SpaceX abandons plan to convert floating oil platforms into Starship/Superheavy landing spots
SpaceX has decided not to convert the two floating oil rigs it had purchased in 2020 into Starship/Superheavy landing platforms, and has sold both.
According to SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell,
Shotwell said the company needed to first start launching Starship and better understand that vehicle before building offshore launch platforms. “We really need to fly this vehicle to understand it, to get to know this machine, and then we’ll figure out how we’re going to launch it.”
She said she expected offshore platforms to eventually play a role to support an extraordinarily high launch cadence. “We have designed Starship to be as much like aircraft operations as we possibly can get it,” she said in the conference presentation. “We want to talk about dozens of launches a day, if not hundreds of launches a day.”
This is a perfect example of this company’s intelligent ability to focus on the most important problems now, instead of getting distracted by future issues and challenges it knows exists but are not the priority at this time.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
SpaceX has decided not to convert the two floating oil rigs it had purchased in 2020 into Starship/Superheavy landing platforms, and has sold both.
According to SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell,
Shotwell said the company needed to first start launching Starship and better understand that vehicle before building offshore launch platforms. “We really need to fly this vehicle to understand it, to get to know this machine, and then we’ll figure out how we’re going to launch it.”
She said she expected offshore platforms to eventually play a role to support an extraordinarily high launch cadence. “We have designed Starship to be as much like aircraft operations as we possibly can get it,” she said in the conference presentation. “We want to talk about dozens of launches a day, if not hundreds of launches a day.”
This is a perfect example of this company’s intelligent ability to focus on the most important problems now, instead of getting distracted by future issues and challenges it knows exists but are not the priority at this time.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Gwynne Shotwell: “We want to talk about dozens of launches a day, if not hundreds of launches a day.”
Given the number of launch sites required by these aspirations, each with their needs for:
– separation from civil populations
– avoidance of environmental impacts
– availability of propellants
– livability for staff
– equatorial proximity, etc…
I find it extremely difficult to avoid the necessity of seaborne launches!! Perhaps Shotwell accepts that there will indeed be seaborne launches, but not from repurposed drilling rigs?
The only thing that then sort of makes sense is:
– there is an acceptance that chopsticks, especially at sea, are too complex, expensive, and vulnerable,
– the ultimate predicted Raptor performance makes the use of landing gear feasible, especially since they will be needed off-world regardless,
– with landing gear, a scaled-up version of OCISLY, et al is sufficient.
Ray Van Dune wrote: “I find it extremely difficult to avoid the necessity of seaborne launches!! Perhaps Shotwell accepts that there will indeed be seaborne launches, but not from repurposed drilling rigs?”
I think Ray is right, especially if they plan to have so many launches. Then there are the possible cities on their proposed point to point transports (is this part of their 100 daily launches?). The conceptual drawings suggested the launch and landing pads would be on small islands offshore of the cities, part of Ray’s “ separation from civil populations” item.
Recently I heard that the point to point may be more for cargo than passengers. The cargo would likely have to be high value items that do better arriving in an hour rather than in half a day by aircraft.
I have been wondering for a while how the propellants would arrive in sufficient quantities for one to three launches per day per pad, but as Robert said, this is a future issue. This cadence was something I heard some time back. Eight hour turnaround seems optimistic for a rocket, but then a reusable rocket was seen by many as unlikely, just a decade ago.
I suspect that SpaceX could have launched their Merlin engine version of Super Heavy (#4) a year ago, had they gotten the permit. They understood that engine and how to fuel it and handle it. The Raptor is a very different animal, as the above comment from Shotwell suggests. They have done a lot of upgrades to the launch mount and other ground support equipment to handle the engine and the propellant loading. The Raptor 2 is also a rather different animal than the first Raptor.
She said she expected offshore platforms to eventually play a role to support an extraordinarily high launch cadence. “We have designed Starship to be as much like aircraft operations as we possibly can get it,” she said in the conference presentation. “We want to talk about dozens of launches a day, if not hundreds of launches a day.”
It will take enough time for demand to ramp up that high for Starship to become obsolescent. Elon now is projecting 400 tons per quarter with Falcon or about 1,600 tons per year. The above quote is suggesting that much tonnage per day increasing to that much per hour. There had better be something real and soon showing up that requires that much lift for that to make sense. Both Mars and Point to Point are more visionary than serious at this time.
Looking at the platforms, and superheavy side-by-side… The oil platforms are inadequate. A much larger specialized platform will need to be created and designed for this particular use to avoid mishaps, and wasted money on adding good infrastructure to re-purposed old. (too much of the platform is directly under the exhaust blast anyway)
A larger facility is best for stability and storage, but comes with its own unique problems. (structural torque and sway multiplier over distance/height)
It will probably be anchored to the ocean floor for stability, and to be pulled beneath the waves, after filling ballast tanks with water, to avoid rough seas.
