Job fair at #SpaceX #BocaChica 🚀 🎶
This isn’t quite correct. An orbital rocket needs precision that’s 3X to 4X better than a water tower, so super precise parts, fixtures & welding are needed. Suborbital is much more forgiving. That said, although substantial capital & engineering is required to achieve extreme precision, marginal production cost of the primary structure should actually be *less* than a water tower, because it’s built inside a factory in volume.
Q: What about those welding dents?? Can we avoid those from happening.?Elon: Yes, we’re tuning weld parameters to reduce puckering & building a heavy duty planisher to flatten & cold work the weld area
Q: Are the barrels in the picture above just test hardware then rather than the first pieces of SN1 coming together?Elon: No, they’re SN1. SN2 to follow shortly. Aiming to be a little better each time.
Couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd go out and watch them move Starship pieces around. I really need a better night camera.
Thanks for the correction and apologies for any errors, Elon! Was the SpaceX director that said "[OTS] water tower machines work really well for making rockets" wrong, in that case? Or are COTS solutions viable but only if SX tweaks them for greater precision? - @13ericralph31
Unmodified water tower machines do not work well for orbital rockets, as mass efficiency is critical for the latter, but not the former. Hopper, for example, was made of 12.5mm steel vs 4mm for SN1 orbital design. Optimized skins will be <2mm in places across a 9000mm diameter.
This morning at SpaceX Boca Chica the 3 ring barrel section has been moved but I am liking this view of a bulkhead out in the morning sun. 🤩🚀@NASASpaceflight forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topi…
