2020-02-20

@flcnhvy @SciGuySpace F9 iteration slowed down as payloads became too important to risk. Little change is expected going forward with F9/FH or Dragon. Starship production & thus iterative improvement will be much faster than Falcon. Driving hard for fully reusable orbital flight this year!

@PPathole @JohnHanzl It’s mostly to balance the ship during entry. After delivering satellites, the front is light & back is heavy due to engines & landing legs.

@JohnHanzl Sorry, meant to say LOX header tank in tip of nose. CH4 main tank is above LOX main.

@JohnHanzl LOX

@SciGuySpace These problems are fundamentally intertwined. Building many rockets allows for successive approximation. Progress in any given technology is simply # of iterations * progress between iterations.

@SciGuySpace Hardest problem by far is building the production system of something this big. 2nd hardest is achieving full & rapid reuse with payload to orbit of ~2%.

@flcnhvy @sydney_ev Probably

@sydney_ev Attach wheels to the landing legs & tow Starship to the launch pad

@RationalEtienne I rate it two Bugblatter Beasts of Traal up!

High bay for stacking Starship engine bay, propellant tanks & fairing (fka nosecone) sections is almost done! https://t.co/G9h0430ns2

@pentaquarky @Erdayastronaut The whole nose tip has to have heat shielding for atmospheric entry at Mach 25+ anyway, so is effectively already insulated well in orbit

@tobyliiiiiiiiii @Erdayastronaut There will be a common area in the forward section with a big window like this. It will be a lot heavier than steel, but not dangerous. Consider astronauts on the moon with a very thin windowed helmet. They were fine.

@PPathole @Erdayastronaut Header tanks are only ~2% of main tank volume, so not a big deal. Pressurized volume is still ~1000 cubic meters.

@Erdayastronaut O2 header tank is tip of nosecone, CH4 header is in the main CH4 tank

@tesletter In the order that they were written

Worth reading Asimov’s Foundation https://t.co/OZfhcNNzyG