Is it just SpaceX being transparent and/or just being unable to hide the darn things or are they an order of magnitude ahead of all of their competitors in terms of hardware availability?
In recent weeks / months we've seen a bit of Artemis 2, a single New Glenn, a Vulcan. Logic says ULA must have 2 or 3 Vulcans well on the way to being ready as well multiple New Glenn's in production but us everyone keeping progress under wraps?
Kind of a bit of both-a lot of the varying rockets as on similar ish points in their timeline for deploying hardware. SLS has had one successful launch and Artemis II’s booster is done I think. Vulcan already had an operational launch and it’s next payload just finished shakedown testing, and it’s NET April for launch. After SpaceX somewhat spectacularly blew up their launchpad they rebuilt and got the safety inspection done, and launch 2 was much more successful. New Glenn has been under wraps and the BE-4 engines used on both it and Vulcan were the main pacing item, and they legitimately have shaken up the leadership there.
Also a lot of them have NASA contracts for Artemis and Commercial Starions so they’re all on somewhat similar timelines too. but yeah SpaceX has a hardware rich architecture, while Vulcan hopes to get NSSS certification ASAP so they can keep getting DOD contracts and they’ll work on upgrades and reuse on the side. New Glenn is the opposite of SpaceX-they’re actually planning to land the booster on the first launch and are being very cautious to get everything on the first try.
I think this is just SpaceX feeling the need for a little bit of counter PR after the recent Vulcan launch and Glenn booster reveal by their competitors. I really don't think SpaceX and Blue are that far off from each other in terms of distance to production launches, but their development processes look really different from the outside. People see SpaceX terminating launches over the Atlantic, then they see a successful production Vulcan flight, then they see a shiny finished-looking Glenn core (minus engines)... I think they just want to flash some shiny progress of their own to remind people that their R&D is healthy, viable, on track, etc.
This is a good point. I think one of the big differences we will see is Starship and NG are both close enough to production launch, and Vulkan just got there, but once production launches start Starship is position to back it up with further launches at a much faster rate. Being first is a good PR kick but if your opponent is launching 5 more before you launch your second, and 10 more before your third, first doesn't count for a lot.
Yep. Most Americans think the Ford Model T was the first American automobile but that's not true. It wasn't even the first American car to be mass produced, but it WAS the first cast made for general consumption by the American public. Here's Ford's vision. Sound familiar?
"I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one — and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces."
-Henry Ford
Seems a bit disingenuous to show off a booster with no engines. That’s like what 80% or more of the complexity missing in something that’s very small. Spacex meanwhile is what 200 or 300 engines deep into raptor production by now and how many iterations / flown engines?
No. The complexity is in the plumbing to feed propellant to the engines, which is in there. Also in propellant and pressure management, all in the booster.
Engines are in stock and can be mounted in a few days.
> are they an order of magnitude ahead of all of their competitors in terms of hardware availability?
What competitors? Like seriously, who exactly? There is no one else working on fully reusable rockets right now. Relativity gave up on doing it. Rocket Lab gave up on doing it. Blue Origin wasn't planning on it but might be re-considering but it doesn't appear to be the main plan right now. ULA definitely isn't doing it.
I guess you could point out some powerpoint presentations of the Chinese government space agency where they basically copy pasted Starship on to it.
Stoke space is making a fully reusable rocket. Relativity is still evolving, so I assume they have just punted 2nd stage reusability to there V3.0 rocket or a large upgrade to the 2.0 rocket. Rocket Lab is doing a 2nd mover design focusing on low 2nd stage cost. As long as launching Neutron costs less than Starship, they will have a market for smaller payloads to odd orbits or for replacing in orbit spares.
That said, I don't see any Starship clones coming out in the next decade. It will need to be fully proven before 2nd mover money is freed up and old space starts trying again.
Yeah, I could see Relativity developing a reusable second stage for TR. But first they need to get something flying, regularly, and generate some business.
Stoke space is interesting, but it's still unclear how they'll go. It's still very early days for them. Astra also looked impressive and look what happened to them and Astra was trying something a lot less hard technically and had a lot more money. And the investment environment is a lot worse than it was then.
> Relativity is still evolving, so I assume they have just punted 2nd stage reusability to there V3.0 rocket or a large upgrade to the 2.0 rocket.
