How Will SpaceX Starship Overcome This Crucial Problem?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ต.ค. 2024
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SpaceX’s Starship is an engineering marvel knocking off one challenge at a time before we can see them design solutions to the future challenges. Here is the question. With the LOX and CH4 storage and temperature challenges, how can they store them together for long periods of time. Indeed, How Will SpaceX Starship Overcome This Problem? Secondly, how with they solve Zero Boiloff (or near zero boiloff). For the past few months now we’ve been working on this deep dive which started off as one thing, and then morphed into another. Mainly due to it sending us down a few rabbit holes. Because we are on a short break, we’ve worked twice as hard to make sure this one was finally ready to go, and I think you are going to find this one really interesting.
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4 minutes in the video and it blows my mind imagining all the steps, the years of years and people working on problems and patents and.. It just goes on. Thanks for the video Marcus
And yet they learn nothing at SpaceX!
@@rogerforsman5064Hi :) and that means? I can't read your mind
@@holographic_red The pipe inside the tank is amazingly complex. All of it must be precisely welded. There is no room for error, and live testing is the best way to check for the correct design. It blows my mind when I think of all the failed attempts to land and how each one led to new improvements. Software and hardware must be upgraded every flight to get it more reliable. SpaceX rocket engineers are the best in the world.
@@rogerforsman5064 And this is the poster child of the pot TRYING to call the kettle black!
@@ToIsleOfView And still they did not count for momentum of the liquid fuel that ruptured the tank!
Ah, Saturday afternoon sat down with a cup of tea and a biscuit, and the latest video from Marcus. Pure joy. Life is good.
@@wolfgang617 Happy Saturday!
You're an awesome human for that. Good on ya!
Thanks for this deep dive. I didn't understand how those sub-chillers work, but it makes so much sense now.
They are routing propellants through liquid nitrogen using small ppipes submerged in the liquid nitrogen tank, which is colder and so the propellants temperature drops as it exits and is then loaded into the vehicle. Heat absorbed from the propellants causes a portion of liquid nitrogen to turn back into gas form which is then vented, carrying the heat away from the subchiller. I hope this helps.
@@yumazsterI had the same question. Thank you for the succinct explanation.
@@MikesTropicalTech Glad it helped. Thanks to @yumazster for the added context.
@@MarcusHouse You are welcome 😁
In 2005 I built a liquefier for natural gas using LN2 and the municipal natural gas in our hangar, but it was a terrible idea- there were so many contaminants in the city gas that the heat exchanger would clog up quickly with water, CO2, mercaptans, and god knows what else. We also had to keep the LN2 pressure about 80 psi with a relief valve so that it couldn't freeze the GNG, and that added more hassle to running the system without automated controls.
When we scaled up we just pulled a dewar on a trailer to an LNG fueling stating in Lancaster and swiped a credit card to fill up, MUCH easier, we quickly re-learned that processing chemicals instead of buying them was a bad idea.
7:34 I'm trying to wrap my brain cells around 5 tons per second fuel flow 🤯
Lol exactly my thoughts! I used to haul fuel. A large pony motor will pump at around 800 gallons per minute. Some of ours were 400. But then, we didn't have 5+ Gs helping out!
Imagine going into a petrol station with Starship and saying 'fill it up' the bank of England can't print money that fast, THANKFULLY, the corrupt uk governments don't often spend it that fast either.
It's hard enough dealing with quoted flows over and through dams after storms, and that's when we can see it going.
@@professor-viewsalot Way to shoehorn politics into a completely unrelated topic and country.
@@iamaduckquackI think the professor has a good view of his backside.
Marcus...well done. You always make the difficult easier to understand. I think in the not too distant future, all propulsion will be replaced by something we haven't even thought of yet.
