Author Topic: Idea to Store/Refurb up to 46 F9-S1 cores in 62.5K square ft.  (Read 12180 times)

Offline Robotbeat

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If you had to store stages in Manhattan, where the price of land would justify such a crazy scheme. :)
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Offline John Alan

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Taken to an extreme... same building footprint...

Three deep along both walls... You could have 108 standing...  :o
Two truck load/unload bays down the middle... A S1 warehouse...  ???
Or 1/2 a building for 54 max and one truck bay... or whatever size you need...

Or go two deep... 72 max standing... 5 being worked and one trucking bay...  :)
I like that one actually myself.. for some weird reason...  ;D

In both cases you may have to rearrange a bit to get one from the back out if buried.
It would allow deeper wing walls which would add stiffness to the concrete sides...

 ;)
« Last Edit: 08/08/2016 02:15 am by John Alan »

Offline Zed_Noir

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@John Alan, have you given any thoughts to the upper stage storage required to support your proposal 's large pool of Falcon cores? Think a stockpile of upper stages and payload fairings is needed near the vehicle integration facility.

Offline Bob Shaw

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I keep reading the header to this as 'IKEA to Store/Refurb...'

It *almost* makes sense!

Offline vanoord

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The trick is going to be minimise the number of used cores which need storage space by refining the processing flow to fly them again as soon as possible.

Having to spend big bucks to deal with a large number of cores that have nothing to do isn't financially sensible - either work with a smaller number of cores or park them up outside and sheet over the bottom end.

SpaceX look as if they're keen ongaining value from assets without spending a huge amount of money to do so (the re-purposed Orbiter Transporter for one example) so I doubt they're going to be building a very expensive storage facility when the sensible approach is to ensure they don't need it. 

Offline John Alan

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@John Alan, have you given any thoughts to the upper stage storage required to support your proposal 's large pool of Falcon cores? Think a stockpile of upper stages and payload fairings is needed near the vehicle integration facility.

A shorter version of this design idea with storage spaces along the walls... is a good idea for a building...
A tall enough building to turn a S2 vertical and get it over an interstage like fixture in a storage bay,,,
Or a fixture to secure a fairing 1/2 onto... then stand that whole assy up vertically in a storage bay
I had not thought of that... but that is a good one...  8)
BUT ...only if either or both become reusable in the future ... ???
As long as they are expendable... Just in time delivery from the source makes more sense...  ;)
« Last Edit: 08/08/2016 01:10 pm by John Alan »

Online JamesH65

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Do what I do in my garage when I run out of floor space, just hang stuff from the ceiling. Might make moving stages around a bit of a PITA, but nothing insurmountable.

Offline mgfitter

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Surely it would be a lot cheaper to just do something like this in a much shorter (cheaper and more hurricane-tolerant) building...



The area at the 'front', where the stages would be prepared prior to being slotted in and out of their storage racks would easily double as a general inspection area.

-MG.

Offline deruch

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John, I love that you've gone all in and actually tried to spec out your imagining.  Way more fun to spit ball ideas with some actual substance.  So, thanks. 

But, I'm definitely in the "if SpaceX needs that much storage, they're doing it wrong"-camp.  IMHO, if they end up with "too many" cores, they'll start stripping the useful parts and slagging the remainder of them.  Or, at the worst, potentially just skip recovery on a few. 
Shouldn't reality posts be in "Advanced concepts"?  --Nomadd

Offline Kabloona

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Then there's the "economy" storage plan. I hear Arizona (and McGregor, Texas) still have some vacant land.
« Last Edit: 08/10/2016 08:37 pm by Kabloona »


Offline Zed_Noir

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Then there's the "economy" storage plan. I hear Arizona (and McGregor, Texas) still have some vacant land.
Only if you are scrapping & cannibalizing the stuff you park there. ::)

Online JamesH65

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Americans have too much space.
This is what other people have to deal with:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=midland+gliding+club+hangar+photo&oq=midland+gliding+club+hangar+photo&aqs=chrome..69i57.17313j0j4&client=ms-android-motorola&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=XkZlA9orcx2TcM%3A

Ah, the Long Mynd. Scariest car descent I've ever done.

The USA is pretty fortunate with so much space.

Offline DecoLV

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Interesting idea, although I agree vertical is not necessary. Maybe a better idea is to stack the cores horizontally in decks, perhaps 3 x 3 (9 cores seems plenty.) Actually, I wonder if such a building could be built next to or even on top of the existing HIF. That way, you could also build an offloading platform connecting to the HIF. All it would require is a small coin-op unit on the side. Gwynne just inserts a quarter, pulls a handle, and a core rolls down right into position in the HIF! :)
« Last Edit: 08/15/2016 06:10 pm by DecoLV »

Offline Zed_Noir

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Interesting idea, although I agree vertical is not necessary. Maybe a better idea is to stack the cores horizontally in decks, perhaps 3 x 3 (9 cores seems plenty.) Actually, I wonder if such a building could be built next to or even on top of the existing HIF. That way, you could also build an offloading platform connecting to the HIF. All it would require is a small coin-op unit on the side. Gwynne just inserts a quarter, pulls a handle, and a core rolls down right into position in the HIF! :)

There is the small matter of being able to withstand the occasional hurricanes & storms if you have a really large building expanded from the current HIF.

Offline StuffOfInterest

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If a storage facility ends up being needed, probably combined with a refurbishment area, perhaps movable horizontal racks are a better solution for high-density storage.  You could have racks three to five high on rails at the end of the refurb facility packed so that only one access isle is open at a time.  If the racks have slide out rails for the cradles then overhead cranes can handle moving the stages in and out.  Just dial up the rack you need, slide out the rails, and pick the stage off with the overhead crane.  The concept has worked for libraries and file storage facilities for decades.  Why not for rockets?

Offline Burninate

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At the present point in time, it is considerably more economical in rural settings to expand factories which use heavy machinery by extending the single-floor concrete slab outwards, rather than building expensive steel racking to carry large amounts of weight ten or twenty feet off the ground.  The roof in such a building only has to hold up its own weight and some small dynamic loading from the weather.

Vertical assembly buildings require very tall towers with some weight perched at the very top, and this gets extremely expensive per usable space.  One of the early decisions made with the F9 was to tilt it up attached to a strongback vehicle, with the understanding that this was an order of magnitude less expensive, while loss of the design advantages granted by vertical assembly were an acceptable compromise.

You should expect to see SpaceX embrace vertical assembly buildings only with a radical redesign or new launch vehicle, if that.  Ideas like the ones in this thread work fine geometrically, but ground area is not scarce, and they don't work economically.
« Last Edit: 08/19/2016 12:07 am by Burninate »

Offline DecoLV

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Usable ground is quite scarce at LC-39A and the cape generally. I don't really imagine they could expand the HIF. But maybe on the opposite side? Or around the Pad C NASA  supposedly wants to develop? They would have to truck more then...unless co-op rail maybe? Any NASA RR still around, or are they all bike trails now?

Offline 411rocket

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You should expect to see SpaceX embrace vertical assembly buildings only with a radical redesign or new launch vehicle, if that.  Ideas like the ones in this thread work fine geometrically, but ground area is not scarce, and they don't work economically.

I think NASA was previously looking for renters, for part of the VAB.

How many Cores, could they possibly vertically store, in 1 VAB high bay?

Offline Jim

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Usable ground is quite scarce at LC-39A and the cape generally.

quite wrong. 

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