Neat. The sides fold out and are an elevator to the ground on Starship. I guess they do the same on the other side and use equal cargo to balance and keep from tipping over.
The cargo door is on the “top”, or cooler, side of Starship when it’s reentering earth’s atmosphere. So that side won’t need thermal protection. So I believe that’s the only cargo door on this version of Starship.
The other side (not shown in the rendering) needs thermal protection tiles, so it would be harder to add a cargo door on that side. In particular, it would be harder to add those rails which the open cargo door slides down. The door itself wouldn’t be too hard, since such things have been done before (e.g. space shuttle landing gear doors and the doors for the LOX/LH2 lines going to the external tank).
If starship mass (includding returning fuel) is something about 250 tons, the horizontal distance between center of gravity and leg is 4.5m and the distance of the crane boom is the same 4.5 meter, the crane could manage 100 tons with no tipping risk…
There was talk for a while about a Grey Dragon version of the Red Dragon using Super-Dracos, but SpaceX decided it was more worthwhile to just move on to Starship. No different than skipping Falcon 5 for the Falcon 9.
Elon Musk likely decided that he has to break the market wide open to move beyond NASA to serve consumer space markets. Falcon Heavy/Dragon at $50,000/kg to the Moon wouldn’t do that but Starship will. Being able to ship payloads to the Moon for around $150/kg opens up the Moon to real commercial ventures.
Yes, I understand the broader strategy, it’s almost beyond what’s imaginable. But even if Starship fails or have a long and tumultuous development, they already have probably the most affordable cargo provider, as the FH/Grey Dragon, comparable only to the future Blue Moon. Starship is orders of magnitude beyond, although.
Neat. The sides fold out and are an elevator to the ground on Starship. I guess they do the same on the other side and use equal cargo to balance and keep from tipping over.
The cargo door is on the “top”, or cooler, side of Starship when it’s reentering earth’s atmosphere. So that side won’t need thermal protection. So I believe that’s the only cargo door on this version of Starship.
The other side (not shown in the rendering) needs thermal protection tiles, so it would be harder to add a cargo door on that side. In particular, it would be harder to add those rails which the open cargo door slides down. The door itself wouldn’t be too hard, since such things have been done before (e.g. space shuttle landing gear doors and the doors for the LOX/LH2 lines going to the external tank).
I wonder if this type of paint might help
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
If starship mass (includding returning fuel) is something about 250 tons, the horizontal distance between center of gravity and leg is 4.5m and the distance of the crane boom is the same 4.5 meter, the crane could manage 100 tons with no tipping risk…
Could a FH launch a Dragon, cargo or 2 to the moon? Could they land only on Draco thrusters? They could do this in a week!
There was talk for a while about a Grey Dragon version of the Red Dragon using Super-Dracos, but SpaceX decided it was more worthwhile to just move on to Starship. No different than skipping Falcon 5 for the Falcon 9.
Great, but wouldn’t be an amazing plan B? Almost humiliating to have that capability right now and simply sparing it…
Elon Musk likely decided that he has to break the market wide open to move beyond NASA to serve consumer space markets. Falcon Heavy/Dragon at $50,000/kg to the Moon wouldn’t do that but Starship will. Being able to ship payloads to the Moon for around $150/kg opens up the Moon to real commercial ventures.
Yes, I understand the broader strategy, it’s almost beyond what’s imaginable. But even if Starship fails or have a long and tumultuous development, they already have probably the most affordable cargo provider, as the FH/Grey Dragon, comparable only to the future Blue Moon. Starship is orders of magnitude beyond, although.
Yes, but NASA is not interested because it’s not built in Alabama and there is no commercial interest, so why waste money on it?
It’s no different than Falcon 9 where Elon Musk has saturated the commercial launch market and so he is creating his own launch demand with Starlink.