6 ms·

Toray carbon fiber to carry SpaceX's Mars ambitions

fastball 10y ago
My only issue with carbon fiber is that it is not very easily recycled. Aluminum, on the other hand, is quite trivially recycled. So while spaceships made from CFRP are great in the short-to-medium term (a single spaceship can get a lot more use), I hope that we figured out how to recycle CFRP sooner rather than later.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  What are the back of envelope energy calculations? The fuel for 1 trip is a lot of energy, what's the energy required for the ship? "Dilution is the solution" was an unfortunate attitude on Earth. It will work for millions of years in space, and hydrocarbons are pretty abundant.
  - johnloeber 10y ago
    Not sure if "millions of years" is actually truthful considering exponential growth and highly localized effects
- fredgrott 10y ago
  Maybe, we need to think about recycling carbon fiber as.. In recycling the fibers get shorter.. Could not that be re-applied to a different industry as far as re-using the carbon fiber? Body Armour for soldiers as the shorter fibers would be of use there?
  - ori_b 10y ago
    The problem isn't fiber length. The problem is that the fibers are impregnated with resin, with strong chemical bonds.
    - stevenrace 10y ago
      The resin has a low Tg (temp at which it turns goopy again) - somewhere around 500*F even for 'aerospace' stuff. Whereas recycling aluminum requires roughly double that temperature to begin to melt aluminum. The carbon fiber is then chopped and used as reinforcement in other material likes plastics. SGL Group, who supplies/partners in production with BMW, even uses reclaimed and production waste in it's production process for the new 7-series. A more technical breakdown and state of the industry can be found here: http://www.compositesworld.com/articles/recycled-carbon-fiber-update-closing-the-cfrp-lifecycle-loop http://www.compositesworld.com/articles/recycled-carbon-fibe...
- geuis 10y ago
  Why would you be worried about recycling spacecraft at this point in history? Up until the last 2 years, practically all spacecraft either burned up in the atmosphere, crashed into the ocean or land, landed permanently on another body, or are now sitting in a museum somewhere if they were designed to return. Recycling the material in spacecraft is simply a non-issue.
- colechristensen 10y ago
  Aerospace aluminum isn't as easily recycled as beer cans. If you're building a space ship you have very tight tolerances and specifics needed for the alloying of the metals you use. The aluminum in aircraft is full of strange things that need to be removed for general use aluminum and definitely need to be removed for building new aircraft. You're right that melting and re-casting aluminum is really cheap and efficient for beer cans, it's not so much the same for aerospace aluminum. When it comes down to spaceships, the energy used to produce them is usually a very small portion of the total cost of the mission and we don't make very many of them – recycling isn't and shouldn't be a priority. The Falcon 9 burns 110,000 liters of kerosene every launch, if it were made of carbon fiber, maybe it wouldn't matter how the structure was disposed.
  - matthewrhoden1 10y ago
    I never thought about it but I became curious as to what the differences are, here's what I was able to find: [0] Aircraft grade aluminum alloy's composition roughly includes 5.6–6.1% zinc, 2.1–2.5% magnesium, 1.2–1.6% copper, and less than a half percent of silicon, iron, manganese, titanium, chromium, and other metals. [1] Aluminum cans are typically 1% magnesium, 1% manganese, 0.4% iron, 0.2% silicon, and 0.15% copper. There are a lot of metrics that determine the appropriate use of various grades of aircraft level alloys [2]. I guess from the outside some big considerations are how the metal reacts to temperature change and how well a metal cylinder can handle stress while staying light. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7075_aluminium_alloy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7075_aluminium_alloy [1] http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Aluminum-Beverage-Can.html http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Aluminum-Beverage-Can.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_alloy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_alloy
    - jccooper 10y ago
      SpaceX in particular uses an AL-Li alloy, which is even stranger.
    - colechristensen 10y ago
      >how well a metal cylinder can handle stress while staying light. Are we talking beer cans or rockets? Maybe they are the same after all :) All spot on. There are lots of alloys used for lots of different things and economics and availability play their part too. When you're designing your airplane every slight detail matters.