Under water tank farms, on the other hand, will be able to hold more pressure due to the water pressure on the outside of the tank… as long as the tanks or not completely emptied to prevent crushing. The normal safety requirement of distance will not apply when most of your facility is underwater. Natural protection unparalleled for any other launch facility.
Don’t be surprised if Elon musk suggest underwater tunnels to the offshore facility.
To do hundreds of lunches, and captures, launch facilities will need to be established in dozens of locations.
Just to speculate how this will be possible… there are US territories and military bases around the world… Guam, Hawaii atolls, Puerto Rico, Guantánamo, American Samoa etc.
On further thought, their have been designs of retirement communities based upon sealed concrete (apartment) blocks that float, tightly linked together around a retired cruise ship (which provides power, mobility and sewage treatment as well as a fully staffed hospital/transplant and recovery in international waters).
A floating island large enough to have a airport runway between the golf courses.
Sometimes it pays to think BIG when you have big plans…. A Lunar base, eventually, will be for scientist and corporate innovation at first… Eventually it will become a retirement community in low gravity. (the “Soylent Green” carbon will be necessary for a lunar base being self-sufficient)
John hare wrote: “There had better be something real and soon showing up that requires that much lift for that to make sense. Both Mars and Point to Point are more visionary than serious at this time.”
As stated by SpaceX at the announcement of what is now called Starship, the purpose of Starship is to colonize Mars, so SpaceX is serious about Mars, even if others aren’t.
To colonize Mars at the rate SpaceX hopes, they will need to be capable of a high launch rate during the open transit windows, every other year. They may not need to launch 100 times every day for each day of the year, but during those windows they will want the ability to launch very rapidly.
Starship is being developed as an orbital launcher. The ship is optimized for that. The other things are seriously aspirational.
It is also a perfect example of how SpaceX is quite resistant to the Sunk Cost Fallacy.
As Starship and its ESG rapidly evolved and iterated over the last year, they obviously concluded that it was becoming harder and harder to employ on their oil rig platforms. And they have cut bait on them, rather than try to force them into the program.
It’s certainly not the most expensive change of direction they’ve made (see the switch to stainless steel from carbon fiber!), but it wasn’t an entirely costless decision, either.
Both Mars and Point to Point are more visionary than serious at this time.
It’s hard to even evaluate point-to-point capability for Starship at this point. But Mars has always been the goal for Elon and SpaceX. And honestly, if all SpaceX wanted was a more capable and completely reusable TSTO vehicle to replace Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy for its existing commercial and government payloads, Starship is…well, overkill. They didn’t need anything this big for that.
Starship timelines are clearly going to be longer than Elon’s stated hopes to date. That said, I do not think that an *uncrewed* flight to the surface of Mars by decade’s end is out of the realm of possibility now, and that would be no small thing. A crewed flight is almost certainly going to take longer. Perhaps we could have a debate whether a 12 or 15 or even 20 year timeline for *that* is “aspirational.”
A genuine *colonization program* … perhaps it is easier to make the case for that being “aspirational.” But it is also true that if we are really serious about establishing any significant, ongoing human presence on Mars (by whatever label you like), then something like Starship is the minimum for what you need to do it.
John hare wrote: “Starship is being developed as an orbital launcher. The ship is optimized for that. The other things are seriously aspirational.”
We already know that Starship is being developed to land on other worlds, as the company has a contract with NASA to land it, manned, on the Moon. A contract is not aspirational, it is a commitment.
Yusaku Maezawa (DearMoon, with 8 passengers) and Denis Tito (with his wife and ten additional passengers) are contracted to fly past the Moon in Starships (the same Starship on different flights?).
Starship is not being developed as a mere orbital launcher but as a lunar spacecraft, both orbital and surface.
To accomplish the contracts, SpaceX needs Starship variants: 1) a manned version that can be refilled for trips around the Moon; 2) a manned version that can be refilled for landings on the Moon, but this version need not reenter Earth’s atmosphere or land on Earth; 3) an unmanned version that carries propellants to low Earth orbit (LEO) to refill the first two variants; 4) an unmanned version that carries payloads to geostationary transfer orbit, as SpaceX has contracts for this service (I consider this as an orbital launch, although it has a higher apogee).
We also know that SpaceX needs a variant that can deploy Starlink’s second generation of communication satellites. Elon Musk was very clear on that point around Thanksgiving of 2021 (late November, for non-American readers).
Because it was announced as an interplanetary transport, this is not aspirational but the developmental goal for six and a half years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship#Background
Starship is not being developed as a mere orbital launcher.
