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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   28012 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 27, 2024

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American Rocketry was very traditional (risk averse) and RP-1 was the save standard propellant everyone had experience with. Here is a paper from 2009, awfully recent, which states that methane was always considered in theory a great propellant, but in praxis no one did serious development work with methane:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094576509000630

Liquid methane has been considered an attractive rocket propellant for several decades. However, most rocket engine development efforts in the last 30 years have focused on using more traditional fuels such as hydrogen, kerosene, and earth storables, without any serious development or application of methane to propulsion systems.

This changed in 2012 when SpaceX announced that Raptor would be methane-based. This gave other companies permission to research it too. BlueOrigin announced their methane-based BE-4 in 2014 (and actually they and the Chinese beat SpaceX to orbit with their methane-based engines). Bonkers was the wrong word for it, but it was always an exciting almost-sci-fi idea

You mean copy their actual tech, their paradigm, or the general ideas of reusability?

There is currently an interesting bit about reusability on x. The context is a NYT article how difficult it is to compete with SpaceX.

Dan Piemont from the aerospace startup ABL wrote that he disagrees with the thrust of the article, he welcomes SpaceX success, but their cheap ride sharing on Falcon 9 does indeed make it difficult for his company. He shared as an outlook:

In the long term though, cost is the most important factor as continued cost improvement unlocks larger and more frequent flights, creating a virtuous cycle. Reusability is a huge lever, and I think every launch system will eventually get there. But reusability is on a spectrum it’s not the only lever. Staffing level is the biggest and therefore workflow automation is a huge competitive opportunity.

Elon Musk replied:

Thank you for the thoughtful rebuttal. … I do hope that rocket companies focus on reusability. That is the fundamental breakthrough needed for humanity to become a spacefaring civilization. Falcon is 80% reusable and the team is doing incredible work launching every 2 or 3 days. With extreme effort, Starship will eventually take reusability to 100%. There are many tough issues to solve with this vehicle, but the biggest remaining problem is making a reusable orbital return heat shield, which has never been done before.

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1796031244846645493

So to circle back, yes, we shouldn't assume that Starship is already a success. (Actually this is a nice example how Elon is not only hype, but also shares freely if something is not working or unexpectedly challenging.)

Edit:
https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/05/ars-live-caleb-henry-joins-us-to-discuss-the-profitability-of-starlink/

Ars Live: How profitable is Starlink? We dig into the details of satellite Internet. How has Starlink has gone from zero to profitability in five years? This will be the first Ars Live event we've done in a few years. During these discussions, reporters and editors at Ars Technica speak with industry leaders about the most important technology and science news of the day. So please join us at 2 pm ET (18:00 UTC) on June 11 on our YouTube livestream.

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