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How is Starship going? Are they still trying to “sweat” the fuel out of the skin, to give it an active cooling layer?
by blackrock 6y ago
How is Starship going? Are they still trying to “sweat” the fuel out of the skin, to give it an active cooling layer?
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoStarship development continues apace. They’re planning to launch the latest starship vehicle to 50km altitude next week and then perform their difficult landing maneuver 15km from the launch site. I believe the sweating skin idea has been dropped. See this one hour video for a detailed breakdown of the current state of the design: https://youtu.be/-8p2JDTd13k https://youtu.be/-8p2JDTd13k
- d_theorist 6y agoNext launch is 15km (not 50).
- _Microft 6y agoIt's being launched up to 15km, that's pretty close to 50000 feet, so you might have mixed up the units.
- TaylorAlexander 6y agoOooh I see. The tweet I read said 15km/50k ft altitude and I misread that as 15km translation and 50km altitude. Thanks for the correction!
- blackrock 6y agoThe “sweating” feature was the best idea for the spacecraft. When I first heard of it, I was thinking, this must be a bad April Fool’s joke, or an incredibly great idea. Turns out, it was the former.
- 1958325146 6y agoThe latest we have is that it will sweat only where the heat shield can't hold up on its own: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1107380559834046465 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1107380559834046465 .