General > General Technical Chat
Starship/SuperHeavy orbital Flight Test LIVE
tom66:
--- Quote from: wraper on April 26, 2023, 10:53:52 pm ---
--- Quote from: Sal Ammoniac on April 26, 2023, 06:47:22 pm ---Shuttle SRBs came down on parachutes, while the Saturn V S-1C stage just fell into the ocean intact.
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Shuttle SRB "reuse" makes so much sense that it actually does not. It's just an empty shell that gets rescued (in SRB engine burns itself), taken apart into segments, stripped of paint, refurbished, refilled and assembled back. Literally it would be cheaper to just not reuse them. From what I read it was estimated to be about 3 times cheaper to just use brand new ones. Also this segmented construction is the reason why Challenger exploded.
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There were quite a few things worth reusing.
The SSRBs featured a pair of APUs which used onboard hypergolic fuel to provide hydraulic and backup electrical power. They also had actuation and control systems to ensure thrust was directly correctly, and a set of gyros to stabilise the thruster during flight. These were all rated for 20 flights before requiring replacement. And, of course, you have the casing of the SSRBs; the rockets weighed 91 tonnes dry, so certainly not negligible material there to dispose of every time.
AlbertL:
--- Quote from: tautech on April 27, 2023, 07:59:03 pm ---Before and after. :o
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Someone pointed out that SpaceX has taken us from expendable rockets on reusable launch pads, to reusable rockets on expendable launch pads!
rdl:
As long as you ship the hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide separately they're no more hazardous than many other industrial chemicals. They are not hypergolic with themselves.
wraper:
--- Quote from: rdl on April 28, 2023, 04:35:46 am ---As long as you ship the hydrazine and nitrogen tetroxide separately they're no more hazardous than many other industrial chemicals. They are not hypergolic with themselves.
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Depends on what you mean by hazardous. Many industrial chemicals like Phosgene are very toxic like hydrazine. They may not necessarily explode but cause fatal accidents nonetheless. Potentially spilling hundreds of tons of very toxic chemical is not the best idea.
iMo:
--- Quote from: tszaboo on April 27, 2023, 08:25:06 am ---There is a lot of comparison to Nasa in this thread. I believe Nasa was first testing the launch abort systems for the Saturn V even before they launched it suborbital. Is there any abort systems on the Starship, other than the one we just saw demonstrated?
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That is an interesting point.. One of the serious issues with the Space Shuttle was its abort system.. Actually none, in reality. The capsules like in those "standard rockets" are easy to abort and land them without killing the astronauts inside. How it should work with the Starship?
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