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I see this as being far more useful to send large quantities of fuel into orbit, and then use that fuel to accelerate to reach the outer planets. Electronics a
by ars 5y ago
I see this as being far more useful to send large quantities of fuel into orbit, and then use that fuel to accelerate to reach the outer planets.
Electronics and such are pretty light, the regular rockets we have are fine for that. This is more for raw material, for example the structural components of a space station.
- panick21_ 5y agoSo what would you rather launch. 1 fully reusable starship. Or 1000+ SpinLaunches?
- jkhdigital 5y agoMaybe it could provide a nice assist to Elon’s batshit insane plan to launch a Starship every four hours for years in order to put a Mars colony worth of supplies into LEO.
- gonzo41 5y agoThat doesn't seem that carbon friendly.
- sacrosancty 5y agoAnnual fuel consumption = Starship's 1000 t capacity of fuel per launch * 365 day * 24 hour/day / 4 hour per launch = 2 million tons. Global annual CO2 emissions = 30 billion tons. If all the fuel became CO2, that's 0.01% of the global emission rate, so worthy sacrifice for a Mars colony, I think.
- kaelwd 5y ago> If all the fuel became CO2 Methane combustion produces 2.75kg of CO2 for each kg of fuel.
- sacrosancty 5y agoBecause of the oxygen which is also part of the 1000 t of "fuel". However, I think I used the wrong value anyway, for Starship instead of its booster, so x4 or so. Doesn't affect the conclusion.