oliwaw 10y ago
Between the recent news of SpaceX shipping a test article of its Mars rocket to McGregor (the Raptor engine) and this large contract for material for its Mars Colonial Transporter, SpaceX's Mars plans are shaping nicely. Hopefully Congress takes notice within the next few years, and funnels the money currently spent on the SLS rocket to Musk's Mars project.
s_q_b 10y ago
Ah, the benefits of not having to listen to shareholders. SpaceX can take long term bets, for example moving capital into exploratory programs including the proposed Mars missions, without having to justify it by profit.
- hyperbovine 10y ago
  Bezos has been doing this for decades.
  - milcron 10y ago
    And coincidentally, is also funding spaceflight research!
Animats 10y ago
In some ways, not a good sign. Space-X can't make and launch Falcon boosters fast enough now. They're not a big enough company to do many things in parallel. Their unfinished, and late, projects include the Falcon Heavy, the Brownsville TX launch facility, and the crewed Dragon, all of which were supposed to be working by now.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- oliwaw 10y ago
  >Space-X can't make and launch Falcon boosters fast enough now. The bottleneck is not Falcon 9 production, at this point it's largely on the payload side. A faster turnaround would certainly help, but there's only so much optimization that can be done. The Falcon Heavy is not a priority because (1) much less demand from customers and (2) it's a transitional system between Falcon 9 and built-for-reuse BFR/MCT, so it will have limited use.
- kirrent 10y ago
  Brownsville isn't a case of them being distracted but just underestimating the degree of soil surcharging needed. Crewed dragon is unfinished but hasn't missed any of NASA's deadlines so far. I do wish that Falcon Heavy would finally launch though.
- arijun 10y ago
  As a point on the FH, one reason it's delayed is that it has lower priority: now that the Falcon 9 has been upgraded to the full thrust version, it can take many customers who were originally envisioned to go on the Heavy
  - robryan 10y ago
    I think that they only have one customer lined up which actually needs the heavy? And hopefully being able to do the red dragon mission in 2018.
GregBuchholz 10y ago
Completely off-topic, but what's the latest thinking on space-elevators? Is there any active research on them? I thought that carbon nanotubes or diamond nanothreads were likely candidates for the cable material.
- ori_b 10y ago
  Materials science isn't there yet, and the investigation is still in the more general material research phase. We're decades off. You're asking about the state of supersonic air travel while researchers are still figuring out how to smelt aluminum.
- geuis 10y ago
  Still a lot of active research going on. The biggest issues that need to be resolved are currently with the cable material. There has been a surprising amount of progress in the last few years with creating longer carbon fibers, but its still nascent and has a minimum of 5-10 years of work. Probably much more. Then even when the cable strength and length issues are satisfactorily resolved, there are lots of other logistics to deal with. I think any future barriers to the elevator(s) will be more regulatory than technological in the future.
  - aetherson 10y ago
    I'm not sure what "future barriers to the elevator(s) will be more regulatory than technological" means. Like, right now, the barriers are firmly technological. From the perspective of a hypothetical future in which all the technological problems have been solved, the barriers might be regulatory. But that seems tautological.
- oliwaw 10y ago
  Probably the biggest barrier to space elevators is exactly what SpaceX and Blue Origin are doing - safe, reliable, and eventually (relatively) inexpensive rockets will make the large fixed costs of setting up a space elevator uneconomical.
  - 10y ago
fhrjchcjdnc 10y ago
Carbon fiber is a pretty weird choice for a reusable rocket. Unlike aluminum, it has basically zero tolerance to heat since the fibers are embedded in a matrix made of a polymer glue compound. That's why they call it fiber reinforced plastic.
- oliwaw 10y ago
  It won't be used for the rocket but for the Mars transport spaceship.
- jccooper 10y ago
  SpaceX already uses carbon fiber on their rockets in the interstage and payload shroud. They do provide some insulation: they're covered in cork. But most of the rocket body encounters extra low temperatures more than high temperatures.
arijun 10y ago
Conversation on /r/spacex: https://m.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/4y0z6e/toray_carbon_fiber_to_carry_spacexs_mars/ https://m.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/4y0z6e/toray_carbon_f...

