Why do I keep falling for this clickbait? Lots of bread but no meat in the sandwich. Lots of history and description of issues that we are all aware of but the promised revelation of news goes unfulfilled. Apparently the purpose is advertising revenue and not service to viewers. Last time I am visiting here.
If ceramics can be replaced. I’m sure SpaceX will be the company to find that replacement. It won’t happen over-night. But it seems obvious ceramics need a replacement.
Something like transpiration was tried on jets in the 1980's. Compressed air was blown out through tiny pores in the wing to keep flow laminar and allow higher angles of attack. It worked, but was impossible to maintain because the pores kept getting clogged by dust.
But are thee any picture of the new heat shields? I'm sure that over 90% of your viewers only clicked this to see them and not to get a total recap without them included again. Didn't see anything new here at all. did i miss it?
Just a journeyman who worked on projects with a lot of stainless, and am wondering if the stainless steel deformation could be caused by the rapid quenching the tiles experience when they contact cold sea water. That's gotta be an issue.
Audiences seek information without fluff that wastes our precious time, while 'influencer' seek to stretch any tidbit of info into as much content as possible
The USAF space plane X-20 Dyna Soar developed in the mid '60s, was constructed of all metal. Using Rene-41 alloy & Inconel-X, welded to create the fuselage and wings. For the hot nose cone, a metal-metal composite was developed using Zirconium pins in a matrix. All was tested and cerified for the extream conditions of rentry, and fully reusable.
Although never flight tested, the X-20 Dynasoar was designed with a composite metallic heat shield and active liquid cooling. If only the program hadn't been cut, we may have been decades ahead in our tech. Or at least we would know if it didn't work.
I wonder if some form of speed brake (similar to what are used on jet aircraft) combined with controlled engine burns could be used to effectively reduce speed if the ship used a nose up re-entry like the booster.
As Starship will be made to refuel while in orbit for travel outside LEO there is another option here. Starships which are intended to return to earth could be refueled as well. Then reentry rockets could be fired to reduce the speed of Starship to a reentry speed which wouldn't be so harsh
I suspect the final metallic heat shield won’t be at all like the ceramic tiles, but internal heat sink circuits that more efficiently cool with ullage in a convective way.
Welp, this is confusing. You say a perfectly reasonable thing, then someone else replies to it with something that makes no sense, then the channel hearts the nonsense message..
Moving the fwd flaps is the most important thing. Even the rear flaps could be moved another 10°, and this would give enough angle to protect the joints.. what they really have to do is protect the other side of the ship from the thermal radiation. This involves either thermal blankets or an ablative white paint that is used by pretty much every other spacecraft, including the dragon capsule. just like on the space shuttle. The plasma generates enormous infrared heat that must be reflected away on the opposite side. This is why the leeward side is deforming and discoloring so much. This type of stress will make the ship unusable after even a single flight.
Hopefully by flight 9 or 10 the Starship will have landing legs. And along with the new metallic tiles will be a fully functional starship capable of landing on other celestial bodies and not with the catch arms or lost in the ocean depths :)
NASA tried to make the tiles work for decades...not so great for a reusable spacecraft. At least spacex isn't doubling down and is exploring alternatives after a few tests
One question I have is when will SpaceX begin deploying payloads with the Starship. SpaceX has already proven the Starship can make it to orbit so why not take the same approach that Falcon9 did where they worked on landing while they were launching payloads.
As Starship will be made to refuel while in orbit for travel outside LEO there is another option here. Starships which are intended to return to earth could be refueled as well. Then reentry rockets could be fired to reduce the speed of Starship to a reentry speed which wouldn't be so harsh.
Why use the tower to catch starship? Sooner or later landing legs will have it be used to land anywhere but Boca Cica. So add the legs now and drop the tower.
Legs are heavy duty equipment. They weigh alot and add complexity to the rocket thats not necessary. Using the tower is great for reuseability. Catch the thing, inspect, refuel, put it on the very same booster without needing to transport anything across the country and start again. Those starships intended for landing on mars/moon will need legs ofc, but those intended for satellite deployment or orbital refueling wont. I think it's quite genius to remove important equipment from the vehicle and put it on the ground instead.
As I said 4 years ago: using 1970s titles will doom the starship just like the shuttle. Liquid cooled takes COLD fuel which is mass. That solution is also DOOMED. The amount of liquid fuel to cool the whole ship will NEVER work. THIS WILL AGE WELL.
It takes forever to replace tiles but an ablative coating layer could be sprayed over the entire assembly quite quickly before each launch, sacrificing itself each time to protect the tiles.
To land on Mars you don't need heat tiles the same as you do on the Earth. So the only reason his Mars crews need earth-like heat shy tiles is to come home as long as he gets that out of his head then he's fine.
No, they really won't replace it as you say as these All or Nothing ideas are dumb as hell. Most of the craft the tiles are fine. It is mainly the joints for the flaps, so for those it would make sense to evaluate adding transparation to the joints. Trying to cool the entire thing with nitrogen or methane is asinine. They need to add some ventilation around the flaps/wings and use some of the metal tiles or some other combinations.
The catching outfit needs to be designed for the worst case, where failure is common. This means the tower needs to be bombproof and easy to repair. The issue is the size of the bomb when things don't go as planned. It might be better to put the catch tower away from the launch tanks.
@@scientificperspective1604 Thanks for the laugh! Have you ever seen an object that weighs that much slam into a building? The ship can be totally empty, but the damage will be massive.
@@scientificperspective1604 It seems you are on a different page from my original comment. I am looking at the physics of inertia versus steel. The amount of fuel only adds mass. I am sorry, I am talking Science, should we dumb this down to teacher level?
SpaceX should consider Carbon Dioxide for the active-film heat shield cooling. The Martian atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, so it's freely available for the trip home. No matter what material is used for active cooling, it will need to be loaded before liftoff, and carried along until reentry, so So SpaceX shouldn't limit the choices to just O2 or CH4. Methane will react with oxygen in the atmosphere, and add extra heat to the shield. Oxygen when super-heated will act on stainless steel like a cutting torch. Carbon Dioxide however won't react with anything. It's completely inert. If SpaceX needs to carry along extra material for film layer cooling, then it might as well just save on the cost of CH4 and O2, and build a CO2 tank and pump system for cooling the heat shield. CO2 is cheap, easy to handle, reliable, and safe. An active film layer cooling system will add weight, and reduce the payload capacity of the rocket, but hey, do you want a fully reusable rocket or not? The film-layer heat shield will be the only heat shield in history that is has zero ablative behavior.
Agreed. And since they'll be generating H2 with the O2 (from found water), they might consider fueling a Raptor 4 directly with that instead of processing it into methane first.
