Three Starship prototypes in line for testing
Capitalism in space: SpaceX’s assembly line for building Starship prototypes is heating up, with three such ships completed or under construction in Boca Chica, Texas.
Initially numbered 5 through 7, the goal of the first two will be to do the first full scale vertical hops, flying as high as 7.5 miles.. #7 however has a different purpose:
While stouter than an actual Starship-class methane or oxygen tank, this particular test tank is maybe only 25% shorter than the methane tanks installed on Starship prototypes. According to Musk and effectively confirmed by writing all over the prototype, this particular test tank – formerly Starship SN7 – was built to determine if a different kind of steel could be preferable for future ships.
Shortly after the June 15th test began to wind down, Musk announced that the new material (304L stainless steel) had performed quite well, reaching 7.6 bar (110 psi) before it sprung a leak. The fact alone that it sprung a leak instead of violently depressurizing is already a major sign that 304L is preferable to 301L, as it means that Starships built out of it could fail much more gracefully in the event of a leak instead of collapsing or violently exploding. A step further, SpaceX has already managed to repair the leak on SN7 and will likely test the tank again in the next few days.
SpaceX is once again demonstrating how to properly do this kind of cutting edge development. You test, you fix or, you change, based on what your tests tell you. You don’t lock down design in the early stages, because at that point you really don’t know enough to do so.
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 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
Capitalism in space: SpaceX’s assembly line for building Starship prototypes is heating up, with three such ships completed or under construction in Boca Chica, Texas.
Initially numbered 5 through 7, the goal of the first two will be to do the first full scale vertical hops, flying as high as 7.5 miles.. #7 however has a different purpose:
While stouter than an actual Starship-class methane or oxygen tank, this particular test tank is maybe only 25% shorter than the methane tanks installed on Starship prototypes. According to Musk and effectively confirmed by writing all over the prototype, this particular test tank – formerly Starship SN7 – was built to determine if a different kind of steel could be preferable for future ships.
Shortly after the June 15th test began to wind down, Musk announced that the new material (304L stainless steel) had performed quite well, reaching 7.6 bar (110 psi) before it sprung a leak. The fact alone that it sprung a leak instead of violently depressurizing is already a major sign that 304L is preferable to 301L, as it means that Starships built out of it could fail much more gracefully in the event of a leak instead of collapsing or violently exploding. A step further, SpaceX has already managed to repair the leak on SN7 and will likely test the tank again in the next few days.
SpaceX is once again demonstrating how to properly do this kind of cutting edge development. You test, you fix or, you change, based on what your tests tell you. You don’t lock down design in the early stages, because at that point you really don’t know enough to do so.
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 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
From the article: “ Further down the line, SpaceX intends to develop its own custom steel alloy, optimized specifically for Starship’s needs. The first tests of that ’30X’ alloy could begin as early as August 2020 according to a February Musk tweet.”
Robert noted: “SpaceX is once again demonstrating how to properly do this kind of cutting edge development. You test, you fix or, you change, based on what your tests tell you. You don’t lock down design in the early stages, because at that point you really don’t know enough to do so.”
Three test articles built simultaneously demonstrates the devotion that SpaceX has to the philosophy of rapid development. SpaceX is also willing to abandon ideas that will take too long to develop, which is why they abandoned carbon composite structure and fuel tanks for Starship. Early design concepts change as SpaceX learns, but the goal tends to remain.
SpaceX does not have the usual sprawling property and campus that most of the larger “heritage” aerospace companies have, so SpaceX fans have easy access to the public spaces near the construction and test sites. These fans (short for fanatics, which is perhaps as appropriate for this group of people as for sports fans) record and report on the progress of SpaceX’s development work more than for other companies. I have heard people complain that SpaceX takes longer to develop ideas than they originally announce it will take, but sometimes these developments were impossible or had taken the resources of an entire government to do. It is good that SpaceX and several other companies are able to do what once took a country to do.
It is hard to be sure how much similar activity and testing the other aerospace companies do for the early development work on their own rockets and projects, but having worked in the industry, I am convinced that SpaceX is working faster than most companies to find radically new ways of doing what they want to accomplish.
Except for Apollo and the Space Shuttle, NASA and aerospace companies have seemed satisfied with incremental, evolutionary improvements with their new designs and programs, which could explain locking down designs early in development — the lack of challenge does not require much deviation from previous designs. SpaceX goes out of its way to challenge itself with radically different, revolutionary improvements and innovations. They did what most engineers thought impossible or uneconomical, recovering and reusing first stage rockets (the Shuttle SRBs had been a bad experience, helping to convince engineers that reuse was uneconomical). Many people doubted that commercial companies could develop the capability to berth a resupply craft to the ISS, but SpaceX and Orbital Sciences (now part of Northrup Grumman) proved otherwise, and now commercial companies are delivering people to the ISS. SpaceX is taking another leap in creating a reusable manned orbital craft that is capable of traveling to the surface of Mars and the Moon, even to the point of developing new alloys, as JFK had said would be necessary in order for Apollo to reach the Moon.
NASA even reverted to an Apollo-like expendable rocket and spacecraft after its experience with the Space Shuttle, which is de-evolutionary rather than evolutionary. That’s one small step for NASA, one giant leap backward for mankind. There is not much need for a fluid or flexible design to do that.
Perhaps SpaceX is brave about showing us its failures because it knows that we are aware of just how difficult it is to do these impossible things. This openness may be a factor in the size of its fan base. Although I am not fanatical about SpaceX, I appreciate its daring philosophy and its goal to colonize Mars within its founder’s lifetime.
I hope that SpaceX’s many successes encourage others to do similar rapid development of radically different aerospace projects. Skylon is an example of radically different. Incremental improvements and regression to 50-year-old methodologies do not promise a bright future for space exploration.
Development usually costs too much, so somehow he has found a way to keep the expenses down.