You know the content is fire when he ask for a Titan drone at the end. :) And you know it’s a small channel when all the comments are helpful and supportive. Though I do hope to see the channel grow!
@ajm2872Ай бұрын
Criminally underrated channel. Great video, as always 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
@TJAllcotАй бұрын
I imagine that there are some Launch Service administrators that would have some sort of attack at the idea of the Falcon 9 being a 'low cadence' launch vehicle, hahahaha.
@KlementosoАй бұрын
There used to be a time where the computer on Apollo was pretty powerful. These days however…
@Apature-ScienceАй бұрын
Your videos need more views they are always so informative and interesting.
@xyzero1682Ай бұрын
Just trying to synch up good launch-site weather with good landing-site weather was a big enough concern.
@turbofan450Ай бұрын
Not sure if you mentioned this but, with respect to the payload benefit of Super Heavy drone ship landing, you also need to account for the fact that SH would need heavy landing legs and possibly heavy landing leg extension mechanisms which will eat into any benefit gained from the drone ship landing. Great video!
@erictheepic5019Ай бұрын
Based on the title, I just assumed that a hypothetical Superheavy droneship would have the hardware to catch boosters, just as the towers do, although this wasn't explicitly stated in the video.
@loafofbreadxАй бұрын
In theory, you could just land on the engines, but that can be risky. I think that adding a catch tower might be a better idea because SH is already designed to land like that.
@J7Handle21 күн бұрын
@@loafofbreadx tell me you’re a KSP player without telling me you’re a KSP player. This is an insane comment. You can’t land on the engines for two reasons . They’re too fragile to hold several hundred tons of weight, and the landing engines would torch the pad without some breathing room. A tower on the drone ship seems likely, but would be very heavy, requiring a larger ship, and being very high off the water, the tower would sway wildly as the ship rolls on the waves, making a clean catch 10 times harder.
@loafofbreadx21 күн бұрын
@@J7Handle Yeah, it is insane i will give you that. But think of it this way, everyone thought F9 would be impossible and it is now one of the most successful rockets in history. Sure, right now landing a rocket on 30 raptors may cause small damages to the engines, but all that is needed is a slight increase is strength.
@KalleLast7 күн бұрын
@@J7Handle landing on the engines was the initial plan when starship was in conceptual phase. IIRC musk has said that is still the long-term goal but would need more time to flesh out so it'll likely take a few years of iteration before they can get there.
@gorgonbertАй бұрын
Audio is better than usual 👍
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Thank you. I got a real XLR microphone and a nice interface and this is the second video using it.
@donjones4719Ай бұрын
If I haven't mentioned it before - I really enjoy the "if you liked this video please send me..." bits at the end.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Thanks.
@dsdy1205Ай бұрын
When I proposed this topic, I was expecting the answer to be some small subtle optimisation I had missed, not another complete perspective change in how I viewed Starship operations. Then again, I forget which channel I'm on sometimes
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
People forget that Musk is actually serious when he's talking about Mars and is building the system to do that.
@richardzeitz54Ай бұрын
I appreciate the way things like schedule and economics are part of your analyses so thank you. Too often we hear from other sources arguments about performance of the craft in question without that essential contextualizing information. It will be great if SpaceX makes their target of 100+ tons to orbit, with rapid reuse. But even with somewhat less, being able to launch once a day and at costs in the ballpark of what SpaceX projects will mean a whole new orbital economy, new industry. This is very exciting!
@joakimlindblom8256Ай бұрын
Another great analysis! Even if SpaceX were to optimize Falcon 9 first stage recovery steps to more closely match what is planned with Superheavy, they still would need time to do the de-coking operation as a result of using kerosene fuel, which isn't needed with Superheavy due to its use of methane.
@loafofbreadxАй бұрын
Dude I love that pfp
@jrheritaАй бұрын
10:40 - Musk did say in an EA interview that they were ‘overclocking the thrusters’ on the Drone ships trying to figure out how fast they could run them.