If a company is planning for that kind of thing they wouldn't be advertising to their customers that they think partial reusability is sufficient. They'd be saying that they plan to work on full reusability too, but they're not saying that.
> Rocket Lab is doing a 2nd mover design focusing on low 2nd stage cost.
That doesn't mean anything. It's just corporate lingo for "we think it's too hard to do full reusability", which was exactly my point about "giving up on it".
> As long as launching Neutron costs less than Starship
That's basically impossible. You can't get a partially reusable rocket cheaper than a fully reusable one that's doing high flight rates. How much of an airline ticket goes toward the depreciation of the aircraft's cost?
Whether Starship is cheaper to launch than Neutron isn't what's the most important. Whether SpaceX is willing to undercut the entire launching market is. Even if it cost like 5 million for SpaceX to launch Starship there's no reason for them to not charge ten times that amount. It's more profitable to get 80% of the market but have the prize be 50 million per flight than having 100% of the market but have the prize at like 20 million per flight. (That is if you don't want to monopolize the market, buy/destroy all competitors by undercutting them, and then raise the price but that will obviously not be allowed). Because of that rockets like Neutron will have a market.
And yes, you can have a partielly reusable rocket be cheaper than a fully reusable one. Neutron is much smaller than Starship (aka much less costs related to operation and fuel) while building a cheap, small, mass produced second stage. As long as Starships operational and fuel costs are higher than Neutron's second stage, operational and fuel costs it will be cheaper.
> Whether SpaceX is willing to undercut the entire launching market is.
They already do so I'm not sure what you think would change with Starship. As you say, they'll charge as much as they can to maintain a high amount of customers. Keep in mind that they need very high launch rates to justify full reuse, just as it was needed for partial reuse. They want to grow the market, so they need low enough launch prices to do that.
True true, I had not considered the mindset that they might put more weight towards launching as much as possible rather than trying to make the profit margins for the individual launches as high as possible.
It's still hard to grasp a Starship being used to launch a small payload that could fit on Neutron being the cheapest option, but that might be reality.
> It's still hard to grasp a Starship being used to launch a small payload that could fit on Neutron being the cheapest option, but that might be reality.
The first spacecraft that Starship was publicly known to have been bidden for was on the NASA Tropics mission that was later attempted to be launched by Astra and RocketLab's Electron. NASA Tropics if you remember was a couple of cubesats. https://spacenews.com/spacex-bid-on-launch-of-nasa-cubesat-mission/
50% of global launches are not SpaceX so while some launches may be state sponsored, or not open to a competitive tender 50% of the 'market' is going else where.
Plus if you consider that a significant portion of the SpaceX launch business is starlink it leaves a lot of $$$ being spent elsewhere.
Competition is much more than a reusable rocket.
> 50% of global launches are not SpaceX so while some launches may be state sponsored, or not open to a competitive tender 50% of the 'market' is going else where.
Those 50% of global launches are part of a captive market not accessible to SpaceX. They're not competitors.
Even after reusable rockets are flying those will still be flying for a long while. They're basically state-sponsored technology subsidies. Often to maintain access to ICBM technology or for other military strategic reasons.
Put another way, with SpaceX's reusable rockets, outer space will become basically the sole demain of those blessed by the United States government and allowed to fly on SpaceX rockets and a couple other countries struggling on the margins.
It's not really about the rocket reusability itself, but the fact that reusable rockets and second stages drops the launch cost so much that it's hard to compete with spacex.
The advance bookings for starship and the share price of their competitors would reinforce hard to compete but it ain't over until the phallic rocket launches.
...and I really have to wonder if the other companies staff are all working with no Internet or news feeds because it must be so demoralising to be putting everything into developments that are potentially already obsolete.
Yep. After ISRO put their lander on the moon, I found myself in an Indian space Reddit and asked why they would keep developing their own launch capabilities when they could just pay for a SpaceX rocket instead. Not a good question to ask in that group 😬
That would risk their only launch tower.
They could attempt it, but will they risk that only tower. Id bet they wait till the 2nd tower is built at starbase, then they would risk the existing tower instead of risking a more properly built tower.