Hi Marcus ... KISS engineering based on 1st principles yields very simple solutions to these problems. First keep both propellants at different pressures so the boilding points are identical, and solve the freezing point problem by design (IE they both ARE NOT 6 bar). Second in large tanks convection induced natural pumping between the hot side and cold sides of the tank in space will provide a passive version of active cooling by design (E convection circulation inside the liquids). Lastly either a solar electric, or thermal "steam" engine, can provide an active compression pump to recondense propellants back to liquid form from boil off, simply using "free energy" from the environments temperature differentials. Tumble/roll/spin the craft in space to balance average temps on surfaces, while choosing the best side to the sun when landing on the surface of the moon and mars.
@@totally_lost1602 Nice summary of solutions!
🎉 HEY HEY 🎉
💕
A bit of hey hey, then some hullo . A good Saturday
🎉❤👌
@@andrewpyrahnot as much as Scott 😅 HULLLLOOOOOOO
@@JohnMuz1 👋
Wow! That piping is a piece of art! What an engineering nightmare the people that figured this out are definitively amazing.
I love the periodic Marcus House deep dive videos! Some of my favorites.
Never forget that the best insulation is a vacuum. I would not be at all surprised to discover it is used at certain points in Starship and booster construction.
If I didn't have such mechanical forces on the tanks
@@VinlaellYeah, these things are basically Pepsi cans
The downcomer and major fuel lines can be vacuum jacketed to isolate them, it's standard practice in lots of cryogenic systems.
Vacuum is also great for sun - shades !
Hi Marcus ... KISS engineering based on 1st principles yields very simple solutions to these problems.
Keep both propellants at different pressures so the boiling points are identical, and solve the freezing point problem by design (IE they both ARE NOT 6 bar).
In large tanks convection induced natural pumping between the hot side and cold sides of the tank in space will provide a passive version of active cooling by design (E convection circulation inside the liquids).
Either a solar electric, or thermal "steam" engine, can provide an active compression pump to recondense propellants back to liquid form from boil off, simply using "free energy" from the environments temperature differentials. Clearly the best part is no part, if other solutions are enough.
Tumble/roll/spin the craft in space to balance average temps on surfaces, while choosing the best side to the sun when landing on the surface of the moon and mars.
Pointing the aft engine bay into the sun, exposes different and CRITICAL engine parts to extreme temp differences and thermal gradients - Much better to choose pointing the nose into the sun when the solar energy is spread across a MUCH larger area, where thermal differences and thermal gradients have very little impact on the craft. The nose end is already designed for these gradients due to reentry plasma, the engine end less so with smaller tubes/wires that lack thermal mass to absorb high temps.
I think this is one of your best videos. Your explanations and discussions of the challenges and possible solutions were very interesting. Thanks for your excellent content!
Very nice physics "deep" dive. I really enjoyed it. It's the difference between "just" space news and technical background that makes me like your channel so much ❤
Love the new format! Learning about fundamental rocket science with so many actual examples and great footage is much better than learning about the latest girder or truck that was moved in Boca Chica
Really love your deep dive format/approach on these focus videos, this one especially seemed to take us right along the pathway of problem solving and the pressure differential gave me a lightbulb moment too! Hope you're enjoying your well earned break, thanks for keeping us "fed" while you're away!!
Wonderful presentation no irony comments or double standards suggestions. No reusable videos that made you tired to see them again and again. Really like this channel 😊
Thank you very much!
Very interesting! I'd wondered about the boiling of oxygen and freezing of methane - that common dome sure looked sketchy. It's good to know that a)I wasn't crazy to wonder about that and b)there's a reason it works out. Starship development is one of the most important things going on in the world today as it will open space to us, so I always tune in every Saturday morning for your updates and deep dives. When I was a kid in the 1980s, Saturday mornings were for cartoons, now they're for Marcus House videos.
Thanks for all the engineering details. I was able to follow the explanations and appreciate the challenges.
Great job!
A great video as always Marcus. Your positive energy on my Saturday morning is always appreciated.