SpaceX’s own website for Starship shows that they plan to use Starship for “SERVICE TO EARTH ORBIT, MOON, MARS AND BEYOND.”
https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship/
This is a strong indication that Starship is being developed to provide service to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
https://www.spacex.com/human-spaceflight/
“MAKING LIFE MULTIPLANETARY”
Starship is not being developed as a mere orbital launcher.
SpaceX is no longer publicizing on its website the point to point proposal of a few years ago, so this may no longer be even an aspiration for the company. I find few indications that Starship is being developed for this purpose, but Musk has talked about the point to point concept, since the recent 31 engine static fire test, but his words spoke more of carrying cargo than passengers, and he did not make any commitments for pursuing the concept.
What variants are there? I have a list, and NASAspaceflight.com has a video:
Starship Operational Variants (not to be confused with developmental variants):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsuoDtwEaJg (11 minutes)
Cargo to orbit:
– Clamshell hatch for LEO and geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) launches: satellites, space station modules, deep space probe (with its own upper stage), and other payloads
– Pez dispenser for Starlink satellites — needed for Starlink business model
Unmanned Surface Cargo:
– Materiel to Mars (w/ heat shield & elevator for cargo for bases, settlements, colonies) — the purpose of Starship
Crew:
– Men & materiel to LEO/Cislunar space — Contracts with Jared Isaacman (Polaris 3 mission, first LEO flight), Maezawa, and Tito
– Human Landing System (HLS) Men & materiel to Moon (w/ elevator) — Contracted with NASA
– Men & materiel to Mars (w/ heat shield & elevator) — the purpose of Starship
Tanker (refilling) needed for the purpose of Starship & all activities higher than LEO or GTO
– Depot ship — propellant storage & refilling (w/o heat shield, no reentry)
Starship is not being developed as a mere orbital launcher, otherwise they wouldn’t need the tanker variant.
This is yet another example of why knowing history is so important. History gives context, it provides a view of the future, and it helps us to understand the motives and inspirations of those around us.
@ Richard M and Edward,
You have both suggested quite reasonable uses for Starship. A few flights to the moon and Mars is quite different from the hundreds daily touted in the article. Sometimes it seems to be forgotten that this is the first generation of this class of ship.
Unmanned to Mars in this decade is quite reasonable. Thousands manned requires a massive source of funding. The infrastructure and logistics should be daunting UNLESS some revenue source justifies it. Starlink2 clearly could be done with far less of a vehicle development.
Refueling on orbit is quite useful and decades overdue.* All missions beyond LEO could benefit. Including GEO and the Lunar surface. Not to mention asteroids and other points of interest in the Solar system.
All these things take time. Assuming Starship is the end all of development is missing quite a number of historical parallels. Steamboat paddle propulsion was good at the time. Virtually unused now commercially.
*Inflight refueling seems to me to be a historical parallel. Common by the 1960s. Would have been quite useful in all theaters of WW2. Even being a bear to develop it could have enabled fighter escort over Europe and kept a lot of carrier planes out of the drink.
Richard M wrote: “Starship timelines are clearly going to be longer than Elon’s stated hopes to date. That said, I do not think that an *uncrewed* flight to the surface of Mars by decade’s end is out of the realm of possibility now, and that would be no small thing.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if SpaceX started sending test Starships to Mars at the next transfer opportunity after refilling becomes operational. It would provide important experience, and once they are successful they could offer delivery services for Mars rovers or other surface exploration hardware.
Come to think of it, I would be surprised if they didn’t start sending Starships to Mars that early.
John hare,
You wrote: “You have both suggested quite reasonable uses for Starship.”
Except for the Mars missions (and point to point), these are not suggested uses, they are contracted uses for which Starship is actively being developed — your original complaint. Because SpaceX is advertising that Mars and beyond are other missions, it is clear that Starship is being developed for those uses as well.
I am a bit concerned that you do not understand the concept of a company developing its product for the uses for which it is contracted or for the uses it is advertising it will be able to accomplish.
When Elon Musk says SpaceX’s mission is to make life multiplanetary… we should believe him. That has been his stated goal from the beginning, and has never changed. Just take him at his word.
Otherwise, spending years and m$B on a launch vehicle sized far too large for the commercial market makes zero sense.
Why does anyone have to send unmanned cargo to Mars only at the Short transfer time?
I can see not sending it for when the arrival time is on the opposite side of the Sun but that should leave quite a bit of orbit time for the ships to go onto orbit around Mars and or then land.
Non organics can stay in space or orbit for years until needed. I can see organics like food being sent on a fast delivery.
@Edward,
You should be more concerned that you can’t tell the difference between a handful of contracts and dozens of launches daily.
@Patrick,
From a business standpoint, Starship is a huge gamble. If the paying work(payloads by outside customers) don’t show up, Starship could be a financially losing proposition. Hoping to make life interplanetary does not constitute an unstoppable plan for doing so. The gamble may or may not pay off. In either case, certainty at this time is unwarranted.