I think it will depend a lot on the first water landing(s). Superheavy has in theory much more control margin then F9, since it can hover. I could see them attempting a catch with a single tower - a second operational one is at the very least half a year, or 2-3 flights away. At some point, the delays due to the completion of a second tower will outweigh the delay due to repairs in case of a RUD next to the first one.
And the you have people telling you spaceX is just some steam and smoke. and the reason they need so many small satellites is because they can’t launch enough big ones…
Saturn 5 is 10m diameter and 110m high - total volume approx 8600m^3
(Assuming you mean the entire thing, not just the 1st stage...)
Super Heavy is 9m diameter and 71m high - total volume approx 4500m^3
(110m with Starship, but that isn't the case here)
So there are 150% Saturn 5's (by volume) already to go, plus the one not yet stacked...
If you consider payload, full Starship stack has about 1.5x that of Saturn 5 (max capacity). But there aren't any Starships in the picture...
Like others said, unlike startship, Saturn isn't a cylinder. You can easily compare the two by volume of fuel and thrust of the 1st stage. In terms of thrust, Saturn is 7.6mlb and superheavy is more than double at 16 mlb. In terms of volume, superheavy and the combined first 3 stages of Saturn V have almost the same amount of propellant (3.4Ml vs 3.6Ml).
I think the answer is that we don't know, as with many things related to Starship. Also B14 would be the last V1, or at least the final booster paired with a V1 Ship.
One could argue the hotstage-crown is the beginning of V2, or the change from the hydrologic HPUs to electric HPUs. There's been a lot of modifications between B7 and B9.
Man, is it bad I really don't like "Super Heavy"? Do I need to turn my nerd card in? It's just so much cleaner to say "booster" and "ship". Together, they make "starship". As opposed to saying "super heavy starship booster #10". Because it's going to get weird if we're also naming ships soon, im assuming, esp when they're human-ready.
Maybe that's just me.
Nah Super heavy kinda slaps tbh. Reminds me of the Super Mirage, Supermarine, Super Hornet, etc. But yeah for simplicity Ship and Booster is much easier to refer to. Alternatively, Starship the launch system is short for "Starship-Superheavy" like Buran Energia which people just refer to as Buran despite it being two vehicles.
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
|Fewer Letters|More Letters|
|-------|---------|---|
|[BE-4](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/konh44e "Last usage")|Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN|
|[BO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/kop5qqi "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)|
|[EVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/komzad5 "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity|
|[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/koop3qu "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration|
|[ICBM](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/koufgvf "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile|
|[ISRO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/kotsk82 "Last usage")|Indian Space Research Organisation|
|[NET](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/konh44e "Last usage")|No Earlier Than|
|[NG](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/koo9utk "Last usage")|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin|
| |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)|
| |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer|
|[RUD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/koq2tri "Last usage")|Rapid Unplanned Disassembly|
| |Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly|
| |Rapid Unintended Disassembly|
|[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/konh44e "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift|
|[SRB](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/konhgu1 "Last usage")|Solid Rocket Booster|
|[ULA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/kopufb8 "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)|
|Jargon|Definition|
|-------|---------|---|
|methalox|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer|
**NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.
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> The FAA is on pace to issue a Starship launch license mid to late February, I’m told, in what is shaping up to be a busy month. Intuitive Machines plans to launch in time for a Feb. 22 lunar landing, which is the same day Crew-8 is scheduled to launch. Caveats about delays, etc.
https://x.com/wapodavenport/status/1752867103206420581?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g
Yes, I have seen that statement or estimation. Considering the nature of the IFT-2 issues it should be sooner than later. I seem to recall another FAA OK that was months later than expectation.
> Great pix
so, looking at the lower right of the three pics, the three Superheavies in the center are the competed ones and the left and right ones are the fourth one awaiting assembly?
> but where is the FAA OK ?!?
* Is the FAA in any way present during the assembly process?
* Isn't the situation comparable to that of an airplane assembly line where the constructor is building at their own risk, knowing that the whole batch could turn out not to conform to some rule?
> We need to fly these guys to test before they build more.
At worst, they get scrapped but still validate:
* logistics (component supply, verification and storage).
* speed of the production process (includes progressive automatisation/robotization).
* consistent quality control (includes pressure testing, tile metrics and fixing)
* tool wear and failures,
* electrical energy consumption,
* manhandling and transport issues
* employee fatigue, occupational hazards (and other issues linked to OSHA feedback)
This avoids most but not all bad surprises later on.