To solve pressure needed and the sloshing problem I always imagined either a large bag or plunger system to maintain needed pressure and keep slosh to zero . But that would weigh a bunch I suppose , and a bag would be eaten unless made of fancy stuff . I'm sure there is a clever yet simple way to fix these issues -- looking forward to hearing about them soon .
Love your humility Marcus... This one was eye opener for me. Your explanation is very appreciated.
Mind-blowing! Thanks for this deep dive
When starship was presented to NASA as a solution for moon landing, I would have imagined the fuel issue would have been at the front of everyone's mind. Designs, numbers would have been presented... Let's hope so 👍
@@neilm9400 all I know is that I haven't seen any such detail.
@@MarcusHouse As a SpaceX employee, I can say that the public gets to see a small fraction of all the information we have and are working on.
@@Lynx-vi3bi We see Elon's genius speeches to SpaceX staff, which numbed you all into silence with its brilliance......
@@MarcusHouse They're called blinkers, Marcus.
@@Lynx-vi3bi Yes, I'm certain that is true.
9:30 - Space is cold. Stuff in space is _not_ cold (if there's any heat source near/in them).
Easy, simple heat transfer is something we take for granted here in Earth, inside a fairly dense atmosphere. You start removing the stuff that can carry away heat and you find out quickly that heat management becomes a problem that requires an engineered solution.
Super deep dive into a fascinating topic, Marcus, thanks ever so much! I hope you and your family are having a great well-deserved vacation!
Thank you Marcus for calling covering this topic. Very informative and allows me to understand the design challenges that SpaceX is facing!
The original 90's Artemis Project was based on hydrolox. We proposed a centrifugal gas separator to avoid ejecting liquified cryogenics during zero g boil-off to reduce losses.
How does this work ?
@@testpilotmafia862 The liquefied propellants are mixed with the gaseous propellants because bubbles don't float in zero g. So the tank vent exits via a vortex chamber. The denser liquid is thrown to the outside of the vortex by centripetal force, where it is skimmed off and pumped back into the tank.
@@VikOlliver whoa! Is there a formal design I could look for online ?
@@testpilotmafia862 Sadly the Artemis Data Book was taken offline a couple of decades back, but there's a more recent paper by a different bunch. Web search for FEDSM2016-7793
Great explanations. Incredible complexity.
There is no reason for liquid methane and liquid oxygen in their tanks sitting on the launch pad to be at 1 bar of pressure. They have to be at a much higher pressure for the vehicle to have structural integrity, especially when loaded and that pressure in the booster has to support the entire weight of the loaded ship.
Yeah! The tanks are referred to as pressure vessels and operate at a pressure above one bar.
Well woww!
As we all know, Tim set the benchmark (and Dam-high it was too!) for presenting 'Team space' information to us.
As the years passed and Tim matured his channel (Everyday astronaut), he delighted us by starting to take deeper dives, Marcus & Space excentric slotted very equally into 2nd place with the very best of the rest all way back in the 'wannabee' section.
I have said it several times in the last year, but every month Marcus expands the rapidly emerging gap behind him and he is now exclusively in second place to our forever hero Tim.
As Marcus joyfully gets better & better, sadly Space excentric falls further and further behind.
As Elon often reminds us, Space is difficult.
As Space excentric and dozens of others all show us, Space reporting is also difficult!
Well done Marcus.
This level of quality is going to be hard to maintain, but I bet theres millions of folk wishing you well.
Thanks Marcus,
Glad you enjoy what we do. Thank you!
Hey hey. Another great saturday morning video. I always look forward to seeing these. Thank you for making it so I don't get the shakes until your return.😮
Love the snippet of green exhaust as the copper in the combustion chamber burns off 7:04
Thanks, really great to have this more technical content from you and your team. Know it's hard to assemble, hope to see more. All the best
You can imagine how much more of a problem this will be for the orbital tanker.
Going from hot to cold every 45 mins or so.....
Storing both propellants for days... weeks?
Cryogenic propellants are great for reaching orbit, but once you're up there and using refueling methods, you want to switch back to storable room temperature propellants...
