted for Earth launch by Super Heavy, which is capable of lifting Starship to about 4 km/s before returning to the launch pad.

Both stages are designed to be fully reusable, enabling both high reliability and very cheap launch cost. Indeed, the marginal cost per flight could fall to $5m or below, reducing launch costs to the neighborhood of $35/kg, or 1000x less than Shuttle.  [Bold added - SiG]
After he gets several important expense and business concepts out of the way, he comes to the meat of the article:
With the money question out of the way, we can ask ourselves: What is Starship for? SpaceX could make plenty of money with incremental improvements on the Falcon launchers, and even build up Starlink without Starship.

Starship is for building nations in space. I don’t mean Project Artemis or some version of “The Martian,” though Starship could easily do both. I mean serious logistics.
....
In 10 years, Starship flights will be sold by the dozen. Starship is only cheap if it gets used as much as possible. The only meaningful barrier to production today is engine manufacture, and that will be through the hardest part of the learning curve well before commercial flights begin.
In the remainder of the article, he concludes that while Starship is gigantic by current standards, current planning numbers are to expect 120 meters, (394 feet) tall, it's about the minimum size for a vehicle to land on Mars as intended.  It's small for a vehicle that will turn virtually every aspect of spaceflight upside down.

It is so bold and brash a goal that a first impression is that it's too bold. Can't be done. The fact that it is being entirely funded by the commercial operations of SpaceX makes it all the easier to watch with amazement as the world changes.  As we watch, read postings and tweets, we see them methodically taking on the challenges and working through the issues.  Enough to dramatically reduce doubt they'll ever make it.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk tweeted, "SN8 Starship with flaps & nosecone should be done in about a week. Then static fire, checkouts, static fire, fly to 60,000 ft & back." I've been saying it could take that big hop by the end of the month.  Since that's next weekend, I'll go with the majority and say that since this is the first time anyone has ever worked on the complete Starship, that 60,000 ft hop will take longer to get to.  Expect it to be the second half of November.



32 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. "The man who sold the moon" indeed. And for much the same reasons.

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    2. But I pray that he doesn't have to beg a ride at the end of his life in order to go on his first-ever trip, so he can die happy.

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    3. I know I read that around 50 years ago, but all I remember is having the feeling that Harriman was not someone to emulate. I've got to see if there's a e-copy to read.

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    4. You hit that one on the head!

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  2. Original Starship concept was quite a bit bigger. I think his engineers said "Whoa, boss, slow your boat! We can make a smaller one and make it profitable as a point-to-point transport on Earth or for space travel."

    Whaddya bet that after Starship is working and starts being profitable, he turns back to the 'Colony Transport' bigger version as the next step, with maybe a nuclear tea-kettle or even a nuclear electric drive for space.

    If small nukes were available, I wouldn't put it past him trying the old-style Orion.

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    1. Some time last year, the subject of a bigger version was brought up. The original BFR was to be 12 meters in diameter and the question was phrased if SpaceX would go back to that diameter for a larger version of the Starship. Elon's reply was that they might just go to an 18 meter diameter version. We will just have to wait and see what happens in the next few years.

      First things are to get the current iteration of Starship orbital, delivering cargo, testing refueling in orbit, a crewed version built and the Lunar lander version built. There is that 2023 trip around the Moon by the Japanese investor.

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    2. If you look at the videos from NASA Spaceflight on YouTube, you'll find that one of the several nosecones outside the Mid Bay has been painted white. Speculation is that's the prototype moon lander, since no Starship part has been painted. Why pay that weight penalty?

      https://www.youtube.com/c/NASASpaceflightVideos

      It's visible on the Lab Padre cam that points at the Shipyard, too.

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    3. SiG, you paint it to keep it from rusting, and to give NASA feelz goods that they're included in the game.

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    4. But it's stainless steel. That shouldn't be a big issue.

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    5. Stainless steel rusts unless it is specifically a very-low-iron-containing alloy (like 316), which this is not. The welds are clearly showing signs of oxide staining. That said, my comment was intended as a joke...

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    6. Yeah, I know that some stainless alloys rust, which is why I didn't say it won't rust, just that it shouldn't be a big deal. They say we have the saltiest air on earth, after the Dead Sea. I use a lot of 316 outdoors on antenna jobs.

      Root cause, though, is I didn't get the joke. We need a sarcasm font!

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    7. Elon Musk is, among other things, a wannabee showman. I think, in absence of any real information, that this is mainly an advertisement. They are very aware of the presence of the "tank watchers" from NasaSpaceFlight (did you see Nomadd's closeup pic of the orange drone staring at him from a short distance away? ;-)

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  3. That shot reminds me of "Destination Moon" when they built the spaceship Luna.