@@ReggieArford Agreed. I always assumed that SpaceX had a reason for not using H2 and O2 instead of the multi-step and energy intensive process of converting water and CO2 into methane. Bezos has some H2 engines. The space shuttle used them, so we know that H2 can be used.
@@scientificperspective1604 As I understand it, the reason SpaceX uses methane is because its boiling point is close to oxygen's. So, there's no need for additional insulation between them. Someone did a RUclips on this, I think.
@@ReggieArford Somehow the Space Shuttle was able to use hydrogen and oxygen. I remember stories about how the hydrogen was also used in the space shuttle in fuel cells which generated electricity. SpaceX is going to take heat for generating CO2 with its rockets. It would be great if H2 were easier to handle, since water is available basically everywhere, and H2+O2 fuel makes no CO2. The second stage of New Glenn apparently will use H2+O2. Maybe SpaceX boosters can be used to get that BO 2nd stage to orbit, if the New Glenn isn't up to it.
I am kinda wondering why they don't try to maneuver starship into a position like the heavy booster and falcon 9 as it de-orbits, that system seems to work fine directing the heat into the engine area that is already built for sustained heat.
As Starship's re-entry angle is *_steep,_* then its *_belly keel_* is where it can deploy its (future) comprehensive ullage gas/film cooling system, starting from its nose and finishing at the end of the LOX (bottom) tank. A red line down its belly would be quite aesthetic. The present design won't be reusable. 😎
As an engineer, I don't see any cause why catching the Starhip should be more complicated than the booster. The Booster has much more mass than the ship.
What about no heat shields engine end first firing just enough to create a bubble to protect the spacecraft and then at the end, just perform a landing like the Falcon 9 booster does now except maybe with chopsticks. Think different.
NASA itself isn’t the issue-the real challenge is in how things are being managed and executed. It’s time to update and rethink some processes and ideas to align them with today’s realities.
Launch - a few at once- a one-piece kinda mat that fits the rocket and is fitted in space by the iSS, making it a glider, just like the space shuttle was. Sheapest and easy solution and you can reuse it.
I was referring to color not material. TLDR: radiation plays a huge role in heat transfer. Maximizing the emissivity of the surface (I.e, making it more black) is crucial to heat transfer. A white surface or "shiny" reflective surface would be extremely counter productive.
What's crazy is that the rocket is filled with super chilled fuel. There has to be a way to transfer that coolness to the heat shield. But how? Because I'm guessing that you also don't want to warm up your fuel. I don't know about the theory that the best heat shield is no heat shield?! 😅
The overwhelming majority of super cold liquid fuel & liquid oxygen is used up on ascent to achieve the altitude & velocity necessary to maintain orbit around the earth. Realize Starship needs accelerate from 0 mph on Earth to a speed of 17,500 miles per hour above the atmosphere where there is no friction to slow it down. As a result STRARSHIP WILL ACTUALLY BE FALLING TOWARD EARTH, BUT IT’S GOING SO FAST THAT IT PASSES THAT MAGIC POINT IN SPACE WHERE INSTEAD OF FALLING BACK DOWN AND HITTING EARTH IT FALLS DOWN ONLY AFTER THE EARLY HAS SAFELY CURVED AWAY UNDER IT!! THUS IT KEEPS FALLING “AROUND THE EARTH” at a constant speed (even though there is barely any fuel left) because there’s no friction in space to slow the spacecraft down!! If it gets too close to the atmosphere it will slowly loose speed and re-enter Earth. There’s only a small amount of fuel remaining in the ship for slowing down VERY close to land. So ALL reusable rockets & capsules coming back to Earth have utilized “aero-breaking” which uses the increasing density of air resistance towards the surface of Earth to slow down the vehicle “for free” because a vehicle doesn’t need any fuel to reduce their velocity from 17,500 mph to zero depending on it’s design. However aero-breaking isn’t really “free.” It slows the spacecraft but the air friction at those insanely high speeds cause EXTREME heating which must be overcome. Maybe SpaceX can find an innovative solution for a new type of heat shield?! I hope so!
@@colonbina1 The metallic heat shield would not consist of tiles. The red tiles are probably a different kind of silica-based composite tile with a different ablative coating. The coating may create a plasma barrier further from the ship itself compared to the black ones. A metallic shield would be more like a second skin with channels inside it. Because the fuel is stored at such high pressure it is also extremely cold at cryogenic temperatures. So they can use fuel circulated through the channels under the second skin. The system would likely be pressurized by the heat of re-entry itself causing the liquids to expand and form gases. Engines bells are cooled in a similar way. Where fuel is circulated between two skins within channels around the engine bell. Then that pre-heated fuel is injected into the combustion process. In this case, the fuel would be likely used for the gas thrusters that control the attitude of the ship. A metal layer would still likely utilize an ablative layer painted on as well.
@colonbina1 Perhaps a sponge like-arrangement with the coolant stored just beneath the tile. Perhaps transpiration from the sponge could pump the coolant through to the surface. The sponge might be staged: tile, region, area, spacecraft.
@ well if you really want my opinion I’d drop the idea of using the tiles entirely. I think I’d do what any sensible rocket payload specialist would do. I’d change the unhelpful pointy nose for a big flatter blunter rounded one with a fully discardable shield but the rest of craft would be mostly in its slip stream so as a relatively small if a little heavy 8inch thick ablative shield that would slightly protrudes over the metal leading nose end. then I’d decrease the angle of attack of the vehicle to put the vehicle right behind the nose as it’s coming in then I’d forget about any very heavy tiles apart from the few ablative ones on the leading edges on the flaps. I’d let the front shield take the punishment and after landing I’d throw it in the bin and fit another one I’d fit replacement flaps and recover the original ones with new ablative tiles on their leading edges again. Ready for the next flight. This would allow for when ship is really coming in hot and much faster say when coming back from the moon or mars which would have seen the original tiles getting 100 percent hotter than from the relatively slow suborbital flights they have done so far.
Less parts to build over and over for each rocket while they test plus once it lands it only needs refueled and inspection before taking off again. Legs will be down the road
Working the problems you can solve right now, like catching starship, while you continue to research more difficult problems solutions like a new heat shield seems rational.
In terms of innovation, we really are looking at 1980's technology. If the 'Starship' vehicle is going to be reusable, it needs to be able to have a flight profile such that reentry velocity is minimized. The current iterations do not use controlled flight, it is more a case of controlled falling. There needs to be a better way to conduct the reentry phase. Possible avenues to explore would be de-orbit burns that slow the craft considerably, additional aerodynamic control surfaces (wings), skipping in order to scrub speed in smaller chunks, or a combination of these.