Like Kero/HTP or Alcohol/HTP (for reusable engines) - both combinations are hypergolic, but aren't expensive or too toxic. They can be stored in bladders for easy propellant transfer.
Plus HTP is multipurpose, it can serve as oxidizer, radiation shielding, RCS monopropellant and for life support to create heat, oxygen, water and electrical energy - which is useful for long space missions. :)
Somehow.. I always feel smarter after watching these types of videos.... Great video.
Excellent video today Marcus. I think you struck a nice balance between technical depth and approachability.
You know, I think you are the first to point out this problem of one liquid freezing the other liquid inside Starship. Goodonyer for that, mate!
Liked the last few frames at the end with starship going to warp.
Live long and prosper!
@@avanap8096 Was wondering how many would comment on that. ❤️
I've been thinking about the fuel depot. With a shade like the one on the JWST, that covers say 270 degrees of the depot, should help a lot. Half of so of the orbit is in the dark which has to help. Getting the problems solved with keeping propellants liquid and reducing boil off, should help a lot on the trip to the moon and beyond. Really enjoyed this episode.
A shade like JWST would be to overall to complex. Pointing you're Nose to the Sun so the actual Tank parts don't recieve direct sunlight + insulation like on the Shuttle main tank + Cryo coolers should get the job done
@@meinking_sensei3807Don’t forget the the Earth radiates at 300K, dayside AND nightside. It also takes up a huge solid angle while in low Earth orbit.
In Low Earth Orbit the radiant heat from the Earth is almost as bad as that from the sun and fills half the sky, making it difficult to avoid.
@@r0cketplumber nuh the sun is much much worse
Can work but must have polar orbit. Because i dont know thow much heat radiate Earth. and having GasStation in polar orbit can be god and bad. because you have to make a plan mision acording to refueling time wich make it hard when you come from the Westo to the East and the gaspump come from North to the South, and the speed there are 27.000km/h and are diferent trayectory. We keep working on it and betwen 9.000.000.000 humans in this planets we can figure it out...xD
the best, most interesting video I have seen from you. and I think I'm close to having seen them all!
Wow, thanks!
Thanks Marcus, this video was really helpful to understand some of the next steps and the new challenges that SpaceX will have to face when embarking on its journey to the moon, Mars or beyond. You gave me a lot of information that I didn't have in mind.
Fantastic explanation of the tank farm process. My hat is off to you.
Glad you enjoyed it
Thankyou again for such a well researched video. Always delivered in such a great way. Never disappointed.🎉
I've just rewatched this video 5 weeks later, as it was referenced in the 24th July '24 vid. Seeing the separate downcomer pipes on their jig makes sense too.
Great video. I think this is my favorite Marcus House video yet.
Thanks for explaining this. I don't think I have ever heard this before.
Enjoyed that. My brain feels nourished! Cheers
6:32 luv that steel mill scene
About gave me flashbacks. I ain't working in one of those again. 🥺
Awesome deep dive! Thank you!
As a commercial refrigeration technician, the laws of thermodynamics topics are strong in this video! Interesting stuff!!
Thank you!
Another great video! Loved the Tank Farm breakdown. Thank you!
Great job explaining all that Marcus ! Peace and love !
Another way to prevent fuel freezing is counterintuitively to add some ethane or propane. These can make a eutectic mixture with methane with a freezing point as low as 72K and only very slightly reduce Isp while increasing density.
Been following your channel for a long time, Marcus. Your content is just getting better and better. Thank you for your hard work with your team.
Thank you!
Unbelievably complicated, fantastiicslly skillful rocket engineers,wish i was half as clever as those guys 👍
I am going to go out on a limb here but I have full confidence in the smart people at spacex to solve any issues they may run into .