@,pzatchok
Hohmann transfers are minimum energy, not minimum time. Unless I misunderstood your meaning of course.
john hare,
Everything you wrote is true, of course. Wonderful and amazing that someone is “dumb enough” to try it anyway.
pzatchok asked: “Why does anyone have to send unmanned cargo to Mars only at the Short transfer time?”
It is less a concern for a short amount of time for the transit to Mars and more a concern for the delta-v. Less delta-v means less propellant, which allows for more payload. Each of these transfer opportunities comes with a short travel time and a longer travel time. Scott Manley explains this with pork chops:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSEPwokZmRQ#t=243 (9 minutes)
There is a somewhat different time, with a 9-1/2 month transit, called the Hohmann transfer orbit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohmann_transfer_orbit
A century ago, Walter Hohmann was pondering how to get to other planets, such as Mars, from Earth, and he figured that the least propellant needed (delta-v needed) would be to go into an elliptical orbit in which the perihelion was at Earth’s orbit and the aphelion was at Mars’s orbit. Once at the destination planet’s orbit, the spacecraft would then match speeds with the planet. This seemed to be the lowest energy (propellant) method, and it commonly is used by spacecraft in Earth orbit for changing orbits. The standard geostationary transfer orbit is a Hohmann transfer orbit. NASA uses something else for travel to the Moon.
However, it turns out that the relative speed between the spacecraft and the destination planet is somewhat faster than when using those pork chop transfer orbits. Overall, these faster pork chop orbits save propellant and increase payload capacity (where stationkeeping propellant can be considered part of the payload).
Travel to the Moon is a bit different, however. Apollo used a transfer orbit that got them there in about three days, but some of the recent unmanned probes have taken much longer to arrive. Scott Manley (again) talks about these longer voyages, why they take so long, and the advantage of these “crazy routes:”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVrWcbyOmxY (14 minutes)
Ain’t orbital mechanics fun?
Could someone find some similar crazy routes to save even more propellant when going to Mars? Probably. Sometimes time is not a limiting factor. We already have sent probes that pass by Venus a couple of times in order to increase payload capacity or even to make the mission possible in the first place.
So the answer to the question is that we may not have to use the short transfer times, if we figure out another route.
john hare,
You wrote: “You should be more concerned that you can’t tell the difference between a handful of contracts and dozens of launches daily.”
No, that shouldn’t be a concern, since the topic was not the launch cadence but Starship’s development as only an orbital launcher. Quoting you: “Starship is being developed as an orbital launcher. The ship is optimized for that. The other things are seriously aspirational.” Each variant will be optimized for its own mission. Unlike the Space Shuttle, which was a single design intended to perform multiple missions, Starship will have several variants, each variant optimized to perform its specific missions. I already pointed out the HLS variant, which has a mission not as a launcher to Earth orbit but as a lander on the Moon. Clearly, that does not require dozens of launches daily. I also pointed out that for colonizing Mars at the rate SpaceX plans to do, they will need many launches at each transit window, but may not need as many at other times.
“From a business standpoint, Starship is a huge gamble. If the paying work(payloads by outside customers) don’t show up, Starship could be a financially losing proposition.”
Not necessarily. Starship may pay for itself just in Starlink launches, as SpaceX is under pressure to put up several thousand Starlinks in a short amount of time, otherwise they lose their license for their operating radio frequencies. Starlink is a cash cow. Each million residential customers generate $100 million in revenue per month, or $1.2 billion per year. Losing that would be a tremendous loss, worth far more than the cost of Starship development.
Even still, each Starship launch can lift the equivalent of four Falcon 9 launches, saving SpaceX’s Starlink operation many billions of dollars in launch costs. SpaceX would need around 400 Falcon 9 launches to put up the 7,500 satellite constellation of its heavier second generation satellites, and at the current price tag of around $60 million per launch, the Starlink operation would pay the launch operation $24 billion for those launches — and it would be far greater launch costs if Starlink had gotten a license for the rest of its 30,000 satellite constellation. A Starship launch would have to cost more than $140 million per launch for 100 launches for it — and its development costs (assuming that virtually all the almost $10 billion investment in SpaceX went into Starship development rather than the Starlink constellation) — to exceed the cost of the equivalent Falcon 9 launch costs.
So, there isn’t much gamble at all, as the Starlink “Pez dispenser” variant, alone, should pay off the development costs (yes, the Starlink operation should be paying the launch operation full price for launches, otherwise the investors in the launch operation would subsidize the investors in the Starlink operation). The HLS variant has a contract for more than $2 billion in revenue. Private “tourist” flights are selling even before first orbital launch — even Crew Dragon didn’t get that much pre-flight business. As long as it can reach orbit, Starship is already a roaring success, and it hasn’t even had its first test launch.