@ I’m aware. Fuel cost in terms of mass to lift vs the cost of total vehicle loss. I can’t provide that calculus, but a ‘reusable’ spacecraft that does not survive reentry is an oxymoron and clearly SpaceX is exploring possibilities. So many ultimate limits just require divergent thinking to do the impossible! Have some faith baby😎
How much heavier are steel plates than ceramic tiles? How much thermal protection do they provide? How heavy and complicated would an active cooling system be? None of these questions answered by the video.
As I am on the verge of learning" Spacecraft-Elon's school: I concur in matters of using metallic, "stainless steel sandwich" as an upgrade instead of using the ceramic tiles, especially during the RE-ENTRY which is crucial and highlights. Have u by chance, mentioned the material science of the shields as I have not captured the 2nd layer❓️Or, I became dyslexic nervosa 🤣 jst b-coz it's Christmas 🎄. Thank U, kev, and I hope U, Sir, have the best time celebrating our Christmas ✨️🎄💜🌟
I have always thought a alloy of Titanium and steel heat shield on certain part of starship is the answer. Other methods are to complicate because of the size of vehicle
I'm npt enthusiastic about methane as a coolant since it is flammable and the combination of heat in an oxygen atmosphere, I believe that the methane coolant would sheath the spaceship in a wreath of flame. Nitrogen is better but it is probably a gas when used so it will not carry off enough heat. Problems that will be addressed but this first description is not likely to be the solution.
Yes, this is the age of bullshit gaslighting videos. The first indication is when they begin and they tell you the whole flipping history and they may give you one little tidbit by the time you’ve watched the whole thing. I think they should keep doing this because it deters people from watching the Internet and that’s good.
Technically starship doesn’t need reentry for the first couple of starships from my memory who goes there first will have to stay there, including the materials we send there before we go, and that includes the starship since there are no refueling stations on Mars yet the reentry part could be more valuable when Mars has an opportunity to set up a refueling station so I can send equipment Back to earth and if I remember correctly, there was an idea of trying to use the spaceship itself as a temporary living quarters because technically, you could just tip the starship on its side, bury it a little bit to protect from the radiation, and it should be relatively good as long as you find a way to produce water and grow your own food, because the starship was designed for a six month trip and open outer space so it’s got some living quarters the reentry on the shielding part for the time being could only be used for testing for the reentry of the vehicle because you want to keep reusing it because who wants to throw away a car after they get done using it once But starship on Mars will be more than a car kind of like those SUVs, that you could drive anywhere and live inside
Your videos are way too much flowery verbage that drags on and on saying the same thing over and over again. Its tiresome. The same as with TechMap. Please cut your verbage and get to the point. You must think the public is too stupid to realize what your talking about. So you have to reitteriate what your saying in different words, but the same instance of meaning. Its way too much ... Please change your style.
The "end" future solutionwill be anyhow gigantic unshielded "cycler" spaceships to Mars (Lunar and other destination) transports with shuttles that only fly cargo and humans from Earth to/from the cycler and from Mars to/from the cycler. The shuttles will be shielded though but the cycler will only be radiation shielded.
Using a hydrocarbon is not a good idea! Nitrogen maybe a better choice! 600 degrees to start the flow of the nitrogen. There should be an over flow and return to the nitrogen tank to cool down the gas. The color should not exceed a yellow color. If it reaches a red color. You need to increase the flow. When it turns blue you will need to replace the tile. It will have absorbed to much oxygen. The material will have its flexibility.
When I'm out roasting a hot dog I know I have to spend the hot dog if I leave the hot dog stationery in the fire it burns black as heck. Maybe they ought to spend the rocket ship a few times on the way down. Like a roller dog.
I do not agree with this view. Even Though Stanless steel temp ranges between 2,550°F and 2790°F. I would suggest something simpler. Tungsten melting point is 6,192°F and as a metal can be formed into the new heat shield. When reentry temperatures as high as 7,000°F it is not likely stanless steel would work as it has a melting point of 1,400°F. While titanium is ,3,034°F. Molybdenum would range at 4,753°F. Tantalum woudl be around 5,468°F. In truth if he craft heat shielding was made out of titanium, molybdenum, tantalum and copper cooling system to conduct the highest cooling method it would be likely to use a metal heat shield that would not melt at all. It would be rather simple in design and easy to apply to the current system.The fuel itself could be used.
Holy moley. I just typed a very similar post. sent it. and see the post right under mine has nearly the same idea. great minds :) My idea though was to make the silica tile material into an "ice cream sandwich" with probably a titanium backing, and a tungsten outer layer. And try to form the heat tile in between these layers, with protrusions from each plate sticking into the tile brick. The key would be to avoid any bridging... so the protrusions would need to secure into the tile material itself, not go all the way through and touch. Basically there can't be any thermal bridging, front to back. But I think the tiles could be made tougher, at a weight which is likely considerably less than a respiration system. Does reentry really reach 7000 F? Tungsten can handle up to 6000. I had thought that reentry temp was a bit lower than that.
@@kathrynck Are you sure these metals adhere together? Steel and titanium don't. A coolant system does not lower the surface temperature very much, so one may have to deal with thermal abrasion. I'm sorry, but as a European, I cannot deal with your temperatures. Stay on your MAGA island!
HO, HO, HO, how about using hydrogen peroxide to cool the heat shield? It can be handled as a liquid. It will combine with oxygen from the atmosphere to become H2O. It burns into water vapor. It can come out of thousands of pores that are actually tiny rocket engines (it's been used in rockets), helping slow the descent. The steam will insulate the steel ship. Sometimes I think so far out of the box I'm not even in the warehouse.
This concept transuding, sweating, investigated years ago. If memory serves, WD40 was invented for this purpose. The developers had to find another use for it.
Well I would put dimples in the Hull which will be thinner due to the added strength as is inherent strength which comes with Dimples, then I'd have an inflatable bollute which will inflate to be a heatsheild from below the Rockets then detaches at a safe altitude then land on the ground with thin curved titanium legs I'd say one every foot ....so there
This is a great idea, I’ve thought it too. The problem is to do so they need to carry too much extra fuel. If they carried enough fuel to take off then do a slow down burn and then another landing burn there would be no room left for any cargo.
This maybe one idea, use a heat as a shield maybe gun powder that ignights at a cirturn point. Or blast microwaves or plasma out like the sun hotter than the surface. 🤔🥵🤠☠️🚀🚀🚀🚀
If plasma is controlled by magnetic fields, like in a Nuclear rocket engine. Why cant a magnetic in the center of the title repeal the plasma??? ""Plasma magnetic charge" is not a standard term in physics, but it essentially refers to the concept of a plasma being influenced by a magnetic field due to its charged particles, meaning the plasma itself doesn't have a "magnetic charge" but behaves as if it does because of the collective motion of its charged ions and electrons within a magnetic field; essentially, the plasma is considered "magnetized" when the magnetic field significantly affects its behavior. ' Is it not Plasma that is the issue???