@@cbaesemanai Oh likewise. I'm not for a minute suggesting they don't have a solution to this challenge. They've just never shared it publicly.
this complexity problem will be benefits space exploration for sure, the fact they're working solutions to this and not run away from the problem
I Nominate Marcus House for best edutainment award on TH-cam
😃
i'm wondering how convection works in micro-gravity, with a hot and a cold side. maybe temperature control of the fuel is as simple as keeping it stirred, pumps, convection, rotation. and controlling the angle towards the sun to regulate the amount of heat collected
Love your videos man keeps me happy
Never forget that vacuum is the best form of insulation. I would not be surprised if it is used in several areas of Starship and booster design.
No convection or conduction through a vacuum (although conduction through the walls), but it doesn't block thermal radiation at all
@@charleslivingston2256 Thermal radiation is the least efficient method of heat transport, and not by a small margin. It's why ISS has such huge radiators, because it's incredibly inefficient to dissipate heat by radiation.
Edit: As discussed in the video, I should point out.
@@vicroc4 when surrounded by the vacuum of space, that is all there is. The difficult thing is dealing with all the incoming thermal radiation from the Sun and to a lesser degree, the Earth. For JWST, the heat shield blocks those two plus the Moon, but JWST needs to be at a cooler temperature than the fuel depot. The real challenge for the fuel depot is the relatively high freezing temperature of methane. That means just using a sun shield could get too cold. A large array of solar cells could shield the depot from external thermal radiation and provide power for active cooling and heating. Transferring heat from the colder LOX to the liquid methane may be necessary and would have to be active, not passive
@@charleslivingston2256 True, but that's not what OP was talking about.
@@charleslivingston2256
For the orbital propellant depot, it is likely necessary to insulate both the common dome bulkhead and methane downcomer tubes. A vacuum insulated double-wall technique is likely needed for the methane downcomer pipe, plus methane circulation or heating inside.
As for the sun shade, it will need to totally shade the oxygen tank and partially shade the methane tank. There will likely also need to be a Mylar radiation barrier for blocking Earth glow.
Well done, as always!
Excellent thermodynamics lesson. You rock!
Thanks Marc for getting the message about Fahrenheit. Love it! Better understanding. Keep the great episodes coming.
- NOM
Regarding the issues of long-term storage: that's another beautiful thing about SpaceX' approach compared to the legacy approach. SpaceX is addressing ONE issue at a time in physical hardware, and finding ways to make that one solution profitable. Legacy launch and space system providers spend decades simulating DOZENS of issues at the same time, knowing that they will NEVER be profitable but it doesn't matter because those government contracts will just keep pouring in.
spaceX received $25 billions last 15 years from US Gov , it took 10 years to land a booster on the worst rocket in history regarding Co2 pollution Falcon 9, and Sapcex annouced they'll be on Mars in 2022, 2 years later they can't even reach the LEO at 400kms orbit without burning the vehicul, Appolo 4 reach and came back to the moon at the first attenpt! Spacex is the worst ever space company regarding tech and announced acheivment of the space history , then still getting billions from US taxes payers!
One issue at a time is the most stupid way to develop a complete system like a spacecraft.
I think the point is not biting off too much at once. If they focus around the core sets of problems without worrying about esoteric aspects that will happen down the line, they can more easily find the limits of the core set of parameters. They obviously need to work on hundreds of engineering challenges just to get off the ground without exploding. The hundreds of challenges that will arise on the long trip to Mars can wait until they know what it takes to get to the start of the journey.
@@davidhuber6251 You can do journeys like the Franklin Expedition or Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition. Just start and find out what doesn't work on the way but space is a lot more dangerous than the Arctic or Mt. Everest.
@Ulrich.Bierwisch
It’s not really one issue at a time. It’s solving different problems with iterative testing.
Awesome, awesome long video. On rewatching a second time, I noticed the animation and "Extreme Temperatures" label around 17:38 is all wrong. Should refer to the +120/-160 range, but don't. Off to look for videos about why the ISS is warm/needs those coolers.
