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Why Elon Musk is tweeting about a stainless-steel starship
- YouKnowBetter 8y agoTL;DR I could not find the answer directly in the article but in spotted it in the URL: elon-musk-is-really-really-excited-about-his-starship Edit: typo
- ricardobeat 8y agoThe answer is “because SpaceX is actually building a stainless-steel starship, with first test flights planned for March”.
- gaius 8y agoUnless they have quietly invented warp drive, no they aren’t.
- noobiemcfoob 8y agoThe frustration at the misuse of the name will only drive further attempts at building the actual thing. Except it too will likely have an exaggerated name when it comes along.
- benj111 8y agoThey are calling it Starship, so the parent isn't entirely wrong.
- stoobs 8y agoIt's just pedantry about the name, must really hate the Starliner too, or the Starfighter, or anything else with the word star in it, if it can't physically get there.
- moccachino 8y agoI will establish a new small company, focused on innovating hygienic facilities for starships. I will call it Startubs.
- de_watcher 8y agoStarshits?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- davedx 8y agoIf it can get to Mars then it could certainly fly itself into the sun too. Possibly wouldn't be the best use of SpaceX money, though.
- avar 8y agoThis is a common misconception. It requires much much more energy and delta-V to send a craft on a collision course with the sun than to send it to Mars, or even to send it outside the Solar system altogether[1][2]. 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/5lt50r/why_does_it_take_more_delta_v_to_hit_the_sun_than/ https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/5lt50r/why_does... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#Interplanetary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta-v_budget#Interplanetary
- ZiiS 8y agoNot technically true. To dive into the Sun requires a much higher delta-v then to transfer to Mars. If you look at the Parker Solar Probe it is using a 7 year flightpath getting multiple gravity assists of Venus to miss by 6Gm at 200km/s.
- nominatronic 8y agoNope. It takes far more delta-V to get to the Sun than to get to Mars. To get to Mars you need to change your solar orbit from that of Earth to match that of Mars. The difference is a small fraction of Earth's orbital velocity. By comparison, you only need to add about 41% of Earth's velocity to escape the solar system entirely. But to get to the Sun, you need to subtract 100% of Earth's orbital velocity. It's a colossal amount of delta-V.
- _Microft 8y agoAs Scott Manley said [1] so nicely: If you're one of those people that wants to complain about this [name 'Starship'], please show that you're also complaining of Boeing StarLiner and at Lockheed Starfighter otherwise I'll presume you're biased against Elon Musk specifically. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVgEKBwE2RM&t=41 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVgEKBwE2RM&t=41
- gaius 8y agoI have never heard of the Starliner and the Starfighter went out of service before I was born but consider them both complained about too.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- village-idiot 8y agoTest flight in this case does not equal “going to mars”, they’re doing a short 5km hop.
- rbanffy 8y agoShould the band be called "Jefferson Band" instead then?
- yread 8y agoAre you also worried about calling people who go to space astronauts vs cosmonauts?
- onychomys 8y agoRemember, Musk is the same guy who named his lane assist and quasi-auto-braking system "Autopilot". Dude doesn't always think through his word choice all that well.
- bufferoverflow 8y agoA content-free article. Just some ramblings of a writer about SpaceX, no new information, no answer to the question in the title.
- unwind 8y agoSummarizing content from someone's Twitter posts so that I don't have to actually, you know, use Twitter, is certainly valuable content from my point of view. The bulleted list of facts about the Starship, including information about construction materials and cooling solutions, is certainly content, too.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- jryle70 8y agoArs has some of the best space coverage that I have seen, thanks in no small part to the comment section. The knowledge there is amazing. Sometimes article is simply a way to start a discussion. This article is no exception.
- benj111 8y agoSo the image of it in 2 pieces outside in the desert. I have visions of rockets being constructed in clean hangars. That looks more like some mining set up. They wouldn't have constructed it outside, unprotected already would they?