Actually the problem isn't plasma. When a space vehicle re-enters the atmosphere, the compression of air results in the creation of plasma, but there is always a boundary layer of air that prevents plasma from ever making contact with the vehicle. The largest source of direct heating, is convection from the boundary layer. While the plasma itself certainly has a radiative heating aspect..... the biggest issue remains heating from convective friction.
In theory a magnetic field oriented along the ship would deflect the plasma. The problem is the magnitude of intensity of such a field, which makes the idea impractical. Just think about the huge kinetic energy of the ship at orbital speed that is dissipated currently by momentum loss (hitting the atmosphere). A magnetic shielding field should mediate all this energy loss without mechanical contact, requiring way more field intensity than is possible with permanent magnets inside the tiles.
@@laszlokorosi9012 Even if you could deflect all the plasma with a magnetic field, you would almost certainly induce a quantum fk ton of eddy currents in the ships hull..... substituting convective heating for electromagnetic heating. That and you'd need a nuclear generator to power it all..... which they will never agree to having for a vehicular return.
Why are you talking like SpaceX has a great solution when Sierra Space is years ahead of them on reentry technology? Oh, now I see the name, "Great SpaceX"..... OK, understood.
Weelllll, maybe once Dream Chaser flies and lands we'll know more for sure. Not to dis Sierra, I think Dream Chaser is brilliant, and love the space plane concept over capsules. But their tech has yet to be proven in launch and reentry. Also, Dream Chaser is about 5-10 tons mass, compared to Starships 5000 tons mass. Apples and oranges here. I think both companies are doing fantastic things in space engineering, and can't wait to see what the future holds.
NASA is not the problem The problem lies in the way things are being done at NASA. It's time to modernize and change some of the processes and concepts in order to bring them back to a reality.
The heat tiles do not have the highest heat-handling capacity, it's just that they're incredibly insulative, protecting the metals underneath. I think they could be made much more durable by coating "both" sides with a high temperature metal (or the outside with a high temperature metal, inside with steel or titanium). The problem would be that the outside and inside metal layers shouldn't touch each other, so you're still relying on the durability of the tile material. But I think if bonded between two metal layers, with tesselated "pegs" (possibly with grippy or no-touchy interlocking shapes), you could make an ice cream sandwich out of the tiles, which would hold together much better. They would probably have to be a bit thicker, and heavier. But likely not nearly as heavy as an aspirational heat shield + coolant. Only problem I could see is that they would likely hold together even when the silica core is cracked. So in maintenance you might need some sort of ultra-sound to quickly check each tile to make sure it's still intact between the layers. The outer layer would likely have a small degree of ablative degredation... but a material like tungsten would not degrade very much, while being very strong. Tungsten shouldn't reach it's melting point in reentry. Light? no. Lighter than a whole belly radiator though? Probably.
Sounds like the solution for every problem SpaceX is stainless steel. Which adds to the mass problem which is causing the payload problem. Water as coolant? Water is very heavy. The way this is going, I’ll be shocked if Starship can launch a Saturn V payload to LEO of 300,000 lbs.
@ This is a problem that you work backwards. You start with the engines, thrust Isp, rocket size and payload target. For any dry mass ratio you a different payload until at a high enough ratio you get nothing. I would not be surprised if V1 is closed to nothing. You can get more with higher thrust, tank and Isp but a larger tank does not ride for free.
Why do I keep falling for this clickbait? Lots of bread but no meat in the sandwich. Lots of history and description of issues that we are all aware of but the promised revelation of news goes unfulfilled. Apparently the purpose is advertising revenue and not service to viewers. Last time I am visiting here.
If ceramics can be replaced. I’m sure SpaceX will be the company to find that replacement. It won’t happen over-night. But it seems obvious ceramics need a replacement.
Yes! SpaceX is working on this
Something like transpiration was tried on jets in the 1980's. Compressed air was blown out through tiny pores in the wing to keep flow laminar and allow higher angles of attack. It worked, but was impossible to maintain because the pores kept getting clogged by dust.
2:00
Clogging with dust seems like the biggest threat to the system.
But are thee any picture of the new heat shields? I'm sure that over 90% of your viewers only clicked this to see them and not to get a total recap without them included again. Didn't see anything new here at all. did i miss it?
Theres video on RUclips of it on the ship
He shows a picture
Yes , seen them on the ship on the other channel , looks very cool , a key component that I love to see evolve
@@michaeldeal4215 link the timestamp or it didnt happen....
What’s needed is a breakthrough in material science
Go for it 😂
Just a journeyman who worked on projects with a lot of stainless, and am wondering if the stainless steel deformation could be caused by the rapid quenching the tiles experience when they contact cold sea water. That's gotta be an issue.
always interesting , cheerz
Yes, it is main problem
You are saying nothing and taking a long time to do it
Audiences seek information without fluff that wastes our precious time, while 'influencer' seek to stretch any tidbit of info into as much content as possible
_You're talking a lot but you're not saying anything_ - Talking Heads, Psycho Killer
Lol you must be new around here
Just put thumbs down like everyone else does
For the algorithm. You have to game the game by having videos eight to twelve minutes to get anything from engagement and get a boost.
The USAF space plane X-20 Dyna Soar developed in the mid '60s, was constructed of all metal.
Using Rene-41 alloy & Inconel-X, welded to create the fuselage and wings. For the hot nose cone, a metal-metal composite was developed using Zirconium pins in a matrix.
All was tested and cerified for the extream conditions of rentry, and fully reusable.
Although never flight tested, the X-20 Dynasoar was designed with a composite metallic heat shield and active liquid cooling. If only the program hadn't been cut, we may have been decades ahead in our tech. Or at least we would know if it didn't work.
Important information was covered as per the description. Good video, 👍from me.
I wonder if some form of speed brake (similar to what are used on jet aircraft) combined with controlled engine burns could be used to effectively reduce speed if the ship used a nose up re-entry like the booster.
As Starship will be made to refuel while in orbit for travel outside LEO there is another option here. Starships which are intended to return to earth could be refueled as well. Then reentry rockets could be fired to reduce the speed of Starship to a reentry speed which wouldn't be so harsh
Who's gonna tell them that the red tiles are actually guide tiles for placing the other tiles?
I suspect the final metallic heat shield won’t be at all like the ceramic tiles, but internal heat sink circuits that more efficiently cool with ullage in a convective way.
They aren't moving away from ceramic tiles. The whole video is clickbait.