@PetesGuideАй бұрын
I remember that! Cavitation must drive all the Navy sonar operators batty.
@InfinityDronesАй бұрын
Nice video, one thing you did miss is the added complexity and weight of adding landing legs to superheavy. But that would have just added more to your point of why they can't use droneships. Really good video and well explained. I think SpaceX would not mind having a "fleet" of boosters and second starships as an interm solution until they make a breakthrough in the reusablity part.
@TheSirjull891Ай бұрын
I just wanna say, the graphs/visuals you use are very helpful and easy to read! Also, a fun thing to think about is this video doesn’t take into account possible international space ports or “oil rig” setups they could have in the future. You could have a fully functioning space port at sea.💪
@wkjeeping9053Ай бұрын
1. the booster would damage when landing. 2. The drone ship would be damaged from the boosters rocket ENGINES. 3. Booster and starship are designed to be caught to save a few ton of weight. Spacex plan is 4 to 6 starship flights a day minimum, if not every hour down to 30 mins launches. That's not counting continent to continents flights from other launch sites.
@BjornCanuteАй бұрын
You know they could always do an artificial island or oil rig style setup with a catch tower and just land there every time. That would mean less flexibility in designing each launch profile but it should give better fuel savings then return to launch site. And rather then transport the booster back by barge you could always refill and fly it back to the OG launch site. I doubt you would need all 33 engines to create a ballistic trajectory back without the need to carry starship and a payload, so you could create a simplified launch platform without the need for starting the outer ring of engines.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
I had a section on this but couldn't make it fit... Launches aim in a variety of directions and therefore the location where you need to land changes from launch to launch. You could do a hybrid version where you do something like RTLS to get to wherever the fixed landing site is, but that will cost you payload. You also still need to get the booster back somehow.
@suserman7775Ай бұрын
What about a Super Heavy Heavy? In other words, 3 SH boosters tied together much like Falcon Heavy's triple. You'd need 3 Mechazillas in Florida. ( Or what about 1 Mechazilla in the Bahamas? )
@TheEvilmooseofdoomАй бұрын
I don't see why it can't be done, but likely as it did with F9/FH it will mean a re-design of the center core.
@BlahCraft1Ай бұрын
Many modern rocket systems use variable configurations to allow for a more cost effective way of launching a wide variety of payloads; there's no need to use extra performance for smaller payloads, that's just added cost, so you should try and cut that out if you have the margins to. This typically takes the form of strap on boosters, or things like an additional stage or a kick stage. F9 and FH do this differently. They both can launch in different configurations that, for added cost, have added performance, by launching the 1st stage in RTLS, Droneship, and Expendable configurations (FH hasn't done a twin Droneship, and the reason why can be another discussion). The Starship architecture is also doing this "additional payload capacity for more price" architecture. Once again, SpaceX isn't going with the typical approach. Although Starship is capable of lifting any satellite with ease, due to it's poor mass ratio, stemming from being reusable, it has disproportionate difficulty placing objects into higher energy orbits. To get around this, Starship will need to use orbital refueling so that Starship can place payloads into any orbit. What may be most interesting, is how the new wave of space launch companies tackle this architecture problem. "Oldspace" architectures handle this very well, as they'll often use boosters or many stages, which can be varied to provided a different payloads for different costs. "Newspace" companies are starting from the ground up, are very vertically integrated, and are mindful of fixed costs like engine development, so their architectures reflect this by usually being a simple 2 stage rocket design. With many Newspace companies going with reuse, trying to improve upon what was shown with F9, and different expectations of their rapidity, it'll be interesting if they develop a different architecture to the F9/FH's reuse. That said, since propulsive reuse is what everyone seems to be going with, and I can't think of a different variation to the reuse architecture of RTLS/Droneship/Expendable, there might not be any differences.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
It's very hard to predict what is going to happen with starship-sized payloads, but I suspect that we are going to see more kick stages - like Helios - rather than refueling starship because it's a simpler architecture and you don't have to figure out how to get starship back from wherever you take it. That ignore the "starship as probe" approach where it might actually be cheaper to build a starship with the probe build into it and refuel it than to build a bespoke probe the way we do now.