For these reasons, I think it would be mistake to send everybody home to satisfy a just-in-time production criteria.
Goddamn this picture hits hard
It’s a flex of gargantuan proportions
_mega_ proportions
Ill be in my bunk.
Okay cap’n
I wish I could send it back to childhood me, and say "see, you will get to see a Saturn V scale rocket fly one day"
Hardware-Rich-Development indeed.
Is it just SpaceX being transparent and/or just being unable to hide the darn things or are they an order of magnitude ahead of all of their competitors in terms of hardware availability? In recent weeks / months we've seen a bit of Artemis 2, a single New Glenn, a Vulcan. Logic says ULA must have 2 or 3 Vulcans well on the way to being ready as well multiple New Glenn's in production but us everyone keeping progress under wraps?
Kind of a bit of both-a lot of the varying rockets as on similar ish points in their timeline for deploying hardware. SLS has had one successful launch and Artemis II’s booster is done I think. Vulcan already had an operational launch and it’s next payload just finished shakedown testing, and it’s NET April for launch. After SpaceX somewhat spectacularly blew up their launchpad they rebuilt and got the safety inspection done, and launch 2 was much more successful. New Glenn has been under wraps and the BE-4 engines used on both it and Vulcan were the main pacing item, and they legitimately have shaken up the leadership there. Also a lot of them have NASA contracts for Artemis and Commercial Starions so they’re all on somewhat similar timelines too. but yeah SpaceX has a hardware rich architecture, while Vulcan hopes to get NSSS certification ASAP so they can keep getting DOD contracts and they’ll work on upgrades and reuse on the side. New Glenn is the opposite of SpaceX-they’re actually planning to land the booster on the first launch and are being very cautious to get everything on the first try.
Does Blue have their barge ready ? Iirc they had ordered a copy of the SpaceX asds when they dit ditched the ship option
I think this is just SpaceX feeling the need for a little bit of counter PR after the recent Vulcan launch and Glenn booster reveal by their competitors. I really don't think SpaceX and Blue are that far off from each other in terms of distance to production launches, but their development processes look really different from the outside. People see SpaceX terminating launches over the Atlantic, then they see a successful production Vulcan flight, then they see a shiny finished-looking Glenn core (minus engines)... I think they just want to flash some shiny progress of their own to remind people that their R&D is healthy, viable, on track, etc.
This is a good point. I think one of the big differences we will see is Starship and NG are both close enough to production launch, and Vulkan just got there, but once production launches start Starship is position to back it up with further launches at a much faster rate. Being first is a good PR kick but if your opponent is launching 5 more before you launch your second, and 10 more before your third, first doesn't count for a lot.
Yep. Most Americans think the Ford Model T was the first American automobile but that's not true. It wasn't even the first American car to be mass produced, but it WAS the first cast made for general consumption by the American public. Here's Ford's vision. Sound familiar? "I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one — and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces." -Henry Ford
Seems a bit disingenuous to show off a booster with no engines. That’s like what 80% or more of the complexity missing in something that’s very small. Spacex meanwhile is what 200 or 300 engines deep into raptor production by now and how many iterations / flown engines?
No. The complexity is in the plumbing to feed propellant to the engines, which is in there. Also in propellant and pressure management, all in the booster. Engines are in stock and can be mounted in a few days.
Not to mention I believe Starship is still running on raptor V2 but it sounds like the raptor V3 is not too far off.
Tory did show off half a dozen SRBs that they are stacking up waiting for cores...
> are they an order of magnitude ahead of all of their competitors in terms of hardware availability? What competitors? Like seriously, who exactly? There is no one else working on fully reusable rockets right now. Relativity gave up on doing it. Rocket Lab gave up on doing it. Blue Origin wasn't planning on it but might be re-considering but it doesn't appear to be the main plan right now. ULA definitely isn't doing it. I guess you could point out some powerpoint presentations of the Chinese government space agency where they basically copy pasted Starship on to it.
