Roll on an SPMT to the industrial area south of the Brownsville canal and then load on a barge.They need to close more roads but that should still be easier than anything involving flight.
SpaceX seems to have other plans for Roberts Road, almost all of us are sure that inside this big facility they will bring some production stuff for Starship, also, surely SpaceX could be planning full production of the vehicles at KSC and not rely on flights from Boca Chica.I think the likelihood of SpaceX getting their vehicles from Boca Chica to KSC either by air, land or sea is diminishing as we see more and more construction plans at KSC.
Quote from: Conexion Espacial on 01/25/2022 08:48 pmSpaceX seems to have other plans for Roberts Road, almost all of us are sure that inside this big facility they will bring some production stuff for Starship, also, surely SpaceX could be planning full production of the vehicles at KSC and not rely on flights from Boca Chica.I think the likelihood of SpaceX getting their vehicles from Boca Chica to KSC either by air, land or sea is diminishing as we see more and more construction plans at KSC.The whole discussion seems to fail on the lack of understanding the full scale of what SpaceX intends to do in terms of SS/SH production. It's a big step away from single digit per month production. They likely will need multiple facilities going flat out to meet the full number of vehicles that they intend to produce.Secondarily, the discussion fails on the handling of recovered vehicles as well. There will be a bunch of them if SpaceX plans succeed. There will be a need to house/process/maintain the fleet. A big step towards the airline type model where a limited number of factories keep cranking out vehicles. The vehicles are then maintained away from the factory and closer to points of use.I do expect vehicles to be produced, flown and then recovered to a location other than build site. SS in particular will have a lot of flexibility in this regard. Getting produced vehicles-particularly boosters- out to offshore platforms does seem to imply that an initial hop for a new booster might go from build site to offshore platform as a standard practice.At the build cost they are shooting for it's hard to imagine that the other transit options don't introduce a major cost penalty to the operational system. Perhaps build, checkout, static fire, hop, recovery, and only then an operational (stacked) launch for a new booster- one that is then flight proven via an initial hop.
The skin of the SLS core stage is so thin that the boosters cannot lift it from the bottom at launch. The booster thrust is transferred into an upper thrust beam at the top of the core stage. Nevertheless, the pressurized SLS core is transported horizontally via the Pegasus barge.I do not understand why a pressurized SH or SS could not also be transported in like manner. Many here claim that they cannot, but I have not yet read an explanation that fully explains why.
It would rely on constant pressurization, but more importantly it would require a massive crane at both ends of the trip and enormous specialty jigs for safely rotating it. It would also make otherwise accessible routes impossible due to the massive turning radius it would have. What problem is transporting it horizontal even trying to solve? It won't fit under powerlines or overpasses vertical or horizontal, so it doesn't make any otherwise inaccessible routes possible.
Quote from: DreamyPickle on 01/25/2022 04:22 pmRoll on an SPMT to the industrial area south of the Brownsville canal and then load on a barge.They need to close more roads but that should still be easier than anything involving flight.No road closures needed at all, just as there are no road closures for SPMT moves to/from the launch site. Heck of a potential traffic backup behind a slow moving wide load (port traffic would need to divert to the north access), but no road closures. SpaceX already contract Roll-Lift, whose bread and butter is moving over land and over ocean objects far larger and FAR heavier than super heavy or Starship. Even if you added the constraint of upright transportation they could get vehicles from Brownsville port to LC-39A via the Turning Basin without any major difficulty. That makes transport of vehicles from BC to LC-39A a COTS service that can be purchased rather than some new capability to develop. That puts it far ahead of "just fly the vehicles suborbitally" as if that didn't require an entire new legislative regime to handle, which is just as likely to have the same requirements to meet as orbital launches. Or in other words: if you can get a license for X suborbital BC-to-cape transport flights per year, and X>5, you are equally placed to get a license for X orbital launches from BC per year and eliminate the whole vehicle transport step altogether. Turning that one suborbital flights into multiple ones (BC to platform, platform to destination, possibly with more than one platform in between) makes the process even more complex and expensive in terms of administrative overhead and adds the costs of building and operating one or more platforms - and requires said platforms to be ready to catch, re-load propellants, and launch vehicles, while they are instead currently in mothballs without even the demo work completed yet. Remember that the '5 launches per year' figure is not some immutable hard limit chiselled into a stone tablet and cast into the base of launch mount. If you're thinking "But that would require a WR to the current EA!" when it comes to applying for a license for additional launches, so would ferry flights, as those are not mentioned in the EA either.
Quote from: DreamyPickle on 01/25/2022 04:22 pmRoll on an SPMT to the industrial area south of the Brownsville canal and then load on a barge.They need to close more roads but that should still be easier than anything involving flight.Are you assuming a horizontal move or a vertical move?That is a distance of 16 miles by road. the move would take about 8 hours at 2 mph, which is probably the average speed. 4 mph is a brisk walk and I don't think they usually go that fast. They would need to do this at least once a week if my production rate guesstimate is correct.
Quote from: DanClemmensen on 01/25/2022 04:30 pmQuote from: DreamyPickle on 01/25/2022 04:22 pmRoll on an SPMT to the industrial area south of the Brownsville canal and then load on a barge.They need to close more roads but that should still be easier than anything involving flight.Are you assuming a horizontal move or a vertical move?That is a distance of 16 miles by road. the move would take about 8 hours at 2 mph, which is probably the average speed. 4 mph is a brisk walk and I don't think they usually go that fast. They would need to do this at least once a week if my production rate guesstimate is correct.Don't discount using rail for something like this.If they could get permission to build a narrow-gauge rail line from their manufacturing facility to the canal (along the road verge typically) they could easily achieve horizontal relocation to a barge without any interruption to major roads and population at their own pace (certainly more than 2mph). Electric engines are a thing too, so it could be as green as they want it to be.
What is the point of shipping them from BC to KSC? It seems quite clear to me they'll manufacture locally in KSC.
Why not use a hoverbarge to get it out of the estuary? It's not new technology and doesn't need a channel. The oil industry is familiar with them.http://www.hovertranssolutions.com/
Quote from: EL_DIABLO on 01/26/2022 09:31 pmWhat is the point of shipping them from BC to KSC? It seems quite clear to me they'll manufacture locally in KSC.My question is about shipping from BC. If there is no way to ship from BC, then why are they building a factory in BC? Do you think the BC factory will be abandoned? If the BC factory is merely a prototype to be abandoned, then why are they expanding it?
