Spyke

Replies

spacex

Comment on

6 to 8 weeks until the next starship launch

Reply in thread

They can't dig a trench. The water table is often above the natural ground level, and their pads are only a few feet above that. When starship dug that hole, water seeped in and partially filled it!

But it is the same thing at the cape - but there they brought in soil and built up the land by something like 10 meters, and built their pads and trenches in that. Moving in that much dirt would take years.

spacex

Comment on

SpaceX teases another application for Starship

Reply in thread

I, too, love the idea of a wet workshop, but I see the problems. Mostly, tanks don't need micrometeriod shielding and insulation, and weight-efficient shielding and insulation would not survive launch. The kind of protection you'd need to add would easily double the mass of the empty tank, or you'd have to somehow wrap the tank in space. The reward is enormous amounts of habitable volume, but I can't see the cost.

spacex

Comment on

What is the new stubby vacuum engine bell made of?

Reply in thread

I don't suggest that the lack of glow tells us that it is made from different stuff - as you say, that section of the bell doesn't normally glow - but that the fact it doesn't glow means that it isn't that hot, doesn't need to deal with high temperatures, and therefore doesn't need to be made from any expensive alloy.

spacex

Comment on

Starship ready for second test flight. Waiting for FAA approval.

Reply in thread

SpaceX has completed their mishap report, which states what they believe are the required corrective actions, actions which, it can likely be assumed, they have already completed. So all that is needed, from their standpoint, is for the FAA to accept their report, accept their corrective actions, accept the actions as done, and issue the launch license.

FAA could, however, decide against any of those things - that the report hasn't covered something, that other actions are required, that the actions haven't been properly done.

This is entirely in line with everything that both FAA and SpaceX have said.

spacex

Comment on

What is the new stubby vacuum engine bell made of?

Reply in thread

The regular raptor bells (and the regular Merlin bells, which we are discussing here) are made from a copper-rich alloy, for high thermal conductivity. They are fully regeneratively cooled by the engine's fuel (kero or methane). The extensions are radiatively cooled, with the base section film cooled by bleeding the cooler turbopump exhaust in a ring around the base of the extension/lip or the nozzle.

You reached the end