No.595
Space X's Rocket, Starship is going to have 33 engines in the first stage and 9 in the second stage producing around 80MN of thrust and could send 150t to Low Earth Orbit in theory(or so they claim) but the number of engines keeps changing(getting bigger). Saturn IV had 5 in the first stage, 5 in the second and 1 in the third producing a bit over 40MN of thrust and was capable of sending 140t to Low Earth Orbit. So for half the Thrust Saturn V could send 95% of the payload that Starship can to Low Earth Orbit, and Starship has never even proved that it can do this. The engines for Saturn IV were designed in the 50's too(but they use Kraut Space Magick I guess).
Much of this is due to how awful the design of Starship is, it's a meme con, the Hyperloop of space(or the sky so far) if you will. Additionally, I don't believe Starship will be capable of making the landing that it is planned for it. They have had trouble sending the Starship second stage only 50km and landing it, they only managed it once and for all the talk of testing reusability they never flew it again which shows what shape it was in, sending the whole thing to orbit and back and then sending it back up without severe repair is something completely different.
The Problem is the design, not only does the poor form and design of it mean that it spends more energy going up but it also means it will be under quite a bit of stress coming down. The Larger a surface is the more friction it creates and the more heat and pressure it will be subject too, the ship itself is not rigid or reinforced in anyway either while at the same time as being fat it is also long(and that length will create uneven pressure and friction), that is ALOT of stress for a hollow shell of thin steel strips to handle, the fuel within makes it little better than a time bomb as well, sure it will pressure the interior to degree but it will not be enough and a rupture may prove to be catastrophic. And that is before this hulk even hits the ground. This is a lot of money to spend on a meme.
No.596
I don't quite get it, why do you say its a meme?
No.597
what's the ship look like?
No.599
Micro-fractures are already a large concern when it comes to the structural integrity of airliners due to the stresses of changing atmospheric pressure with change in altitude. I don't think it needs mentioning that the stresses involved between going from Earth to orbit are much higher than a simple airliner had to contend with. Not to mention, with the flaws present in the constant maintenance required for the space shuttle (which ultimately lead to the loss of one of the shuttles in Columbia), you would think that people would realize just how much of an under-estinate the projected savings a reusable rocket would have. Obviously the shuttle was itself an entire system, but the overall concept for "starship" is far more grandiose, since it
literally encompasses inter-planetary travel.
Perhaps there's value in publicity in building a new launch system, but it will be NASA's Ares rocket and Orion craft that ultimately ever goes anywhere. SpaceX's "progress" is little more than public spectacle. NASA and associated space agencies don't need to go through the same failures because they already have efficient and functional launch systems. Funding SpaceX is like throwing money at a racer who throw nice parties but ultimately never wins any races.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/southwest-airplane-aluminum-cracks/https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Space_Shuttle_program No.600
>>596The entire form of it is made to look like a retro rocket(hence the need for so much power to even get it to space) and on top of that there is the hype around it achieving things that it never will like having fleets of them fill mars with a million people.
>>598I would disagree that they have been doing a good job. In this case the M word is appropriate because that literally is what it is, the choices behind it's design are not bound in logic.
>>599Yes, and there are many other things that could impact this, like the stress all of that power will have on the middle of the ship as the ship is compressed between that power and the huge weight of the ship itself as it goes up and then again as the rocket goes down, the effects the heat will have on the ship and the remaining factors within it and all other factors that are going to impact it.