@rystiya7262Ай бұрын
Transportation is probably another big issue, I assume. It will take a bigger drone-ship to carry the superheavy booster, and a bigger land vehicle to take it back from the port to the launch site. The latter will probably be super slow and cannot pass through most roads.
@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTVАй бұрын
Plus, a drone ship big enough to carry a Starship booster would be massive and even more expensive to build and run than the existing ones. It would be so large that new berthing and tug towing arrangements would be required. A specialized port could be needed at Boca Chica and mechazilla would need to be built out on a pier to access it (which is an environmental permitting nightmare). The scale of Starship makes handling it with anything but mechazilla a serious exercise.... :)
@bryan2604sАй бұрын
the end off the video is amazing
@oljoboАй бұрын
11:55 👍😊
@bmangold833 күн бұрын
Nice breakdown. Thanks. I think they'll eventually build a downrange oil platform like tower for missions that require max payload. They could top it off with minimal fuel have it & fly itself back to land from there.
@ludwigvanzappa9548Ай бұрын
Fascinating! Thank you!
@theelephantintheroom69Ай бұрын
They intend to catch with the arms mostly to save weight on landing legs, but it would come at the cost of a launch profile/angle that needs the booster to stay near the launch site
@GawainNYCАй бұрын
I'm sorry I don't have $52,578.00, How about an autonomous single prop drone? It comes as a kit, and it's made of plastic and balsa! Just keep the videos coming!
@ranchis9044Ай бұрын
A drone ship sized to handle a superheavy just doesn't exist. falcon 9's drone ships are the size of a football field and in no way could handle something as huge as superheavy.
@stormlord1177Ай бұрын
my best reasoning (at the start of the video before ive heard your arguments) is the want to offload as much recovery hardware to the ground side as possible since their already having to take so much up as is.
@fians4793Ай бұрын
Another thing to account for is the landing itself. With falcon 9, the booster lands relatively unassisted with the use of landing legs. Super heavy isn’t just coming back to launch site, it’s gonna be caught by mechazilla. Since the tower handles the landings that means super heavy doesn’t need landing legs which saves a lot of weight and thus can lift heavier payloads. This weight savings may make up for a lot of the payload reduction needed for return to launch site. Sure, you could compound these benefits by putting mechazilla on drone ships but that would make all the problems you showed with drone ships significantly worse.
@Samonie67Ай бұрын
yea too bad the offshore oil rig idea wasn't so great after all, combining mechazilla with a droneship would be nearly impossible unless there was some island further away where there was very stable ground and it could be caught
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Definitely true, but I didn't need it to make the point so I left it out.
@trace9130Күн бұрын
I wonder if they will make a lower cost expendable upper stage for missions that need more than 50t? If they could use fewer engines on a lighter upper stage it might be cheaper to just have a expendable version of starship.
@regolith1350Ай бұрын
9:24 "The point of these scenarios is pretty simple: droneships are fine at LOW flight rates..." Holy cow, SpaceX has so completely shifted our expectations that we can now talk with a straight face about how a rocket landing at sea every five days is a "low flight rate" and "slow cycle time". We live in amazing times!
@SirWhiteRabbit-gr5soАй бұрын
From a marine architecture POV, a droneship large and heavy enough to handle the Super Heavy will be massive. The weight and height of the booster will pose a major stability challenges compare to the Falcon-9. Especially if a catching tower is required.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Yes. I wanted to talk about the cadence issues, but the architecture is clearly a huge issue. I think you need something less like a drone ship and more like an oil platform.
@donjones4719Ай бұрын
Geez, how will I keep all of this in my head for when an online discussion comes up about Starship drone ships? Anyway, you left out the obvious solution. A US version of the Ekranoplan will have to be built. It'll get SH back to shore damn quick traveling at 550 kph (342 mph). Once anchored near the shore an underwater pipeline can be hooked up and then SH can get a bit of propellant and fly back to the launch mount. See, it's so easy!
