This is rarely mentioned. Because of its design, Starship can’t just go to the Moon, it first requires orbital refueling (from other Starships). NASA estimates they would need at least 15, but that was before the Starship payload capacity was downgraded.
Maybe there’s a reason no one builds rockets out of stainless steel anymore.
It’s basically a flying cyber truck.
It’s actually mostly about weight in disposable rockets. Stainless steel is heavier than the usual aluminum-lithium alloys in conventional rockets, or the carbon fibre that’s increasingly being used like Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket. It’s unnecessarily heavy if you don’t care about returning an upper stage back to Earth.
Stainless steel was actually chosen for Starship for good engineering reasons, not idiotic cosmetic ones like Edolf Muskler’s cybertruck debacle. The specific alloy that SpaceX is using handles extremely low temperatures very well, so it’s good for tanks for liquid methane and liquid oxygen propellants. But that specific alloy also handles the high temperatures of atmospheric entry very well, which reduces the needed mass for a heat shield. Aluminum-lithium alloys and carbon fibre don’t handle reentry heat well. The original concept for Starship was actually carbon fibre, but after they did the math on the mass of the heat shield needed, they realized that they might as well just go with a variant of plain old stainless steel. It’s easier to work with than specialty alloys or carbon fibre. And by aerospace standards it’s also dirt cheap.
Fun fact about stainless steel rockets: WD-40 was invented to protect the first US ICBM from corrosion in humid conditions. “WD” stands for “water displacement”.
It is actually because Elon wanted “rapid reusability”. Starships are heavier for that reason and must also leave some fuel inside in order for the first stage to land. It will be interesting to see how many Starship explode if they ever attempt to do orbital refueling.
Also of payload capacity to LEO to shit out a million star links, I’d imagine.
i remember they did this because of Elon’s personal obsession. so between the steel (to look like based 50s rocket) and cluster of small engines (didn’t work out for the Soviets either) wtf are they thinking.
i hope this bondongle digs the grave of Space-X. despite being Nazi shit, you really can’t beat the reliable Saturn 5 for superheavy lifting.
IIRC it has extra engines just in case if not all work. Just adding to even more weight. And they haven’t even proven 50 ton capacity to LEO, the last explody sample had like a couple of tons of payload.
It would be hilarious if SpaceX folded and we found out later that the entire reason for why SpaceX launches are so competitive is because they are making a loss at each one, funded by the SpaceX investors.
that would be delightful.
I haven’t been following spaceflight lately because everything is so doom but they are having repeat engine failures right? is it because of the methane fuel or the engine design themselves?
A couple of engines in the lower stage always fail, but with only a small dummy load that isn’t a problem for the test flight. Something in the upper stage exploded, probably a ruptured fuel line.
Ahhh so we are basically at the “everyone left at Space-X that isn’t totally burnt out are failson Elon Musk fankids and cultists and his company has lost institutional capability and can’t build rockets anymore”?
I think the initial idea is so bad that engineers have a hard problem working around that. Stainless steel should make it easier to use in cold & hot situations, so they can save weight on the heat shield (and it is already very heavy), but now they have rupturing fuel lines and engines.