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Earliest a Starship-equivalent could have been built?
by
DanClemmensen
on 30 May, 2022 18:27
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Assuming the SpaceX Starship eventually works, when in the past could an equivalent rocket have been built if someone decided to pay for it?
For this question, assume "equivalent" means:
--big (50 t or more to LEO)
--inexpensive (stainless steel, lots of inexpensive engines)
--fully and rapidly reusable
--methalox
Could this have been done in 1980?
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#1
by
libra
on 30 May, 2022 18:55
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#2
by
freddo411
on 30 May, 2022 22:11
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Assuming the SpaceX Starship eventually works, when in the past could an equivalent rocket have been built if someone decided to pay for it?
For this question, assume "equivalent" means:
--big (50 t or more to LEO)
--inexpensive (stainless steel, lots of inexpensive engines)
--fully and rapidly reusable
--methalox
Could this have been done in 1980?
The space shuttle was designed and built in the 1970s. I don't see any fundamental technology in starship that was not available then. Starship looks like a well engineered, two stage rocket. Keep in mind that there is a lot of innovation with Starship. The work to develop vertical landing and methane engines would have to be done.
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#3
by
whitelancer64
on 30 May, 2022 22:29
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Assuming the SpaceX Starship eventually works, when in the past could an equivalent rocket have been built if someone decided to pay for it?
For this question, assume "equivalent" means:
--big (50 t or more to LEO)
--inexpensive (stainless steel, lots of inexpensive engines)
--fully and rapidly reusable
--methalox
Could this have been done in 1980?
The General Dynamics
NEXUS reusable rocket was a concept design created in the 1960s by a group at General Dynamics led by Krafft Arnold Ehricke. It was intended as the next leap beyond the Saturn V, carrying up to eight times more payload. Several versions were designed, including 12,000 and 24,000 short ton vehicles with payloads of one thousand and two thousand short tons respectively. The larger version had a diameter of 202 feet (61.5 meters).
It was a single-stage-to-orbit vehicle that would be fully recoverable upon landing in the ocean. It would use parachutes to slow descent, with retrorockets (on top) for a final soft touchdown.
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#4
by
whitelancer64
on 30 May, 2022 22:33
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#5
by
libra
on 31 May, 2022 03:16
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Yes, that very one. 1977 for the Space Based Solar Power craze and NASA studies.
https://www.pmview.com/spaceodysseytwo/spacelvs/ https://www.pmview.com/spaceodysseytwo/spacelvs/sld045.htm(vintage website, straight out the late 1990's. And still rocking nonetheless !)
The space shuttle was designed and built in the 1970s. I don't see any fundamental technology in starship that was not available then.
Fully agree. And that Boeing design borrowed a lot from the nascent Shuttle - in fact it was a return to the 1969-71 fully reusable studies, except with payload cranked up to eleven - nearly 1 million pounds. Because SBSP.
Hazegrayart has done a stupendous CGI video of it (as usual).
Further back in time, Von Braun's 1952 Collier's rocket kind of looks like a three stage Starship, when you think about it.
As if things had came back full circle after 70 years !
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#6
by
spacenut
on 31 May, 2022 11:57
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How much would this Boeing Space Freighter cost today? Would it ever be possible to get congress to fund this giant?
The first stage probably would not have to be winged, but operate similar to SpaceX's F9 and Superheavy boosters. This might allow for either more payload or a slightly smaller version of the Space Freighter.
The two things I am concerned about with the SpaceX Starship design is the tiles coming off during a launch or during a return from space as well as the belly flip landing.
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#7
by
laszlo
on 31 May, 2022 12:52
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It's a little funny in the video the way that the siren goes off 7 seconds before main engine ignition. What's the purpose? To wake up any unfortunate pad workers who slept through the evacuation boat so they won't die in their sleep?
On the topic at hand, if enough money were available and a lot was invested in ground-based systems to actually steer the rocket without requiring it to carry the needed sensors and computers, I think that a large reusable 2-stage orbital rocket could have been built in the 1960's. But, of course, there was no requirement for it.