@fauzin3338Ай бұрын
That would require the design and manufacturing of a whole new aircraft (or ekranoplan in this case), who would finance it lol
@donjones4719Ай бұрын
@@fauzin3338 Umm... Bill Gates, of course. We know how he loves supporting Elon. It'll require his kind of money to figure out how to keep the booster from tipping over at 550 kph. ;) I keep trying to sell a bridge in my neighborhood to both of them but somehow haven't gotten a response.🤔🤣🤣
@nolsp7240Ай бұрын
Drone ships also don't scale well to starship booster size magnitudes. Also, drone ship landings = landing legs = a significant portion of the payload capacity.
@negirnoАй бұрын
Plus you either have to put landing legs on the SH boosters (which will cut into the total mass to orbit) or make the tallest ship ever made to have a floating catch tower.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Yes. That's why the thumbnail looks so stupid.
@BigCar2Ай бұрын
Time is a very important consideration, but so is cost. You talked about this, but I think it should be emphasised more that Starship changes the rocket game because the cheapest way to use it, by far, is return to launch site. People keep talking about a throwaway second stage, and that's not getting the point. If you use it the way SpaceX wants, you only pay for the fuel. You can take, lets say, 50 tons to orbit this way. If you want to take 80 tons then just do two launches and assemble in orbit. That's by far the best way to do space in the future rather than these special drone ship or expendable second stage options. Another great video. Thanks for sharing!
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Agreed. That was the point I tried to make with the airplane example - low cost comes from flying all the time and not throwing things away.
@EveryoneWhoUsesThisTVАй бұрын
Yes, fully and rapidly reusable is the smarter path! Rapidly comes with other bonuses, more launches will mean teams gain experience faster as well - the technicians and workers who launch and refurbish it get to practice and refine what they do, speeding the process further. The same applies to upgrading the hardware. The cost of Starship missions will be propellant + maintenance. The more they fly, the more they are testing the hardware and the more opportunities they have to test new variations of the hardware that may reduce future maintenance costs. The heatshield in particular will need a lot of experimentation to develop one that will withstand repeated use without constant expensive repairs. So, the rapid reuse should help power-level the staff and tech as well! :)
@JC-IVАй бұрын
SWA Does taxi at landing burn speeds. Onwards and upwards, great comparisons and analysis, especially of time on ground between both the commercial space and aviation systems!
@FroddeBАй бұрын
I think the costs weigh out too if they can refill the booster and reuse a lot quicker. Will require more launches to get the same payload, but it's going to be A LOT easier to launch. The tower does everything; stacking, refueling, launching and catching.
@wildbillnyeАй бұрын
SpaceX should copy CNSA's catch concept using 4 steel cables to close in on and catch the booster. Would allow for a much larger landing zone and reduce likelyhood of damaging the launch tower, but at the added cost of increasing turnaround time with having to transport the booster back to launchpad. SpaceX's concept of having the booster come back to the launch pad right after a launch sounds like they'd ideally have 1 booster per launch tower, with a few backups on standby. If they caught them at sea, they'd need more boosters and a whole fleet of starship catching drone ships to approach achieving their desired launch cadence, but it could allow for a greater overall launch cadence. With the current plan they'd have to perform booster inspections on the launch pad. If they caught them at sea, they could inspect them either on the way back or in queue, and have pre-inspected boosters at the launch site ready to go. They wouldn't necessarily need to catch them at sea either, the reasoning behind that is to save a bit of Delta-v, but they could instead build a dedicated land based booster catcher near the launch site.
@evil0sheepАй бұрын
Great video! Perfectly answered my question on your other video :) another thing to consider is that the logistics of moving superheavy from the drone ship to the launch pad might be prohibitive given that you have to drive it around upright on an spmt instead of loading them on a truck like with f9. You’d basically need a seaport that is also a space port in order for it to pull.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Definitely.