As they are needed, each issue will be addressed and alieveated… love your vids, especially when you get with Manly and other people in the field… 😊
Glad you like them!
For the orbital propellant depot, it is likely necessary to insulate both the common dome bulkhead and methane transfer pipes.
I would prefer to empty the large downcomer except during launch and landing. Otherwise, a vacuum insulated double-wall technique is likely needed for the methane downcomer pipe, plus methane circulation or heating inside.
As for the sun shade, it will need to totally shade the oxygen tank and partially shade the methane tank. There will likely also need to be a Mylar radiation barrier just for blocking Earth glow.
Thank you Marcus, excellent explanation 😊
This is an insane amount of detail! Ty Marcus!
Your work is as always amazing. Best breakdown of the temperature storage issue for the layman I've ever seen. This shows one of the many problems SpaceX has to work with.
Great video Marcus! Really well researched.
Outstanding work once again Marcus :) Thank you sir.
Perhaps an "autogenous cooling" approach could be used for short-term missions, where some fuel is sacrificed as coolant, cycled through some system that selects for higher-temperature molecules, (like a semi-permeable membrane of sorts)? I know this is going full Maxwell's Demon here, but that would be really neat to see a passive cooling system that works like this.
I'm also wondering if the autogenous pressure mechanism could also be used to overpressure the fuels for long-term storage, over the 6 bar they're normally kept at. You'd need a dedicated high-pressure version of the starship, but for long-haul missions (eg. to Mars) you'd already be bringing extra fuel with you.
I tried following your explanations Marcus, but this was one of the reasons I never took any chemistry classes while in college. But thx-at least I now know how difficult powering rockets can be for engineers.
Nice that you traversed what to us is a new topic. Thank you! ❤
Another great Deep Dive! Keep up the good work!
Excellent research, need more of this!
I would find discussion of cryogenics easier if the temperatures were reported in kelvins.
The main reasons something like the ISS has radiators is a lack of convection in space. There is no other way to bleed heat, as there is no air to carry it away, so radiation is the only cooling option.
A very good way to cool down the ship in orbit would be to put the reflective side toward the sun and the heat shield in shade. It will work exactly the same as an emergency blanket (or the Multi Layer Insulation used in satellite): one side is super reflective, and the other side super emissive (capable of big radiative exchange).
So if you put the reflective side toward the sun, no radiative exchange will occurs, and the other side will exchange by radiative means with the cold space. Being the hot source, the ship will cool down naturally. The best way they can do that is like in the video having the reflective side on the bottom with the engine bay, and radiate the heat on the hole body
A brilliant segue. Well done.
Well, if they only need the header tanks for landing. Then they only need to focus on keeping those liquid. Passive would be easier since the surface is drastically reduced. I imagine even a higher pressure would help. And possibly an active cooling loop of some kind that kicks in when boiloff psi builds. So no loss. Obviously you would need some kind of emergency psi release, but it wouldn't be venting out unless it going to pop. Maybe even a cooling loop back into the main tanks that could also accept some boil off for possible reclaiming. That's less likely on reclaiming though.
You beat me to it. I was just thinking that pressure rather than temperature would increase the densities of both propellants. The hurdle will be building tanks that can withstand hundreds of psi without failing. then you have the extra weight of extra structure - SpaceX engineers - look at honeycomb plastics to bind the tank interiors! My 3D prints are a 'mother' to separate from support material, even at low percentage densities!
Thank u Marcus for this deep dive into this existential challenge for Starship long duration missions. Am sure folks at SpaceX have a solution but either way it is a great commercial viability challenge.
Hey Marcus, hope you get to see this. On the topic of passive temp control, how much of a benefit would be gained from simple rotation?
Like a bullet being spun by the rifling of a gun, if the starship were to simply roll (not even at a significantly fast rate taking the thermal inertia of the ship's outer skin into consideration) it would continually expose any spot on the outside to alternating chilling and heating from radiation, getting the whole thing to average out nicely like a rotisserie chicken...
