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Did you read the same post I did? TFA talks about a "15 meter diameter payload fairing". I don't see why Starship couldn't do that. Full quote: > For a rela
by cryptonector 5y ago
Did you read the same post I did? TFA talks about a "15 meter diameter payload fairing". I don't see why Starship couldn't do that. Full quote:
> For a relatively trivial fraction of the overall telescope budget, non-recurring engineering costs could weld together an expendable Starship variant (no TPS, no flaps, no landing legs) with a 15 meter diameter payload fairing. Almost overnight, endless gnashing of teeth about the relative mirror diameters of Luvoir or Habex, or the relative difficulty of performing coronography with a segmented, non circular mirror, go away.
- _joel 5y agoI've never heard it mentioned by anyone working at SpaceX or any commentators (bar this person, it seems). You'd have to build an entire new stage0 system, for starters, even if you've built a new one for starship 2.0 as it wouldn't accomodate the larger fairing size.
- baq 5y agoThey made the Raptor work, maybe they could design a 15m fairing that would only add $50M to the price tag…?
- smaddox 5y agoConsidering it took them roughly 2 years to develope Starship from scratch, even if that's the case, it would still be an order of magnitude lower cost than anything else, wouldn't it?