Comment by y0ssar1an
4 days ago
Not me! I'm rooting against SpaceX lol
Starship is the SpaceX Cybertruck - lots of impressive engineering, but still doomed by terrible design choices from you-know-who. Stainless steel is just such a terrible choice for a rocket this large. Doomed the whole enterprise.
I know launches are exciting. Landings, doubly so. But eight launches to get to the moon is not a good rocket. Sorry.
which rockets have you worked on? are you in the aerospace industry?
Your takes are hotter than a launch pad with all 33 raptors firing!
and costs taxpayers billions compared to our working models 60 years ago. Great innovation
I remember the Saturn V being caught by chopsticks in mid air too.
Starship is fantastic value for money compared to Artemis!
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>> Stainless steel is just such a terrible choice for a rocket this large.
Honest question, but what do they usually use?
Aluminum alloy and carbon fiber, because both have high strength to weight ratios. Steel is denser, so its specific strength isn't as high. But it retains strength at both lower & higher temperatures, and it's much cheaper. It's also cheaper/quicker to modify a steel design, as welding is easier than aluminum (at least for low carbon steels used in Starship). And if the same structure were made of carbon fiber, it would likely have to be fabricated from scratch.
I think choosing steel has helped Starship, as it allowed the ship to survive reentry and land in the ocean despite heat shield failures. Had the ship been made of aluminum, I'm certain earlier missions would have broken up when the aluminum heated up and lost its strength.
you should come back to this comment in 10 years. stainless steel starship will not have left LEO.
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