In terms of expense, it's not the stainless steel and engine clusters that might make Starship cheaper than the competition. USAF was flying stainless steel ICBMs 14 years before Elon was a gleam in his father's eye and the Soviets were clustering rocket engines in the same timeframe. It's having a customer that will pay for thousands of identical satellites to be launched that will eventually lead to continuous assembly line operations instead of a series of unique flights. In other words, the requirement again.
So in terms of tech, it could have been done 60 years ago. In terms of need, it had to wait until now, when there is enough of a desire for a service that can only be provided via a large number of orbital launches. Enough of a desire that people are willing to pay what it takes for that sort of rocket to be developed.
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#8
by
DanClemmensen
on 31 May, 2022 14:18
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Thanks, all.
I especially like the use of human pilots to remove the need for modern avionics: the date does not depend critically on modern electronics.
Now that I think on it, this thread is too soon. We will not know if Starship is cheap and fully and rapidly reusable until it has flown a few times. My biggest concern is the TPS. If the TPS turns out to be the big gating factor, then those older designs may not have been feasible until the tiles are very robust and the turnaround (inspection, waterproofing, replacement) is cheap and fast. But this never happened during the 30-year life of the Space Shuttle, and we don't yet know if SpaceX has solved the problem even today. I love Starship and I'm hopeful that SpaceX will create a robust and inexpensive TPS eventually, but we don't know yet if the current one is it.
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#9
by
Zed_Noir
on 31 May, 2022 14:30
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It's a little funny in the video the way that the siren goes off 7 seconds before main engine ignition. What's the purpose? To wake up any unfortunate pad workers who slept through the evacuation boat so they won't die in their sleep?
<snip>
There would be a lot sirens going off at the T minus 7 seconds mark. Think it is to get people ready for the shock wave and noise generated by the engines. Reminder that even back in the 80s most people will not know the running launch countdown time for the launch.
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#10
by
Robotbeat
on 31 May, 2022 14:47
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Thanks, all.
I especially like the use of human pilots to remove the need for modern avionics: the date does not depend critically on modern electronics.
Now that I think on it, this thread is too soon. We will not know if Starship is cheap and fully and rapidly reusable until it has flown a few times. My biggest concern is the TPS. If the TPS turns out to be the big gating factor, then those older designs may not have been feasible until the tiles are very robust and the turnaround (inspection, waterproofing, replacement) is cheap and fast. But this never happened during the 30-year life of the Space Shuttle, and we don't yet know if SpaceX has solved the problem even today. I love Starship and I'm hopeful that SpaceX will create a robust and inexpensive TPS eventually, but we don't know yet if the current one is it.
Radio-controlled would have worked. We had good enough computers in the 1950s, and analog versions since the 30s?
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#11
by
DanClemmensen
on 31 May, 2022 15:05
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Thanks, all.
I especially like the use of human pilots to remove the need for modern avionics: the date does not depend critically on modern electronics.
Now that I think on it, this thread is too soon. We will not know if Starship is cheap and fully and rapidly reusable until it has flown a few times. My biggest concern is the TPS. If the TPS turns out to be the big gating factor, then those older designs may not have been feasible until the tiles are very robust and the turnaround (inspection, waterproofing, replacement) is cheap and fast. But this never happened during the 30-year life of the Space Shuttle, and we don't yet know if SpaceX has solved the problem even today. I love Starship and I'm hopeful that SpaceX will create a robust and inexpensive TPS eventually, but we don't know yet if the current one is it.
Radio-controlled would have worked. We had good enough computers in the 1950s, and analog versions since the 30s?
RC won't work well during re-entry, and that is one of the critical times. My point is that RC was not needed because those large vehicles could be piloted. This whole thing is purely hypothetical, so the issue is moot. Basically, A very rich obsessed individual could have done it. Howard Hughes was fifteen years too old, Delos D. Harriman was fictional, and Elon had not been born. Sigh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sold_the_Moon
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#12
by
greybeardengineer
on 31 May, 2022 15:57
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Thanks, all.
I especially like the use of human pilots to remove the need for modern avionics: the date does not depend critically on modern electronics.