@mrrolandlawrenceАй бұрын
wow interesting. when you put it like that it all seems clearer
@lazarus2691Ай бұрын
Fastest Falcon 9 turnaround was 21 days, not 27. This was performed by B1062 between the Axiom 1 launch on April 8 2022, and the Starlink Group 4-16 launch on April 29 2022.
@ErnestCFАй бұрын
Great analysis!!! 👏👏👏
@andrewchronАй бұрын
I really doubt whether current Starship design can support such low turnaround times, especially the 2nd stage.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Second stage is a different issue.
@TheEvilmooseofdoomАй бұрын
The current design is still being actively developed so lots of things still in the air.
@VsorАй бұрын
Love the thumbnail lol
@keithrange4457Ай бұрын
You make my day when insee an Eager Space video notification 🤟itd be neat if they could launch from boca chica and land the 2nd stage in florida. Launch in batches and bring them back to boca on a big ship. I dont know that is viablr, jist that itd be neat 😉
@heliank6905Ай бұрын
I think launching from Boca Chica and catching in Cape Canaveral will be an option for rare extra lift launches. Eventually Space X could even to a drone ship equivalent with oil platforms, but super heavy would get refueled and fly back to it's launch site, trading more cost and complexity for time on the fly back vs a slow barge or ship.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Drone ships for F9 are about 600 km from the launch site. boca chica to the cape is about 1600 km.
@jespadoАй бұрын
Great video!! Hope your subliminal at the end works !!
@treasurehunter3744Ай бұрын
I know people have already mentioned the heavy landing legs, but if you made an air breathing first stage, and made the Superheavy Booster stage 1.5, like the suggestion made by Terran Space Academy, the heavy landing legs will not hinder the orbital payload. However, I do not believe SpaceX will choose this path. It requires building a totally new air breathing methane engine that will have a lower thrust to weight ratio that will only be useful in the atmosphere. However, it would allow larger payloads to orbit, and remove the mass cost of the landing legs.
@darksars3622Ай бұрын
Yeah but trying to catch a big booster like that, its just a bit well risky by any chance? maybe make one with legs so you dont have to risk the launch pad evey time you want to reuse it
@chyza2012Ай бұрын
This analysis hinges on spacex having working "gas and go" for boosters which I don't see happening in the next 10 years, I can see them having a 1/day launch cadence, but not with an individual booster on an individual pad. I don't think even spacex is intending to get there any time soon, they wouldn't have built a factory to mass manufacture these if they think they'll only need a couple to hit their target flight rate.
@ignBinacleАй бұрын
short answer: landing legs take lots of weight so in order to take heavy payloads, they are catching the booster instead
@TheEvilmooseofdoomАй бұрын
Yup!! That's certainly what they'd like. Nothing is guaranteed though and there is still a very real chance we'll see landing legs.
@oldmanstumpie1061Ай бұрын
I really think SpaceX could land 2 F9's on one drone ship. They'd have to invent a way to move the first one to the edge and also add another opti-grabber, but I really think it's possible.
@donjones4719Ай бұрын
There's room on the deck and they're accurate enough - but what will the blast of the F9 rocket plume do to the first rocket? It seems likely it'll damage it, or even knock it over despite the octograbber.
@oldmanstumpie1061Ай бұрын
@@donjones4719 I’d be curious to see what would happen. They could ship out an empty but slightly laden shell on the barge and see what happens.
@oljoboАй бұрын
I suspect the sideways forces are too strong when all power from booster is reflected from the deck during landing
@doghouse6413Ай бұрын
Couldn’t they build a staircase in the Florida panhandle and have the booster land further down the peninsula?
@douginorlando62605 күн бұрын
The only reason for SpaceX to ramp up starship production to weekly rates is because they plan to expend them. I expect boosters to be reused but the starship itself will likely be expended many times per year. Of course these are starships designed for one way with huge payloads. Since the expendable starship will lose rocket engines, I doubt the starship will go beyond 6 vacuum Raptors.
