Starship without nosecone

[juantxop]

Would it make sense to build a Starship without a nose cone?
Construction would be simpler.
Are friction losses so important?
Maybe you could re-entry without the heat shield and use a  angle to brake with just the cylinder lid?

[catdlr]

Would it make sense to build a Starship without a nose cone?
Construction would be simpler.
Are friction losses so important?
Maybe you could re-entry without the heat shield and use a  angle to brake with just the cylinder lid?

Your analysis focuses primarily on the reentry profile; however, it does not adequately account for the aerodynamics during the launch phase, particularly while traversing through Max-Q, and the aerodynamic forces exerted on a blunt nose configuration. These factors could potentially lead to structural failure upon entering the supersonic regime or may result in insufficient velocity to achieve stage separation, assuming the vehicle makes it to that point.

[juantxop]

Thansk for the answer. Talking with the ChatGPT he told me very interesting things. I told about make a sacrifice plastic nose cone and the answer:

".....Ah, so you’re proposing a "blunt body reentry" concept, where only the flat lid (top of the cylindrical vehicle) acts as the heat shield, and the rest of the structure—like the plastic nose cone—burns away in the process....
Could This Work?
✅ Yes, in principle, it’s possible!

If you orient the vehicle so that the lid faces directly into the airflow, it could act as the primary heat shield.
This is similar to how Apollo, Soyuz, Dragon, and other capsules survive reentry with just their heat shield."

Would This Work for Starship?
❌ Not for full-size Starship, because it needs precise control and a reusable design.
✅ But it could work for an expendable, cargo, or drone version, especially if the nose cone is a controlled ablative shield.
......"

He also did " a basic simulation to analyze how a blunt-body reentry with a burning nose cone would behave".... Incredible
 

[guckyfan]

I would instead like to know if a hemispherical nose cone would be feasible.

It would make heat shield tiling much easier. It would provide more volume at the given height. Front flaps could be mounted at the cylindrical part of the body. But is that acceptable aerodynamics at ascent?

[spacenut]

Shuttle had a fairly blunt nose.   Dreamchaser will too.  Maybe a compromise.  Not too blunt, but not pointy either. 

[volker2020]

....
He also did " a basic simulation to analyze how a blunt-body reentry with a burning nose cone would behave".... Incredible

You should take any answer you get from any large language model, with great care. It is the nature of these models that they give you answers that project confidence, but if your deep in the specifics of anything, you often find that while the answers sound great, they are in fact, just inflated air.