Welp, this is confusing. You say a perfectly reasonable thing, then someone else replies to it with something that makes no sense, then the channel hearts the nonsense message..
@@accipiterinkunen8145 lol. Welcome to RUclips comments!
@@accipiterinkunen8145 I did a typo.
Super excited
Moving the fwd flaps is the most important thing. Even the rear flaps could be moved another 10°, and this would give enough angle to protect the joints.. what they really have to do is protect the other side of the ship from the thermal radiation. This involves either thermal blankets or an ablative white paint that is used by pretty much every other spacecraft, including the dragon capsule. just like on the space shuttle. The plasma generates enormous infrared heat that must be reflected away on the opposite side. This is why the leeward side is deforming and discoloring so much. This type of stress will make the ship unusable after even a single flight.
Traditionally, heat shields were ablative.
I believe this needed innovative choice will make 3d printing a must.
Hopefully by flight 9 or 10 the Starship will have landing legs. And along with the new metallic tiles will be a fully functional starship capable of landing on other celestial bodies and not with the catch arms or lost in the ocean depths :)
NASA tried to make the tiles work for decades...not so great for a reusable spacecraft. At least spacex isn't doubling down and is exploring alternatives after a few tests
The potential for 3D printed metalic forms is intriguing...with channels for fluid transport...certainly worth exploring at scale.
One question I have is when will SpaceX begin deploying payloads with the Starship. SpaceX has already proven the Starship can make it to orbit so why not take the same approach that Falcon9 did where they worked on landing while they were launching payloads.
Soon, next year, as far as I know
As Starship will be made to refuel while in orbit for travel outside LEO there is another option here. Starships which are intended to return to earth could be refueled as well. Then reentry rockets could be fired to reduce the speed of Starship to a reentry speed which wouldn't be so harsh.
Great idea.
Nothing new here, just move on. 13 minutes of things every SpaceX-fan already knew.
Why use the tower to catch starship? Sooner or later landing legs will have it be used to land anywhere but Boca Cica. So add the legs now and drop the tower.
Legs are heavy duty equipment. They weigh alot and add complexity to the rocket thats not necessary. Using the tower is great for reuseability. Catch the thing, inspect, refuel, put it on the very same booster without needing to transport anything across the country and start again. Those starships intended for landing on mars/moon will need legs ofc, but those intended for satellite deployment or orbital refueling wont.
I think it's quite genius to remove important equipment from the vehicle and put it on the ground instead.
On Mars, Elon will first build the catch tower, the chopsticks, and the support ring with a deluge system, then land with the starship. 🤣
As I said 4 years ago: using 1970s titles will doom the starship just like the shuttle. Liquid cooled takes COLD fuel which is mass. That solution is also DOOMED. The amount of liquid fuel to cool the whole ship will NEVER work. THIS WILL AGE WELL.
Should think about a system like the X-20. All metalic construction of Rene-41, Inconel-X & Zirconium.
It takes forever to replace tiles but an ablative coating layer could be sprayed over the entire assembly quite quickly before each launch, sacrificing itself each time to protect the tiles.
Sprayed heat shields need to be carefully dried before they can be used as a heat shield.
To land on Mars you don't need heat tiles the same as you do on the Earth. So the only reason his Mars crews need earth-like heat shy tiles is to come home as long as he gets that out of his head then he's fine.
No, they really won't replace it as you say as these All or Nothing ideas are dumb as hell.
Most of the craft the tiles are fine.
It is mainly the joints for the flaps, so for those it would make sense to evaluate adding transparation to the joints.
Trying to cool the entire thing with nitrogen or methane is asinine.
They need to add some ventilation around the flaps/wings and use some of the metal tiles or some other combinations.
NASA had no problem using antiquated heat shields and cooling systems. Glad to see Musk is upgrading
Has the use of Aerogel been considered? So lightweight it will also reduce the overall Starship weight.
The catching outfit needs to be designed for the worst case, where failure is common. This means the tower needs to be bombproof and easy to repair. The issue is the size of the bomb when things don't go as planned. It might be better to put the catch tower away from the launch tanks.
Ships are almost empty during landing.
@@scientificperspective1604 Thanks for the laugh! Have you ever seen an object that weighs that much slam into a building? The ship can be totally empty, but the damage will be massive.
@@kensmith8832 You seem to be reaading something other than what was written.
@@scientificperspective1604 It seems you are on a different page from my original comment. I am looking at the physics of inertia versus steel. The amount of fuel only adds mass. I am sorry, I am talking Science, should we dumb this down to teacher level?
Great Idea.the tiles didn't work too well on the space shuttle.
SpaceX should consider Carbon Dioxide for the active-film heat shield cooling. The Martian atmosphere is mostly carbon dioxide, so it's freely available for the trip home. No matter what material is used for active cooling, it will need to be loaded before liftoff, and carried along until reentry, so So SpaceX shouldn't limit the choices to just O2 or CH4. Methane will react with oxygen in the atmosphere, and add extra heat to the shield. Oxygen when super-heated will act on stainless steel like a cutting torch. Carbon Dioxide however won't react with anything. It's completely inert. If SpaceX needs to carry along extra material for film layer cooling, then it might as well just save on the cost of CH4 and O2, and build a CO2 tank and pump system for cooling the heat shield. CO2 is cheap, easy to handle, reliable, and safe. An active film layer cooling system will add weight, and reduce the payload capacity of the rocket, but hey, do you want a fully reusable rocket or not? The film-layer heat shield will be the only heat shield in history that is has zero ablative behavior.
Agreed. And since they'll be generating H2 with the O2 (from found water), they might consider fueling a Raptor 4 directly with that instead of processing it into methane first.
@@ReggieArford Agreed. I always assumed that SpaceX had a reason for not using H2 and O2 instead of the multi-step and energy intensive process of converting water and CO2 into methane. Bezos has some H2 engines. The space shuttle used them, so we know that H2 can be used.
@@scientificperspective1604 As I understand it, the reason SpaceX uses methane is because its boiling point is close to oxygen's. So, there's no need for additional insulation between them. Someone did a RUclips on this, I think.
@@ReggieArford Somehow the Space Shuttle was able to use hydrogen and oxygen. I remember stories about how the hydrogen was also used in the space shuttle in fuel cells which generated electricity. SpaceX is going to take heat for generating CO2 with its rockets. It would be great if H2 were easier to handle, since water is available basically everywhere, and H2+O2 fuel makes no CO2. The second stage of New Glenn apparently will use H2+O2. Maybe SpaceX boosters can be used to get that BO 2nd stage to orbit, if the New Glenn isn't up to it.
@@ReggieArford The different boiling/freezing point would be a bit of a problem with using CO2 for the heat shield. It should be manageable.