@douginorlando62605 күн бұрын
If the market volume is there for even 30% lower cost per pound to LEO, then I see several “drone” ships
@EagerSpace4 күн бұрын
Why do you think that it's going to be 30% cheaper to use a drone ship?
@douginorlando62604 күн бұрын
@@EagerSpace I believe I was referring to the descriptor you said they used. I don’t know if the ships (or barges) are manned or unmanned, the 30% was a rough guess the difference in payload per launch plus amortizing the added cost of the ship used for landing the booster. Your graph showed up to a 70% increase in payload so 30% drop in payload delivery to LEO cost per pound seemed conservative. If a 30% additional drop in cost per pound to LEO opened up huge additional demand, then landing on ships is a no brainer.
@ekowstevens4054Ай бұрын
One day some one is going to send you one of the things you ask for and you will spend the rest of the day worring about how they found your address!
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
I've had people ask me to set up a PO box - when I asked for the puffin stuffed animals - but I'm a little scared what people might send me.
@PetesGuideАй бұрын
@@EagerSpaceTribbles.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
I'm sure I would have trouble with that.
@chrismoule7242Ай бұрын
Excellent.
@meinking_sensei3807Ай бұрын
A day with a new Eager Space video is always a good day ˘⌣˘
@EasyX2y13 күн бұрын
What about the no landing legs? Does this save lots of mass compared to the fuel needed to go back?
@EagerSpace13 күн бұрын
Landing legs would definitely add mass and you would either need them or a catch tower for super heavy. Not sure how much mass.
@davincimachen5517Ай бұрын
Gods, sounds like axiom space's older youtube videos lmao
@clashgamers4072Ай бұрын
Tldr : RTLS is fuel inefficient but economically more efficient than drone ship landing when operated at scale
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Yep.
@alancoker1459Ай бұрын
Better have some landing legs or drone ship landing will never happen
@scottymoondogjakubin4766Ай бұрын
Kinda of confusing ! Is spacex going to catch the booster with mechzilla or land it on a drone ship ? Wouldnt it need landing legs or a larger drone ship ?
@TheEvilmooseofdoomАй бұрын
No plans for a drone ship. The might be able to catch or they might have to land on legs, but both will be RTLS.
@williamstock3007Ай бұрын
😂 Can’t help you with the request at the end but I’ll give you a like
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
I asked for the drone for my birthday and I didn't get it then either.
@vevenaneathnaАй бұрын
spacex is going to end up being the gas station monopoly of LEO. i figure in 10 -15 yrs most deep space missions will simply revolve around getting to orbit first and then refueling and then leaving somewhere else. that fuel/oxidizer in leo is going to be super valuable and take out a lot of risk from launching missions, the hard part, all the mass to orbit is already done, and if your rocket fails/doesnt reach orbit, spacex can just sell the fuel to the next person in line.
@cube2foxАй бұрын
I don't understand why you would assume that Starship refurbishment is an order of magnitude faster than Falcon 9 refurbishment. That seems way too optimistic. I also think that drone ship landings could make more sense for a three stage Starship, since a reusable middle stage wouldn't even allow for RTLS and so would have to land on a drone ship.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
What do you think are the major blockers to fast turnaround? Three stage starship is problematic; the logical track for the second stage puts it somewhere over land.
@cube2foxАй бұрын
@@EagerSpace I don't know, but it seems plausible that many factors that contribute to Falcon 9 refurbishment time are also present for Starship. I didn't think of land, that's good to know. Another reason to use two stages only.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
We know that one of the problems with Falcon 9 reuse is that they engines get soot accumulations because of the RP-1 fuel. Raptor avoids that because liquid methane burns very cleanly, and that eliminates one of the big blockers. My observation is that jet airplane engines run "gas and go" pretty much all the time and have ridiculously high reliability. Rocket engines are obviously different beasts but they aren't that different, and given that the engineers at SpaceX seem to believe they can get that kind of turnaround, I'm going to believe them for now.
