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A “giant orbital bomb” is part of the Lunar Starship plan. Starship will launch tankers > Starship HLS requires in-orbit propellant transfer in its mission pro
by fnordpiglet 3y ago
A “giant orbital bomb” is part of the Lunar Starship plan. Starship will launch tankers
> Starship HLS requires in-orbit propellant transfer in its mission profile. Prior to the launch of the HLS vehicle from Earth, a Starship variant configured as a propellant depot would be launched into an Earth orbit and then partially or fully filled by between four and fourteen Starship tanker flights carrying propellant. The Starship HLS vehicle would then launch and rendezvous with the already-loaded propellant depot and refuel before transiting from Earth orbit to Lunar orbit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_HLS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_HLS
I’m a little confused why you call it a giant orbital bomb. It wouldn’t be particularly giant. Four reusable flights could only bring 600T of propellant to LEO. A single starship is fueled with 4600T of propellant, or 18400T of propellant to get that 600T into LEO. I would argue the starship itself is a much more giant bomb with all sorts of fire and stress and chances to explode. 600T of fuel exploding in orbit might not even be visible. But there’s been a number of tests of in orbit refueling and it doesn’t seem much more complex than, say, docking with a space station and transferring bags of mostly water without damaging them.