I am kinda wondering why they don't try to maneuver starship into a position like the heavy booster and falcon 9 as it de-orbits, that system seems to work fine directing the heat into the engine area that is already built for sustained heat.
As Starship's re-entry angle is *_steep,_* then its *_belly keel_* is where it can deploy its (future) comprehensive ullage gas/film cooling system, starting from its nose and finishing at the end of the LOX (bottom) tank. A red line down its belly would be quite aesthetic. The present design won't be reusable. 😎
As an engineer, I don't see any cause why catching the Starhip should be more complicated than the booster. The Booster has much more mass than the ship.
The best way 🚀👍
What about no heat shields engine end first firing just enough to create a bubble to protect the spacecraft and then at the end, just perform a landing like the Falcon 9 booster does now except maybe with chopsticks. Think different.
Don’t give away the details to China. Let them figure it out.
👍👍👍
lol
The patents will tell China all they need to know.
What about spraying the heat shield on? What about magnetic shield. Is it possible to slow the ship down?
What are they spraying on ( that could handle the heat and abrasion ?
Why are the tiles black? Black absorbs and radiates heat effectively yet white reflects heat 🤷🏽♂️
Something white like Barium Sulphate melts under 1600°c. While Hafnium carbonitride melts around 4110°c.
Real common sense here is what NASA❤ used@UmmerFarooq-wx4yo
NASA itself isn’t the issue-the real challenge is in how things are being managed and executed. It’s time to update and rethink some processes and ideas to align them with today’s realities.
Launch - a few at once- a one-piece kinda mat that fits the rocket and is fitted in space by the iSS, making it a glider, just like the space shuttle was. Sheapest and easy solution and you can reuse it.
I was referring to color not material. TLDR: radiation plays a huge role in heat transfer.
Maximizing the emissivity of the surface (I.e, making it more black) is crucial to heat transfer. A white surface or "shiny" reflective surface would be extremely counter productive.
What's crazy is that the rocket is filled with super chilled fuel. There has to be a way to transfer that coolness to the heat shield. But how? Because I'm guessing that you also don't want to warm up your fuel. I don't know about the theory that the best heat shield is no heat shield?! 😅
The overwhelming majority of super cold liquid fuel & liquid oxygen is used up on ascent to achieve the altitude & velocity necessary to maintain orbit around the earth. Realize Starship needs accelerate from 0 mph on Earth to a speed of 17,500 miles per hour above the atmosphere where there is no friction to slow it down. As a result STRARSHIP WILL ACTUALLY BE FALLING TOWARD EARTH, BUT IT’S GOING SO FAST THAT IT PASSES THAT MAGIC POINT IN SPACE WHERE INSTEAD OF FALLING BACK DOWN AND HITTING EARTH IT FALLS DOWN ONLY AFTER THE EARLY HAS SAFELY CURVED AWAY UNDER IT!! THUS IT KEEPS FALLING “AROUND THE EARTH” at a constant speed (even though there is barely any fuel left) because there’s no friction in space to slow the spacecraft down!! If it gets too close to the atmosphere it will slowly loose speed and re-enter Earth.
There’s only a small amount of fuel remaining in the ship for slowing down VERY close to land.
So ALL reusable rockets & capsules coming back to Earth have utilized “aero-breaking” which uses the increasing density of air resistance towards the surface of Earth to slow down the vehicle “for free” because a vehicle doesn’t need any fuel to reduce their velocity from 17,500 mph to zero depending on it’s design. However aero-breaking isn’t really “free.” It slows the spacecraft but the air friction at those insanely high speeds cause EXTREME heating which must be overcome. Maybe SpaceX can find an innovative solution for a new type of heat shield?! I hope so!
How can they connect 18,000 metallic tiles to a cooling gas supply
Great question. Do you have any suggestion about this?
@@colonbina1maybe it isn’t 18k, maybe use large sheets of metal which would simplify the plumbing and connection points. I’m just spit balling here.
@@colonbina1 The metallic heat shield would not consist of tiles. The red tiles are probably a different kind of silica-based composite tile with a different ablative coating. The coating may create a plasma barrier further from the ship itself compared to the black ones. A metallic shield would be more like a second skin with channels inside it. Because the fuel is stored at such high pressure it is also extremely cold at cryogenic temperatures. So they can use fuel circulated through the channels under the second skin. The system would likely be pressurized by the heat of re-entry itself causing the liquids to expand and form gases.
Engines bells are cooled in a similar way. Where fuel is circulated between two skins within channels around the engine bell. Then that pre-heated fuel is injected into the combustion process. In this case, the fuel would be likely used for the gas thrusters that control the attitude of the ship. A metal layer would still likely utilize an ablative layer painted on as well.
@colonbina1 Perhaps a sponge like-arrangement with the coolant stored just beneath the tile. Perhaps transpiration from the sponge could pump the coolant through to the surface. The sponge might be staged: tile, region, area, spacecraft.
@ well if you really want my opinion I’d drop the idea of using the tiles entirely. I think I’d do what any sensible rocket payload specialist would do. I’d change the unhelpful pointy nose for a big flatter blunter rounded one with a fully discardable shield but the rest of craft would be mostly in its slip stream so as a relatively small if a little heavy 8inch thick ablative shield that would slightly protrudes over the metal leading nose end. then I’d decrease the angle of attack of the vehicle to put the vehicle right behind the nose as it’s coming in then I’d forget about any very heavy tiles apart from the few ablative ones on the leading edges on the flaps. I’d let the front shield take the punishment and after landing I’d throw it in the bin and fit another one I’d fit replacement flaps and recover the original ones with new ablative tiles on their leading edges again. Ready for the next flight. This would allow for when ship is really coming in hot and much faster say when coming back from the moon or mars which would have seen the original tiles getting 100 percent hotter than from the relatively slow suborbital flights they have done so far.
Per reddit, those are placeholders, not actual heat shield tiles.
If starship has to land on mars without a catching tower ... thus requiring legs. Why try catching? It will have to have feet anyways.
Less parts to build over and over for each rocket while they test plus once it lands it only needs refueled and inspection before taking off again. Legs will be down the road
Working the problems you can solve right now, like catching starship, while you continue to research more difficult problems solutions like a new heat shield seems rational.
All very goid ideas ! Im sure the great engineers at spacex will have a solution ! Its all about rapid reusability !
In terms of innovation, we really are looking at 1980's technology. If the 'Starship' vehicle is going to be reusable, it needs to be able to have a flight profile such that reentry velocity is minimized. The current iterations do not use controlled flight, it is more a case of controlled falling. There needs to be a better way to conduct the reentry phase. Possible avenues to explore would be de-orbit burns that slow the craft considerably, additional aerodynamic control surfaces (wings), skipping in order to scrub speed in smaller chunks, or a combination of these.