Now that I think on it, this thread is too soon. We will not know if Starship is cheap and fully and rapidly reusable until it has flown a few times. My biggest concern is the TPS. If the TPS turns out to be the big gating factor, then those older designs may not have been feasible until the tiles are very robust and the turnaround (inspection, waterproofing, replacement) is cheap and fast. But this never happened during the 30-year life of the Space Shuttle, and we don't yet know if SpaceX has solved the problem even today. I love Starship and I'm hopeful that SpaceX will create a robust and inexpensive TPS eventually, but we don't know yet if the current one is it.
Radio-controlled would have worked. We had good enough computers in the 1950s, and analog versions since the 30s?
RC won't work well during re-entry, and that is one of the critical times.
Re-entry blackout is just a few minutes and INS is perfectly capable of keeping things on track during that time.
Without GPS the final landing accuracy (e.g. to a large pad) would have to be assured with ground based infrastructure (navigation beacons, radar/IR data feedback etc).
The largest problems IMO would be power/mass of redundant avionics and higher costs/lead times of bespoke item manufacturing.
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#13
by
Barley
on 31 May, 2022 16:20
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I think people are underestimating the value of CAD and computer modelling.
There are things that could have been built in the '60s that could not have been designed in the '60s.
There're also things like trajectory calculations that required a standing army. This would limit flight rates if you can't use a smartphone to compute them in a few minutes.
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#14
by
Proponent
on 31 May, 2022 17:20
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I'm thinking that one of the key developments for Starship may have been somebody recognizing that lox/hydrogen is not necessarily the way to go.
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#15
by
whitelancer64
on 31 May, 2022 17:24
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Thanks, all.
I especially like the use of human pilots to remove the need for modern avionics: the date does not depend critically on modern electronics.
Now that I think on it, this thread is too soon. We will not know if Starship is cheap and fully and rapidly reusable until it has flown a few times. My biggest concern is the TPS. If the TPS turns out to be the big gating factor, then those older designs may not have been feasible until the tiles are very robust and the turnaround (inspection, waterproofing, replacement) is cheap and fast. But this never happened during the 30-year life of the Space Shuttle, and we don't yet know if SpaceX has solved the problem even today. I love Starship and I'm hopeful that SpaceX will create a robust and inexpensive TPS eventually, but we don't know yet if the current one is it.
Radio-controlled would have worked. We had good enough computers in the 1950s, and analog versions since the 30s?
RC won't work well during re-entry, and that is one of the critical times. My point is that RC was not needed because those large vehicles could be piloted. This whole thing is purely hypothetical, so the issue is moot. Basically, A very rich obsessed individual could have done it. Howard Hughes was fifteen years too old, Delos D. Harriman was fictional, and Elon had not been born. Sigh.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Sold_the_Moon
Re-entry was designed to be done by computer controls on Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. However, for both Mercury and Gemini, there were a few instances where control had to be taken manually.
But as far as I know, reentry was always controlled by the flight computer for Apollo, which had very tight parameters for reentry angle when returning from the Moon. The Shuttle was also on computer control during reentry.
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#16
by
JayWee
on 31 May, 2022 18:16
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And Buran was fully automated.
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#17
by
DanClemmensen
on 31 May, 2022 19:11
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And Buran was fully automated.
But Buran was mid-1980's, while some of the proposals mentioned here go back to 1970. If we are looking for the earliest time that we could have had cheap access to space, I think we can say that is was not limited by the avionics.
There may have been a limit imposed by lack of CAD, but maybe not: Saturn did not use a lot of CAD. I suppose this might rule out a spaceplane in 1970. Could a pilot plus a very crude guicande system allow for a vertical landing? Probably.
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#18
by
Robotbeat
on 31 May, 2022 19:15
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I'm thinking that one of the key developments for Starship may have been somebody recognizing that lox/hydrogen is not necessarily the way to go.
Starship is basically a two stage SSTO. Can’t get all the way to SSTO realistically and even if you did, the efficiency would be terrible.
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#19
by
Barley
on 31 May, 2022 21:07
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Could a pilot plus a very crude guicande system allow for a vertical landing? Probably.
It could if you add a dog -- to bite the pilot if he tries to touch the controls.