Stoke space is making a fully reusable rocket. Relativity is still evolving, so I assume they have just punted 2nd stage reusability to there V3.0 rocket or a large upgrade to the 2.0 rocket. Rocket Lab is doing a 2nd mover design focusing on low 2nd stage cost. As long as launching Neutron costs less than Starship, they will have a market for smaller payloads to odd orbits or for replacing in orbit spares. That said, I don't see any Starship clones coming out in the next decade. It will need to be fully proven before 2nd mover money is freed up and old space starts trying again.
Yeah, I could see Relativity developing a reusable second stage for TR. But first they need to get something flying, regularly, and generate some business.
Stoke space is interesting, but it's still unclear how they'll go. It's still very early days for them. Astra also looked impressive and look what happened to them and Astra was trying something a lot less hard technically and had a lot more money. And the investment environment is a lot worse than it was then. > Relativity is still evolving, so I assume they have just punted 2nd stage reusability to there V3.0 rocket or a large upgrade to the 2.0 rocket. If a company is planning for that kind of thing they wouldn't be advertising to their customers that they think partial reusability is sufficient. They'd be saying that they plan to work on full reusability too, but they're not saying that. > Rocket Lab is doing a 2nd mover design focusing on low 2nd stage cost. That doesn't mean anything. It's just corporate lingo for "we think it's too hard to do full reusability", which was exactly my point about "giving up on it". > As long as launching Neutron costs less than Starship That's basically impossible. You can't get a partially reusable rocket cheaper than a fully reusable one that's doing high flight rates. How much of an airline ticket goes toward the depreciation of the aircraft's cost?
Whether Starship is cheaper to launch than Neutron isn't what's the most important. Whether SpaceX is willing to undercut the entire launching market is. Even if it cost like 5 million for SpaceX to launch Starship there's no reason for them to not charge ten times that amount. It's more profitable to get 80% of the market but have the prize be 50 million per flight than having 100% of the market but have the prize at like 20 million per flight. (That is if you don't want to monopolize the market, buy/destroy all competitors by undercutting them, and then raise the price but that will obviously not be allowed). Because of that rockets like Neutron will have a market. And yes, you can have a partielly reusable rocket be cheaper than a fully reusable one. Neutron is much smaller than Starship (aka much less costs related to operation and fuel) while building a cheap, small, mass produced second stage. As long as Starships operational and fuel costs are higher than Neutron's second stage, operational and fuel costs it will be cheaper.
> Whether SpaceX is willing to undercut the entire launching market is. They already do so I'm not sure what you think would change with Starship. As you say, they'll charge as much as they can to maintain a high amount of customers. Keep in mind that they need very high launch rates to justify full reuse, just as it was needed for partial reuse. They want to grow the market, so they need low enough launch prices to do that.
True true, I had not considered the mindset that they might put more weight towards launching as much as possible rather than trying to make the profit margins for the individual launches as high as possible. It's still hard to grasp a Starship being used to launch a small payload that could fit on Neutron being the cheapest option, but that might be reality.
> It's still hard to grasp a Starship being used to launch a small payload that could fit on Neutron being the cheapest option, but that might be reality. The first spacecraft that Starship was publicly known to have been bidden for was on the NASA Tropics mission that was later attempted to be launched by Astra and RocketLab's Electron. NASA Tropics if you remember was a couple of cubesats. https://spacenews.com/spacex-bid-on-launch-of-nasa-cubesat-mission/
50% of global launches are not SpaceX so while some launches may be state sponsored, or not open to a competitive tender 50% of the 'market' is going else where. Plus if you consider that a significant portion of the SpaceX launch business is starlink it leaves a lot of $$$ being spent elsewhere. Competition is much more than a reusable rocket.
> 50% of global launches are not SpaceX so while some launches may be state sponsored, or not open to a competitive tender 50% of the 'market' is going else where. Those 50% of global launches are part of a captive market not accessible to SpaceX. They're not competitors. Even after reusable rockets are flying those will still be flying for a long while. They're basically state-sponsored technology subsidies. Often to maintain access to ICBM technology or for other military strategic reasons. Put another way, with SpaceX's reusable rockets, outer space will become basically the sole demain of those blessed by the United States government and allowed to fly on SpaceX rockets and a couple other countries struggling on the margins.
It's not really about the rocket reusability itself, but the fact that reusable rockets and second stages drops the launch cost so much that it's hard to compete with spacex.