De-orbit burns that flow it considerably? It appears you don't know how much fuel that would require.
@ I’m aware. Fuel cost in terms of mass to lift vs the cost of total vehicle loss. I can’t provide that calculus, but a ‘reusable’ spacecraft that does not survive reentry is an oxymoron and clearly SpaceX is exploring possibilities. So many ultimate limits just require divergent thinking to do the impossible! Have some faith baby😎
How much cooling fluid will be needed? What about the added weight? SpaceX is continuing to increase the weight of the Starship.
We getting passed the 90’s tech 😅
How much heavier are steel plates than ceramic tiles? How much thermal protection do they provide? How heavy and complicated would an active cooling system be? None of these questions answered by the video.
As I am on the verge of learning" Spacecraft-Elon's school: I concur in matters of using metallic, "stainless steel sandwich" as an upgrade instead of using the ceramic tiles, especially during the RE-ENTRY which is crucial and highlights.
Have u by chance, mentioned the material science of the shields as I have not captured the 2nd layer❓️Or, I became dyslexic nervosa 🤣 jst b-coz it's Christmas 🎄.
Thank U, kev, and I hope U, Sir, have the best time celebrating our Christmas ✨️🎄💜🌟
I have always thought a alloy of Titanium and steel heat shield on certain part of starship is the answer. Other methods are to complicate because of the size of vehicle
I was thinking perforated titanium or something like that but I'm no engineer. Or use the cold fuel as a way to cool it somehow.
Test all possible options,then pick the best 😊
Exactly
I'm npt enthusiastic about methane as a coolant since it is flammable and the combination of heat in an oxygen atmosphere, I believe that the methane coolant would sheath the spaceship in a wreath of flame. Nitrogen is better but it is probably a gas when used so it will not carry off enough heat. Problems that will be addressed but this first description is not likely to be the solution.
How many sub-scale Starship mockups each exploring a different technique could be launched on a single Falcon 9 flight? Rapid prototyping!
Yes, this is the age of bullshit gaslighting videos. The first indication is when they begin and they tell you the whole flipping history and they may give you one little tidbit by the time you’ve watched the whole thing. I think they should keep doing this because it deters people from watching the Internet and that’s good.
Agreed. But Musk will figure it out - eventually. And _any_ movement of information is better than _none._
Why doesn,t SpaceX try Chrome coating, it has a 300 degree higher melting point than SS? It would look pretty flash too!
Technically starship doesn’t need reentry for the first couple of starships from my memory who goes there first will have to stay there, including the materials we send there before we go, and that includes the starship since there are no refueling stations on Mars yet the reentry part could be more valuable when Mars has an opportunity to set up a refueling station so I can send equipment Back to earth and if I remember correctly, there was an idea of trying to use the spaceship itself as a temporary living quarters because technically, you could just tip the starship on its side, bury it a little bit to protect from the radiation, and it should be relatively good as long as you find a way to produce water and grow your own food, because the starship was designed for a six month trip and open outer space so it’s got some living quarters the reentry on the shielding part for the time being could only be used for testing for the reentry of the vehicle because you want to keep reusing it because who wants to throw away a car after they get done using it once But starship on Mars will be more than a car kind of like those SUVs, that you could drive anywhere and live inside
SS foil has been used in heat treating to bagging tool steels for decades.
Your videos are way too much flowery verbage that drags on and on saying the same thing over and over again. Its tiresome. The same as with TechMap. Please cut your verbage and get to the point. You must think the public is too stupid to realize what your talking about. So you have to reitteriate what your saying in different words, but the same instance of meaning. Its way too much ... Please change your style.
I agree, but you need to revise your post with the proper usage of the word toO** in some places. (ie: way toO much)
It needs active cooling
Yes with transpirational cooling
The "end" future solutionwill be anyhow gigantic unshielded "cycler" spaceships to Mars (Lunar and other destination) transports with shuttles that only fly cargo and humans from Earth to/from the cycler and from Mars to/from the cycler.
The shuttles will be shielded though but the cycler will only be radiation shielded.
If they use metallic tiles, they will probably only use it in pacific areas. The bulk of the ship will stay in ceramic tiles. To save wight.
specific.
This flic is BS, Zero new info content only some speculation.
I know when I watch Felix there is new stuff
Summary: Spacex is testing metallic heat shields. They will be tested in flights in a few years. Ceramic tiles are still going to be used.
Did I miss it? Weren't they going to tell us why the new tiles are red?
Using a hydrocarbon is not a good idea! Nitrogen maybe a better choice! 600 degrees to start the flow of the nitrogen. There should be an over flow and return to the nitrogen tank to cool down the gas. The color should not exceed a yellow color. If it reaches a red color. You need to increase the flow. When it turns blue you will need to replace the tile. It will have absorbed to much oxygen. The material will have its flexibility.
Bro, WTF! I watched and waited 5 minutes!! I know watching this video was free or whatever, but for your sake, please be quicker next time
This channel like most drags out and pads everything out, yammering on and on, repeating same context to get 10 minute videos for 1 minute of content.
300 views in 10 minutes? ______
Depends in what they count as a 'view ' is a 'view' someone watching the entire video start to finish , or watching the first 10 minutes, or what ?
When I'm out roasting a hot dog I know I have to spend the hot dog if I leave the hot dog stationery in the fire it burns black as heck. Maybe they ought to spend the rocket ship a few times on the way down. Like a roller dog.
Elon might needs to borrow "Element 115" from the government to perfect Starship heat resistant.
Ditto. Want heat shield info not a recap
I do not agree with this view. Even Though Stanless steel temp ranges between 2,550°F and 2790°F. I would suggest something simpler. Tungsten melting point is 6,192°F and as a metal can be formed into the new heat shield. When reentry temperatures as high as 7,000°F it is not likely stanless steel would work as it has a melting point of 1,400°F. While titanium is ,3,034°F. Molybdenum would range at 4,753°F. Tantalum woudl be around 5,468°F. In truth if he craft heat shielding was made out of titanium, molybdenum, tantalum and copper cooling system to conduct the highest cooling method it would be likely to use a metal heat shield that would not melt at all. It would be rather simple in design and easy to apply to the current system.The fuel itself could be used.
Holy moley. I just typed a very similar post. sent it. and see the post right under mine has nearly the same idea.
great minds :)
My idea though was to make the silica tile material into an "ice cream sandwich" with probably a titanium backing, and a tungsten outer layer. And try to form the heat tile in between these layers, with protrusions from each plate sticking into the tile brick. The key would be to avoid any bridging... so the protrusions would need to secure into the tile material itself, not go all the way through and touch. Basically there can't be any thermal bridging, front to back. But I think the tiles could be made tougher, at a weight which is likely considerably less than a respiration system.