It would obviously average out at different values depending on distance from the sun and thus need active systems to lock down the final desired specific temp, but it would help take away a large part of not only the difference in temps between sides but also the mechanical stresses that come from such a wide temp variation around the ship's outer surface
Would love to hear your thoughts on the idea
Nice one Marcus, cheers buddy 🍻
Until 14:08 I thought you had lost your mind.
Pressure is the first thing that comes to mind when dealing with boil-off.
Very satisfying end to this video, tho :)
Yes, we need to first explain the problem and the challenges before talking about the solutions with pressure to widen the gap between the boiling points.
Fascinating piece on yet another factor in rocket design I hadn't come across.
As an Australian, the way you said 'Aluminium' at around the 6:40 mark just broke my heart.
Al-you-mini-um.😅
At least he did not use American units, like BTU per yard farenheit :-)
@@ewetoob1924 We call 'em "Freedom Units" 'round he-ah.
@@DavJumps 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
It’s almost enough for me to instantly unsubscribe. He is from Tassie though, they’re not proper Australians anyway.
Thank you for this video, Marcus. I love it when you guys do these deep dives. And you're totally right that fuel boil-off is one of the greatest challenges SpaceX faces on any long duration space mission. They must have some ideas on the drawing board, or they wouldn't have gotten the lander contract from NASA.
Oh, SpaceX has this fully planned I'm sure. We just don't publicly know how they are solving these problems. I find it fascinating to research these topics.
Thanks for another very interesting video you've made for us, this is getting very exciting!
Thank you for this ; I will show it to my Physics students
Glad it was helpful!
Hi Marcus and team, that was fascinating - I was ignorant about nearly all of it: thank you for enlightening me. Great video, thank you so much.
The easiest way to deal with the cooling issue for long duration missions like mars transfers I think would be to have multiple starships docked together around a tanker unit with active cooling and just continuously cycle the fuel to keep it chilled. Since starships are not ever planned to be sent to mars solo, it would make sense to dock them together anyway just to prevent possible course deviations from causing a collision between ships. It's likely something they already have a basic idea of but its just still too early to start worrying about that.
If there is any maneuvering required between launch and landing, having connecting starships increases your prop needs logarithmically vs individual ships. I think they will be like a stream of BBs, with the cargo ships in front and the crew ships behind, but survival needs sent one cycle in advance and arrival verified before crew launch. Cargo ships that survive on the same cycle will just be gravy. In a given cycle, I think they will time departures as close together as possible, but far enough apart that none will be landing on mars at the same time, plus enough gap to get status info from prior landed ship and weather updates to know if any landing tweaks are needed.
search vacuum insulated stainless tubing
They look like regular SS tubes, but a vacuum insulated.
Raptor is 3d printed with internal tubes to replace the piping. I wonder if the latest version of the down comber tubing will do something similar. You could print the pieces and have internal piping. No insulation required!
Wouldn't a vacuum sealed multi wall downcomer reduce temp transfer enough?
Very informative. Thank you
You had better hope that guy welding inside that tank is really good at his job. A weld defect would be bad. Good luck making all that methane on Mars. You are going to need a lot of big machines and a huge power source to do that. All that will need to be built while wearing bulky space suits.
Setting up the fueling station(s) on Mars will probably be totally automated, with robot machines and systems doing the work. Over time, an adequate supply of fuel will be available for when the first ships arrive. Overview and direction will be time delayed so construction will stop at intervals for review and updates. A reliable power source like nuclear is probably the way to go on Mars but no mention of it officially yet. Same holds true for active cooling and life support for longer trips to Mars and back, nuclear power is probably the answer. Good video raising the questions of temperature and pressure.
Hey Marcus, the thing I'm most worried about is where is the infrastructure needed to sustain Moon and Mars bases? I haven't seen anything tested, it's all just mock ups and CAD drawings at this point... kinda cutting it close for SpaceXs goal of reaching Mars in just a few years!