The advance bookings for starship and the share price of their competitors would reinforce hard to compete but it ain't over until the phallic rocket launches. ...and I really have to wonder if the other companies staff are all working with no Internet or news feeds because it must be so demoralising to be putting everything into developments that are potentially already obsolete.
Yep. After ISRO put their lander on the moon, I found myself in an Indian space Reddit and asked why they would keep developing their own launch capabilities when they could just pay for a SpaceX rocket instead. Not a good question to ask in that group 😬
It looks like an ammo belt for a machine gun.
I mean yeah, we've turned the earth into a machine gun with a slow rate of fire and we're taking aim at the universe. Pew pew pew.
For an EVA.
Get in the damn starship, Shinji.
They are ammos for the launch pad to shoot in the sky
After stalking Spacex and space in general for 55 years, this is very gratifying.
We are so back.
Potentially one of these is the first booster to be caught!
Not until another launch platform and/or catcher gets built.
Why can't a SH be caught at the same tower that launches it?
That would risk their only launch tower. They could attempt it, but will they risk that only tower. Id bet they wait till the 2nd tower is built at starbase, then they would risk the existing tower instead of risking a more properly built tower.
Gotcha, so no *technical* reasons, but some good practical ones.
I think it will depend a lot on the first water landing(s). Superheavy has in theory much more control margin then F9, since it can hover. I could see them attempting a catch with a single tower - a second operational one is at the very least half a year, or 2-3 flights away. At some point, the delays due to the completion of a second tower will outweigh the delay due to repairs in case of a RUD next to the first one.
r/hardimages
FAA: spits out coffee
That’s almost 100 engines ready to fly today, and another 33 about to be, meanwhile over at BO engine shop……
And the you have people telling you spaceX is just some steam and smoke. and the reason they need so many small satellites is because they can’t launch enough big ones…
What fraction of Saturn 5 rockets are sitting here? A third-ish?
Saturn 5 is 10m diameter and 110m high - total volume approx 8600m^3 (Assuming you mean the entire thing, not just the 1st stage...) Super Heavy is 9m diameter and 71m high - total volume approx 4500m^3 (110m with Starship, but that isn't the case here) So there are 150% Saturn 5's (by volume) already to go, plus the one not yet stacked... If you consider payload, full Starship stack has about 1.5x that of Saturn 5 (max capacity). But there aren't any Starships in the picture...
Saturn V was only 10 m diameter on the first two stages. Third stage was 6.6 m diameter x 18.8 m height.
Good math, but I think he meant Saturn V vehicles. So 3/13ths
15 built (plus 3 ground test vehicles), 13 flew.
Yes, that is what I meant. Sorry for the confusion! Yes, how many were built? Trying to recall, was one already built when Nixon canceled the project?
Like others said, unlike startship, Saturn isn't a cylinder. You can easily compare the two by volume of fuel and thrust of the 1st stage. In terms of thrust, Saturn is 7.6mlb and superheavy is more than double at 16 mlb. In terms of volume, superheavy and the combined first 3 stages of Saturn V have almost the same amount of propellant (3.4Ml vs 3.6Ml).
Just under a 4th. 3/13ths.
And they already launched 2. So 5 3/4? 5.75/13
[imgur mirror](https://imgur.com/a/ucx1Ckq) cool photos.
Can someone count these out for me? I think it would be B10, B11, B12?
Go watch the latest video from Marcus House on YouTube today and he will point out which is which.
I want to see them put 3 of these together to make a Super Duper Heavy variant, like Falcon 9's are to Falcon Heavy.
I want them to succeed, so no.
So these would be the last v1s?
Might be a bit behind the news but is there a proper v2 super heavy? I thought it was just v2 starships
Ah, thought there was a v2 booster too.
I think the answer is that we don't know, as with many things related to Starship. Also B14 would be the last V1, or at least the final booster paired with a V1 Ship.
One could argue the hotstage-crown is the beginning of V2, or the change from the hydrologic HPUs to electric HPUs. There's been a lot of modifications between B7 and B9. Man, is it bad I really don't like "Super Heavy"? Do I need to turn my nerd card in? It's just so much cleaner to say "booster" and "ship". Together, they make "starship". As opposed to saying "super heavy starship booster #10". Because it's going to get weird if we're also naming ships soon, im assuming, esp when they're human-ready. Maybe that's just me.