Does reentry really reach 7000 F?
Tungsten can handle up to 6000. I had thought that reentry temp was a bit lower than that.
@@kathrynck Are you sure these metals adhere together? Steel and titanium don't.
A coolant system does not lower the surface temperature very much, so one may have to deal with thermal abrasion. I'm sorry, but as a European, I cannot deal with your temperatures. Stay on your MAGA island!
Somebody watching??😊😊
HO, HO, HO, how about using hydrogen peroxide to cool the heat shield? It can be handled as a liquid. It will combine with oxygen from the atmosphere to become H2O. It burns into water vapor. It can come out of thousands of pores that are actually tiny rocket engines (it's been used in rockets), helping slow the descent. The steam will insulate the steel ship.
Sometimes I think so far out of the box I'm not even in the warehouse.
Tungsten?
@@donoman6772 too heavy?
They need an electromagnetic radiator to neutralize and dissipate the plasma. 😁
Hey just ask for some alien tech, plenty of orbs out there.
This concept transuding, sweating, investigated years ago. If memory serves, WD40 was invented for this purpose. The developers had to find another use for it.
Yes duck tape and WD40 will take care of any problems😃.
Well I would put dimples in the Hull which will be thinner due to the added strength as is inherent strength which comes with Dimples, then I'd have an inflatable bollute which will inflate to be a heatsheild from below the Rockets then detaches at a safe altitude then land on the ground with thin curved titanium legs I'd say one every foot ....so there
Always thought if they reentered tail first engines blasting it wouldn’t take long to slow down. Nobody does it so they must be a reason.
🤔🤔🤔
This is a great idea, I’ve thought it too. The problem is to do so they need to carry too much extra fuel. If they carried enough fuel to take off then do a slow down burn and then another landing burn there would be no room left for any cargo.
No love for elektromagnetic shielding?
So which one do you like?
This maybe one idea, use a heat as a shield maybe gun powder that ignights at a cirturn point. Or blast microwaves or plasma out like the sun hotter than the surface. 🤔🥵🤠☠️🚀🚀🚀🚀
Maybe roll the ship so all sides are exposed.
If plasma is controlled by magnetic fields, like in a Nuclear rocket engine. Why cant a magnetic in the center of the title repeal the plasma??? ""Plasma magnetic charge" is not a standard term in physics, but it essentially refers to the concept of a plasma being influenced by a magnetic field due to its charged particles, meaning the plasma itself doesn't have a "magnetic charge" but behaves as if it does because of the collective motion of its charged ions and electrons within a magnetic field; essentially, the plasma is considered "magnetized" when the magnetic field significantly affects its behavior. ' Is it not Plasma that is the issue???
Actually the problem isn't plasma. When a space vehicle re-enters the atmosphere, the compression of air results in the creation of plasma, but there is always a boundary layer of air that prevents plasma from ever making contact with the vehicle. The largest source of direct heating, is convection from the boundary layer. While the plasma itself certainly has a radiative heating aspect..... the biggest issue remains heating from convective friction.
In theory a magnetic field oriented along the ship would deflect the plasma. The problem is the magnitude of intensity of such a field, which makes the idea impractical. Just think about the huge kinetic energy of the ship at orbital speed that is dissipated currently by momentum loss (hitting the atmosphere). A magnetic shielding field should mediate all this energy loss without mechanical contact, requiring way more field intensity than is possible with permanent magnets inside the tiles.
@@laszlokorosi9012 Even if you could deflect all the plasma with a magnetic field, you would almost certainly induce a quantum fk ton of eddy currents in the ships hull..... substituting convective heating for electromagnetic heating. That and you'd need a nuclear generator to power it all..... which they will never agree to having for a vehicular return.
Nice idea, but nothing concrete here.
Silica Bakelite
Too many big words that said very little. Your video may have had an interesting point but I gave up about 1/3 of the way thru.
same here
Why are you talking like SpaceX has a great solution when Sierra Space is years ahead of them on reentry technology?
Oh, now I see the name, "Great SpaceX"..... OK, understood.
Weelllll, maybe once Dream Chaser flies and lands we'll know more for sure. Not to dis Sierra, I think Dream Chaser is brilliant, and love the space plane concept over capsules. But their tech has yet to be proven in launch and reentry. Also, Dream Chaser is about 5-10 tons mass, compared to Starships 5000 tons mass. Apples and oranges here. I think both companies are doing fantastic things in space engineering, and can't wait to see what the future holds.
@@kevinmello9149 OK fair enough.
NASA is not the problem The problem lies in the way things are being done at NASA. It's time to modernize and change some of the processes and concepts in order to bring them back to a reality.
why do you talk so slowly? Are you on neuroleptics? I have to play x1.5 to get sensible speed.
The heat tiles do not have the highest heat-handling capacity, it's just that they're incredibly insulative, protecting the metals underneath.
I think they could be made much more durable by coating "both" sides with a high temperature metal (or the outside with a high temperature metal, inside with steel or titanium). The problem would be that the outside and inside metal layers shouldn't touch each other, so you're still relying on the durability of the tile material. But I think if bonded between two metal layers, with tesselated "pegs" (possibly with grippy or no-touchy interlocking shapes), you could make an ice cream sandwich out of the tiles, which would hold together much better.
They would probably have to be a bit thicker, and heavier. But likely not nearly as heavy as an aspirational heat shield + coolant.
Only problem I could see is that they would likely hold together even when the silica core is cracked. So in maintenance you might need some sort of ultra-sound to quickly check each tile to make sure it's still intact between the layers. The outer layer would likely have a small degree of ablative degredation... but a material like tungsten would not degrade very much, while being very strong. Tungsten shouldn't reach it's melting point in reentry. Light? no. Lighter than a whole belly radiator though? Probably.
broke upon impact with the ground, i begining to think you dont know what your talking about unsubscribing now
Sounds like the solution for every problem SpaceX is stainless steel. Which adds to the mass problem which is causing the payload problem.
Water as coolant? Water is very heavy. The way this is going, I’ll be shocked if Starship can launch a Saturn V payload to LEO of 300,000 lbs.
Yes, they need to come up with some sort of outer skin for the rocket, that is permanent, durable, and lightweight.
@ This is a problem that you work backwards. You start with the engines, thrust Isp, rocket size and payload target. For any dry mass ratio you a different payload until at a high enough ratio you get nothing. I would not be surprised if V1 is closed to nothing. You can get more with higher thrust, tank and Isp but a larger tank does not ride for free.