My only issue with carbon fiber is that it is not very easily recycled. Aluminum, on the other hand, is quite trivially recycled. So while spaceships made from CFRP are great in the short-to-medium term (a single spaceship can get a lot more use), I hope that we figured out how to recycle CFRP sooner rather than later.

maxerickson 10y ago
What are the back of envelope energy calculations? The fuel for 1 trip is a lot of energy, what's the energy required for the ship? "Dilution is the solution" was an unfortunate attitude on Earth. It will work for millions of years in space, and hydrocarbons are pretty abundant.
- johnloeber 10y ago
  Not sure if "millions of years" is actually truthful considering exponential growth and highly localized effects
fredgrott 10y ago
Maybe, we need to think about recycling carbon fiber as.. In recycling the fibers get shorter.. Could not that be re-applied to a different industry as far as re-using the carbon fiber? Body Armour for soldiers as the shorter fibers would be of use there?
- ori_b 10y ago
  The problem isn't fiber length. The problem is that the fibers are impregnated with resin, with strong chemical bonds.
  - stevenrace 10y ago
    The resin has a low Tg (temp at which it turns goopy again) - somewhere around 500*F even for 'aerospace' stuff. Whereas recycling aluminum requires roughly double that temperature to begin to melt aluminum. The carbon fiber is then chopped and used as reinforcement in other material likes plastics. SGL Group, who supplies/partners in production with BMW, even uses reclaimed and production waste in it's production process for the new 7-series. A more technical breakdown and state of the industry can be found here: http://www.compositesworld.com/articles/recycled-carbon-fiber-update-closing-the-cfrp-lifecycle-loop http://www.compositesworld.com/articles/recycled-carbon-fibe...
geuis 10y ago
Why would you be worried about recycling spacecraft at this point in history? Up until the last 2 years, practically all spacecraft either burned up in the atmosphere, crashed into the ocean or land, landed permanently on another body, or are now sitting in a museum somewhere if they were designed to return. Recycling the material in spacecraft is simply a non-issue.
colechristensen 10y ago
Aerospace aluminum isn't as easily recycled as beer cans. If you're building a space ship you have very tight tolerances and specifics needed for the alloying of the metals you use. The aluminum in aircraft is full of strange things that need to be removed for general use aluminum and definitely need to be removed for building new aircraft. You're right that melting and re-casting aluminum is really cheap and efficient for beer cans, it's not so much the same for aerospace aluminum. When it comes down to spaceships, the energy used to produce them is usually a very small portion of the total cost of the mission and we don't make very many of them – recycling isn't and shouldn't be a priority. The Falcon 9 burns 110,000 liters of kerosene every launch, if it were made of carbon fiber, maybe it wouldn't matter how the structure was disposed.
- matthewrhoden1 10y ago
  I never thought about it but I became curious as to what the differences are, here's what I was able to find: [0] Aircraft grade aluminum alloy's composition roughly includes 5.6–6.1% zinc, 2.1–2.5% magnesium, 1.2–1.6% copper, and less than a half percent of silicon, iron, manganese, titanium, chromium, and other metals. [1] Aluminum cans are typically 1% magnesium, 1% manganese, 0.4% iron, 0.2% silicon, and 0.15% copper. There are a lot of metrics that determine the appropriate use of various grades of aircraft level alloys [2]. I guess from the outside some big considerations are how the metal reacts to temperature change and how well a metal cylinder can handle stress while staying light. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7075_aluminium_alloy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7075_aluminium_alloy [1] http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Aluminum-Beverage-Can.html http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Aluminum-Beverage-Can.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_alloy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_alloy
  - jccooper 10y ago
    SpaceX in particular uses an AL-Li alloy, which is even stranger.
  - colechristensen 10y ago
    >how well a metal cylinder can handle stress while staying light. Are we talking beer cans or rockets? Maybe they are the same after all :) All spot on. There are lots of alloys used for lots of different things and economics and availability play their part too. When you're designing your airplane every slight detail matters.