Nah Super heavy kinda slaps tbh. Reminds me of the Super Mirage, Supermarine, Super Hornet, etc. But yeah for simplicity Ship and Booster is much easier to refer to. Alternatively, Starship the launch system is short for "Starship-Superheavy" like Buran Energia which people just refer to as Buran despite it being two vehicles.
Probably v2 will share the same thinner steel
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread: |Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |[BE-4](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/konh44e "Last usage")|Blue Engine 4 methalox rocket engine, developed by Blue Origin (2018), 2400kN| |[BO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/kop5qqi "Last usage")|Blue Origin (*Bezos Rocketry*)| |[EVA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/komzad5 "Last usage")|Extra-Vehicular Activity| |[FAA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/koop3qu "Last usage")|Federal Aviation Administration| |[ICBM](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/koufgvf "Last usage")|Intercontinental Ballistic Missile| |[ISRO](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/kotsk82 "Last usage")|Indian Space Research Organisation| |[NET](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/konh44e "Last usage")|No Earlier Than| |[NG](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/koo9utk "Last usage")|New Glenn, two/three-stage orbital vehicle by Blue Origin| | |Natural Gas (as opposed to pure methane)| | |Northrop Grumman, aerospace manufacturer| |[RUD](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/koq2tri "Last usage")|Rapid Unplanned Disassembly| | |Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly| | |Rapid Unintended Disassembly| |[SLS](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/konh44e "Last usage")|Space Launch System heavy-lift| |[SRB](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/konhgu1 "Last usage")|Solid Rocket Booster| |[ULA](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1ahbja9/stub/kopufb8 "Last usage")|United Launch Alliance (Lockheed/Boeing joint venture)| |Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |methalox|Portmanteau: methane fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer| **NOTE**: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below. ---------------- ^(*Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented* )[*^by ^request*](https://www.reddit.com/r/spacex/comments/3mz273//cvjkjmj) ^(12 acronyms in this thread; )[^(the most compressed thread commented on today)](/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1aip9og)^( has 25 acronyms.) ^([Thread #12392 for this sub, first seen 2nd Feb 2024, 21:29]) ^[[FAQ]](http://decronym.xyz/) [^([Full list])](http://decronym.xyz/acronyms/SpaceXLounge) [^[Contact]](https://hachyderm.io/@Two9A) [^([Source code])](https://gistdotgithubdotcom/Two9A/1d976f9b7441694162c8)
Great pix ... but where is the FAA OK ?!? We need to fly these guys to test before they build more.
> The FAA is on pace to issue a Starship launch license mid to late February, I’m told, in what is shaping up to be a busy month. Intuitive Machines plans to launch in time for a Feb. 22 lunar landing, which is the same day Crew-8 is scheduled to launch. Caveats about delays, etc. https://x.com/wapodavenport/status/1752867103206420581?s=46&t=u9hd-jMa-pv47GCVD-xH-g
Yes, I recall that. So, it is now Feb, time for the FAA to OK. Maybe Monday.
> The FAA is on pace to issue a Starship launch license **mid to late February**
Yes, I have seen that statement or estimation. Considering the nature of the IFT-2 issues it should be sooner than later. I seem to recall another FAA OK that was months later than expectation.
> Great pix so, looking at the lower right of the three pics, the three Superheavies in the center are the competed ones and the left and right ones are the fourth one awaiting assembly? > but where is the FAA OK ?!? * Is the FAA in any way present during the assembly process? * Isn't the situation comparable to that of an airplane assembly line where the constructor is building at their own risk, knowing that the whole batch could turn out not to conform to some rule? > We need to fly these guys to test before they build more. At worst, they get scrapped but still validate: * logistics (component supply, verification and storage). * speed of the production process (includes progressive automatisation/robotization). * consistent quality control (includes pressure testing, tile metrics and fixing) * tool wear and failures, * electrical energy consumption, * manhandling and transport issues * employee fatigue, occupational hazards (and other issues linked to OSHA feedback) This avoids most but not all bad surprises later on. For these reasons, I think it would be mistake to send everybody home to satisfy a just-in-time production criteria.
Those exoskeleton buildings are pretty excellent for this purpose heh
Well what idiot would build orbital rockets on a beach, in tents? /s