- bo0tzz 8y agoThis is a testing setup for in-atmosphere flights, so it does not need to be space rated.
- benj111 8y agoBut still, if it fails a test you want to be sure it's because of something you did, not just dust/ or an animal chewing through something etc etc.
- arethuza 8y ago"That looks more like some mining set up" As an aside, that reminds me of the early designs for Orion ships which had to be fairly robust and weight wasn't really an issue so they thought they'd use naval shipbuilding techniques rather than those we normally associate with aerospace - steel plate and rivets!
- Something1234 8y agoThe Orion ships as in the nuke powered theoretical ones or something else.
- bradgessler 8y agoI think you meant Sea Dragon, not Orion. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_Dragon_(rocket)
- arethuza 8y agoI did mean the nuke powered ships from Project Orion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propuls...
- bryanlarsen 8y agoArs Technica has a great comment section on its space articles, be sure to check that out too.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tyu1000 8y agoArs is probably the best tech site on the web.
- verytrivial 8y agoHere's my guess: This thing, which is being assembled outdoors in the elements by dudes on mobile cherry pickers and which has low enough build and finish quality to not even make to as a temporary Epcot Center exhibit, is designed to make it to some altitude, careen sideways then EXPLODE, creating a Twitter storm and news headlines. It exists to readjust people's expectations on how difficult the project to get to Mars is, and how likely it is people are going to die, which is something than Elon has taken some glee in reiterating over time. Edit: Look at the third picture here and tell me this is anything other that a "rocket sketch" https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/01/why-is-spacex-working-around-the-clock-on-the-starship-prototype.html https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2019/01/why-is-spacex-working-...
- pietjepuk88 8y agoHave you seen the grasshopper[0], which had roughly the same purpose for the early Falcons? That hardly looked like a space vehicle, but did its job quite well. I do very much agree it all feels a bit rushed (working during weekends as well), and I really do wonder why they are in such a hurry. Also, plenty of Falcons have exploded in one way or another, I'm not sure what is new (or unexpected) about that. Things will go wrong a few times and as Elon said in SpaceX's early days "failure is an options". It will have to go right often enough before it gets even close to human-rated. I guess for Mars that means going there and back again a few times (without humans). [0] https://i.pinimg.com/474x/44/4f/3e/444f3e51839ba246a02bd3d298f0e390--grasshoppers-spaceships.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/474x/44/4f/3e/444f3e51839ba246a02bd3d29...
- verytrivial 8y agoYes, that Grasshopper to me looks like a carefully constructed work-in-progress device whereas the the current one looks like a full scale mockup with shiny wallpaper. Maybe I overreached with an internet explosion, but the silver craft just screams "spectacle" to me, even if, due to development progress on the Raptors it can indeed do a hop. I've been proven wrong before!
- rbanffy 8y ago
- ForHackernews 8y ago> No nation or company has ever built a single vehicle capable of flying dozens of people into space (especially deep space), landing on distant worlds, and then flying back to Earth. At this risk of stating the obvious, this is still the case today. SpaceX building a mockup in the desert does not mean they are anywhere close to achieving this goal.
- manicdee 8y agoOnce the new high pressure Raptors are working, most of that dream will be a reality. The only things holding SpaceX back at this point are the heatshield, the engines and Planetary Protection.
- lenkite 8y agoWhat are the characteristics that make stainless steel a better choice than carbon fiber for the BFR ? Is it just tensile strength ?
- progval 8y ago> Usable strength/weight of full hard stainless at cryo is slightly better than carbon fiber, room temp is worse, high temp is vastly better https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1077111607564464129 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1077111607564464129
- manicdee 8y agoAlso: SS has longer service life than composites or aluminium due to being less susceptible to fatigue. This is important on a spacecraft intended to be reusable, and SS is highly reflective to infrared aka heat, which is important for handling reentry heating which is mostly radiative heating from the bowshock.