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    1. It reminds me of what I was envisioning when I read Rocket Ship Galileo as a kid. And that wouldn't be a bad name for the first one that goes to the Moon, either.

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  4. To be serious about colonies, you need functional orbitals. This is the next step towards that. The best reason for a lunar colony is as practice for Mars. Well, that and the winged flight cave. ;)

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    1. What's cool about Casey Handmer's blog I mention is he talks about the need not just for functional orbitals but industrializing the planet.

      Needless to say, Mars has nothing except resources. There aren't even microorganisms to rot (that is, recycle) waste. Without planning and robotic expeditions before the first trips, it's a one-way trip, or life sentence.

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  5. SN8 is a major milestone and a massive human and private-sector achievement, yet how many months from now will it be forgotten?

    Six months, maybe. Nov 2021: "What was SN8 again?"

    The pace at SpaceX is as much the story as the belly-flop reentry. What a time to be alive.

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    Replies
    1. By next November, they'll be on SN 14 or 15. Maybe more.

      The question I wonder about is whether they'll be doing tests in orbit by then.

      What a time to be alive. Yes it is.

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  6. I love it when SciFi becomes real.

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    1. There's so much of it in our day to day lives it's amazing.

      The first plans for the Shuttle back in the mid-70s had the external tank returning for reuse. NASA dropped it as too impractical or expensive (I forget). Starship Heavy will come back. The model is commercial aircraft with more automation.

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  7. Look out Buck Rogers, here comes Elon Musk!

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  8. Invest now in Thorium-fueled nuclear reactors. Mars baseload energy demand isn't going be supplied by solar energy any more than Earth's is. Seek a rocket engine which is a nuclear-powered laser, that's the maximum exit velocity possible. Also remember the Kzinti lesson is, "a reaction drive's efficiency as a weapon is in direct proportion to its efficiency as a drive."

    caseyhandmer appears to ignore the largest factor causing inefficiency, government. Government is a mental illness exploiting human political instincts evolved by and inherited from great ape ancestors. In the near future, the disease of government is going to get cured like society-wide syphilis and tuberculosis and polio was. At the moment, general society barely has an understanding of government's nature similar in undrstanding to the idea that doctors washing their hands with bleach between autopsy and childbirth is a good idea.

    https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2020/07/20/case-study-iceland/

    I am quite sure that no amount of technology would permit humans to build an industrial city inside the sun.

    Sure, kid, and man will never walk on the moon, either. We will see this in our lifetime. Author is extrapolating linearly, not faster-than-exponential aka technological "singularity".

    Together with Elon's rather cryptic statement that the hardest part of the Starship design process was understanding exactly what question it would answer

    What's cryptic about that? 'This rocket proposal you're selling me is supposed to solve what problem exactly?'

    The best reason for a lunar colony is [...] the winged flight cave

    You misspelled "sex in lower gravity".

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    Replies
    1. Flight with wings on your arms can probably be about as good as sex.

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    2. Couldn't remember the story until just now, a Heinlein short story: "The Menace From Earth".

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  9. I did an interesting comparison this morning. The SH/SS stack is larger than a Los Angeles attack submarine. It is about 20 meters longer, and roughly the same diameter.

    I am having flashbacks to Niven/Pournelle stories with nuclear bombs propelling aircraft carrier size navy ships into orbit...

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    1. There was prototype program in the '60s that would set off small nukes for propulsion. A little searching tells me it was Project Orion. I know I did a story about modern research into this and found the story:
      https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2012/10/if-you-have-warp-drive-you-need.html

      which came from:
      https://www.cnet.com/news/star-trek-fusion-impulse-engine-in-the-works/

      If a ship could accelerate at 1G halfway to Mars and decelerate at 1G for the other half, I think that reduces the need to only launch at opposition. It makes the travel time weeks instead of months. And it removes the effects of zero G that still remain despite exercise equipment on the ISS.

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    2. Scott Manley did a Youtube video on the problems with fusion rocket engines based on the projections in the book/tv series "The Expanse". It involved high neutron output reactions which necessitated rather large heat radiators. However, Princeton Plasma Physics Lab is working on a low neutron output fusion drive. I don't know the current projected capabilities of the drive. If it can give even a hefty partial g acceleration it would greatly improve the transit time between Earth and Mars.

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  10. How fabulous is it that we have more than one space program in the US? Think of all the engineers, machinists, and suppliers that are involved, with very likely less red tape than NASA to make things happen.
    What a country!

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  11. $35/kg.

    Outstanding. Just outstanding. Cheap enough for thousandaires!

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  12. There's a wonderful book from the 60s - Thrust into Space. He goes into everything from gunpowder propellant to fusion&antimatter. He mentions that if you can thrust at even .1g (IIRC) constantly, you can fly to Mars in weeks (or less?)

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  13. VASIMR is another interesting technology...

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