@cube2foxАй бұрын
@@EagerSpace Yeah, but I'm not sure whether soot is the only significant factor in Falcon 9 first stage refurbishment time. Anyway, for Starship reuse, the refurbishment necessary for the upper stages (heat shield) is probably the real limiting factor anyway.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Upper stages are obviously a case that we don't know yet. But they inherently are slower because you need to wait for them to get back into an orbit that lets them land at the launch site, and IIRC that's 12-24 hours.
@TotallyNoAimАй бұрын
GUYS HES BACK
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Was I gone?
@TotallyNoAimАй бұрын
@@EagerSpace Yes for 5 days
@bcddd2145 күн бұрын
BOAT = Break Out Another Thousand
@NoNameAtAll2Ай бұрын
is 1 day turnaround for Superheavy reasonable? that sounds like the "ideal conditions", not operating cadence
@TheEvilmooseofdoomАй бұрын
It's aspirational and likely not realistic.
@ghost307Ай бұрын
Maybe SpaceX could buy some land for a landing pad in the D.R.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Downrange landing pads don't help because a) they aren't going to be the right distance away and b) they are only in one direction and you need to launch in different directions to reach different inclinations.
@ghost307Ай бұрын
@@EagerSpace But aren't you always launching predominantly to the East?
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Complicated. From Florida you want to launch due east for moon and Mars missions, but anything LEO heads north. From Boca chica you need to head southeast to miss land and then dogleg to the orbit you want.
@TopCat0707Ай бұрын
How far down range can Super Heavy drift before falling to earth? Even if it takes a bit more fuel, it might be the best option. Say, setup international operations. Have bases in west Africa, East Africa, Southeast Asia, etc. primarily for propellant aggregation missions. Each booster landing downrange in cycles. For the scale being envisioned by SpaceX, the infrastructure would be warranted. Aside from offering other launch services to the international market. I don't know enough about the suborbital dynamics involved. Anyway, the Pacific would be a large stretch.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
I had this topic covered and pulled it out because it wasn't working well, and apparently I should have worked harder. Boosters are a on a ballistic trajectory and Falcon 9 travels about 600 km to the drone ship. Open up a map and see how far that gets you... The answer is "not at all close to any useful landmasses". Not to mention you need to launch in different directions.
@TopCat0707Ай бұрын
@@EagerSpace Thanks, and I like the work you've been doing.
@PowerScissor7 күн бұрын
I think the weight of landing legs capable of allowing the booster to land on a droneship can't be justified vs return to launch site.
@EagerSpace6 күн бұрын
It's probably not enough to cancel it all out, but it would be pretty heavy.
@PowerScissor6 күн бұрын
@@EagerSpace 240ft tall & 27 ft wide, vs 140ft tall 12ft wide is a huge difference for moving around on water. Another thing is the hot staging. Once they stop ejecting the ring and it's built in....that will be a lot of mass at the very top of that 240ft...not sure how it would survive much wind on the water at 9m wide. Will be very interesting to see how they tackle these issues if they start catching them at sea for sure. It has to he able to survive all weather conditions if they want a daily cadence.
@curtiswfranksАй бұрын
"Seems like [Falcon 9 launches and landings are] happening all the time". * publishes video at the one time in years that the fleet is grounded *
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
I wrote that before the second stage incident happened, but decided to leave it in because I thought some people might find it funny. Oh, and because I'm lazy.
@curtiswfranksАй бұрын
@@EagerSpace: I did! I am not teasing you. Stuff happens. But the timing is great.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Back about twenty years ago I wrote a book and one of the realities of doing that is that you are going to make mistakes and - if you are lucky enough to have your book sell - they will be both public and permanent, at least until the next printing. That made me fairly immune to being mistaken it wrong about things.