oliwaw 10y ago

Between the recent news of SpaceX shipping a test article of its Mars rocket to McGregor (the Raptor engine) and this large contract for material for its Mars Colonial Transporter, SpaceX's Mars plans are shaping nicely. Hopefully Congress takes notice within the next few years, and funnels the money currently spent on the SLS rocket to Musk's Mars project.

s_q_b 10y ago

Ah, the benefits of not having to listen to shareholders. SpaceX can take long term bets, for example moving capital into exploratory programs including the proposed Mars missions, without having to justify it by profit.

hyperbovine 10y ago
Bezos has been doing this for decades.
- milcron 10y ago
  And coincidentally, is also funding spaceflight research!

Animats 10y ago

In some ways, not a good sign. Space-X can't make and launch Falcon boosters fast enough now. They're not a big enough company to do many things in parallel. Their unfinished, and late, projects include the Falcon Heavy, the Brownsville TX launch facility, and the crewed Dragon, all of which were supposed to be working by now.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
oliwaw 10y ago
>Space-X can't make and launch Falcon boosters fast enough now. The bottleneck is not Falcon 9 production, at this point it's largely on the payload side. A faster turnaround would certainly help, but there's only so much optimization that can be done. The Falcon Heavy is not a priority because (1) much less demand from customers and (2) it's a transitional system between Falcon 9 and built-for-reuse BFR/MCT, so it will have limited use.
kirrent 10y ago
Brownsville isn't a case of them being distracted but just underestimating the degree of soil surcharging needed. Crewed dragon is unfinished but hasn't missed any of NASA's deadlines so far. I do wish that Falcon Heavy would finally launch though.
arijun 10y ago
As a point on the FH, one reason it's delayed is that it has lower priority: now that the Falcon 9 has been upgraded to the full thrust version, it can take many customers who were originally envisioned to go on the Heavy
- robryan 10y ago
  I think that they only have one customer lined up which actually needs the heavy? And hopefully being able to do the red dragon mission in 2018.

GregBuchholz 10y ago

Completely off-topic, but what's the latest thinking on space-elevators? Is there any active research on them? I thought that carbon nanotubes or diamond nanothreads were likely candidates for the cable material.

ori_b 10y ago
Materials science isn't there yet, and the investigation is still in the more general material research phase. We're decades off. You're asking about the state of supersonic air travel while researchers are still figuring out how to smelt aluminum.
geuis 10y ago
Still a lot of active research going on. The biggest issues that need to be resolved are currently with the cable material. There has been a surprising amount of progress in the last few years with creating longer carbon fibers, but its still nascent and has a minimum of 5-10 years of work. Probably much more. Then even when the cable strength and length issues are satisfactorily resolved, there are lots of other logistics to deal with. I think any future barriers to the elevator(s) will be more regulatory than technological in the future.
- aetherson 10y ago
  I'm not sure what "future barriers to the elevator(s) will be more regulatory than technological" means. Like, right now, the barriers are firmly technological. From the perspective of a hypothetical future in which all the technological problems have been solved, the barriers might be regulatory. But that seems tautological.
oliwaw 10y ago
Probably the biggest barrier to space elevators is exactly what SpaceX and Blue Origin are doing - safe, reliable, and eventually (relatively) inexpensive rockets will make the large fixed costs of setting up a space elevator uneconomical.
- 10y ago

fhrjchcjdnc 10y ago

Carbon fiber is a pretty weird choice for a reusable rocket. Unlike aluminum, it has basically zero tolerance to heat since the fibers are embedded in a matrix made of a polymer glue compound. That's why they call it fiber reinforced plastic.

oliwaw 10y ago
It won't be used for the rocket but for the Mars transport spaceship.
jccooper 10y ago
SpaceX already uses carbon fiber on their rockets in the interstage and payload shroud. They do provide some insulation: they're covered in cork. But most of the rocket body encounters extra low temperatures more than high temperatures.

arijun 10y ago

Conversation on /r/spacex: https://m.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/4y0z6e/toray_carbon_fiber_to_carry_spacexs_mars/ https://m.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/4y0z6e/toray_carbon_f...