@lowstrifeАй бұрын
Who says they will stop using drone ships? I could imagine the oil derricks could make a return once the concept has been flushed out. Also, you need RTLS to achieve rapid reuse. You can't wait 24hr for it to be shipped back to the launch site. Or, you're just playing hop-skip launching the rocket from the new landing pad, and it slowly hops it's way across the earth lol. But that's decade(s) out.
@flungas9823Ай бұрын
What address should I ship the drone to?
@807800Ай бұрын
MASS
@karliszauers1Ай бұрын
Somebody will unironically send you that drone won't they
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
How does one send a drone unironically?
@bbgun061Ай бұрын
Falcon 9 empty mass is 26 tons. Super Heavy empty mass is 200 tons. So, "you're gonna need a bigger boat!"
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Yep. That's why I did that silly picture for the thumbnail.
@bryanst.martin7134Ай бұрын
Marine assets don't suck. They are just more challenging than a fixed land position. I would propose a swath ship and dual thrusters at each leg. The thrusters respond to input from a MPU that has a 6DOF sensor about 50% the height of the booster. They have variable pitch props and can instantly change the attitude of the vessel. 3 Arms can swing up to trap the booster in vertical position. The thrusters can pitch 45 deg to help raise the platform from the depths to allow faster transit under tow with stabilization on line.
@TheEvilmooseofdoomАй бұрын
Sure and say a round billion to design, test, validate and deploy? Oh, and nothing that big will 'instantly' change is attitude. Turning takes time. :P
@grax4131Ай бұрын
Please send ME a drone!!
@albertopajuelomontes2066Ай бұрын
Starship can carry +100 tons to orbit not 50...
@negirnoАй бұрын
That is the aspirational goal, which might be reached with v2/v3, but v1 can only put 50 tons currently.
@albertopajuelomontes2066Ай бұрын
@@negirno V1 is a prototype it will never be the operational version of starship
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
The number Musk gave for the current version of starship was 40-50 tons, and that is what my model currently looks at.
@dancingdog2790Ай бұрын
Today's Starship is the worst Starship that will ever fly - so any calculations based on it will be the most conservative, worst-case estimates. This is a good thing!
@richardbloemenkamp8532Ай бұрын
Let's see when SpaceX flies one StarShip per day. I think that will be a very long time from now. BTW the cost for marine vessels can also be significantly reduced and vessels can be automated or remotely operated.
@BartJBolsАй бұрын
Your logo is.. unsettling. Would you accept a donation for a new logo?
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
It's supposed to be a bit unsettling, but message me and we'll talk.
@jordisimon1451Ай бұрын
Top reasons why you are mostly wrong: 1. SpaceX wants to achieve RAPID reusable rockets (talking about multiple launches per day), so... having to get back a booster from a droneship in the middle of the sea is not good. 2. They have been designing it to catch with the tower so why would they change that? It would mean a lot of lost effort (why develop the catch mechanism on the tower when you want to do something else) 3. Pretty sure that the power of 3 raptor enginges would cause some damages to the droneship, and damages are not compatible with reusability and rapidness.
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
You didn't watch the video, did you?
@jordisimon1451Ай бұрын
@@EagerSpace man, that is clickbait, how was I supposed to battle that
@EagerSpaceАй бұрын
Everybody says they hate clickbait and all the evidence shows that videos with clickbait titles perform better. I do try to reign it in, however.
@edolesjak7709Ай бұрын
Can we finally say-starship is a dumb design. Pushing engine pressures to crazy levels and expecting quick turn around is an oxymoron. Using cheap steel for reusable rocket is another oxymoron. Pressure held body is another trait of expandable rocket-a must have using steel being heavy material. Just vast number of engines is a trait of re usability-you simply can't loose so many engines on each flight. May be making second stage expandable, simpler, not so heavy might save star ship as a useful rocket.
@TheEvilmooseofdoomАй бұрын
No, that's just hater nonsense, but you people have never been terribly bright and certainly never honest.
@transzendenz1774Ай бұрын
Do you think spaceflight will change under the trump administration?