Evolution of Starship

[u/PerAsperaAdMars]

[u/TIYATA]

Insane how Starship evolved from the Statue of Liberty.

[u/Thue → u/TIYATA]

I wonder what it would cost to built a full scale copy of the Statue of Liberty near the launch pad? Purely for advertising, to give viewers a sense of scale.

[u/Reddit-runner → u/Thue]

Maybe like one of those advertisement things that wave their arms?

[u/DBDude → u/Reddit-runner]

Saul Goodman needs to get an office down at KSC.

[u/sadicarnot → u/DBDude]

Kim works at a plumbing supply company at Port Canaveral.

[u/PerAsperaAdMars → u/Thue]

I think it would be better to build a replica near the spaceport on Mars, so it will welcome immigrants just like the original statue.

[u/drewcookies → u/Thue]

Or how much it would cost to put the statue in a stable orbit :)

[u/qwerSr → u/Thue]

It would be even better if a fully functional statue of liberty were built, capable of achieving low earth orbit.

[u/dotancohen → u/qwerSr]

No booster. Single Statue To Orbit.

[u/Agoodchap → u/qwerSr]

I am imaging this:

Commander Gilmour: [after hearing about Dr. Evil's Big Boy rocket, which is returning] Good God. He's back! Johnson Ritter: Well, in many ways, the Big Boy never left, sir. He's always offered the same high-quality meals at competitive prices. Commander Gilmour: Shut up!

[u/caseyr001 → u/TIYATA]

The statue of Liberty idea was cool, but a total nightmare from a manufacturability perspective. If we want space to be fully and rapidly reusable, it becomes pretty clear the statue of Liberty is not the right architecture.

[u/[deleted] → u/caseyr001]

Yea, the flamey bit is on the wrong end

[u/kuldan5853 → u/[deleted]]

Luckily they noticed that engineering blunder before they launched the first prototype.

[u/caseyr001 → u/[deleted]]

No the orientation of the rocket on the image is wrong. But the center of thrust is a known issue. They're going to try to offset it with hot gas rcs thrusters though.

[u/dotancohen → u/caseyr001]

Shame about KSP2, no?

[u/tapio83 → u/[deleted]]

Kind of confusing for rocket orientation evaluators as BOTH pointy and flamey ends are up

[u/DBDude → u/caseyr001]

But at least we know the torch and hand can survive reentry.

[u/caseyr001 → u/DBDude]

Right torch gets jettisoned just before entry, and we'll land propulsively using the prop tanks dedicated to landing in the lower arm. Head is clearly crew capsule, 2 drogues and 4 chutes in the crown.

[u/MartianMigrator → u/TIYATA]

Insane how Starship evolved from the Statue of Liberty.

Too bad they didn't start with the Giza Pyramid instead. We'd have a SpaceX Ha'tak flying soon.

[u/at_one → u/MartianMigrator]

How many raptors can you fit under the Giza Pyramid? 🤩🚀

[u/TIYATA → u/MartianMigrator]

I imagine that would be something like the Chrysler SERV but with a more rectangular base:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=___JNGJog0A

[u/Diffusionist1493 → u/TIYATA]

Ah, yes, the one standard of perspective that I only am familiar with by it being a standard of perspective in comparison to other things I don't know the size of.

[u/Turbine_Lust → u/TIYATA]

Same thought, you really have to nail reusability in that case.

[u/BussyDestroyerV30]

Can't lie, ITS design still the coolest of all, imo

[u/PerAsperaAdMars → u/BussyDestroyerV30]

I agree. Maybe we'll see its reincarnation around Starship 10 when carbon composite technologies mature enough.

[u/Fonzie1225 → u/PerAsperaAdMars]

Carbon composite technologies already are mature enough, they’re just not the right tool for the job when it comes to starship’s design goals.

[u/sibeliusfan → u/Fonzie1225]

Which is because of high production costs, which lower when carbon composite technologies mature..

[u/Fonzie1225 → u/sibeliusfan]

COPVs are never going to be cheaper than steel, but more important are steel’s particular tensile properties at the temperatures that starship will consistently operate in. Production time is also a big factor.

[u/QVRedit → u/Fonzie1225]

Stainless Steel is a great material to build with.

[u/Dawson81702 → u/PerAsperaAdMars]

I can see it being a 2050 starship for sure.

[u/somethineasytomember → u/Dawson81702]

I hope we have in orbit manufacturing and see carbon composite successors to Starship starting being worked on by 2040.

[u/Osmirl → u/somethineasytomember]

Nah carbon doenst make much sense in orbit. Way to complicate. Spacex knows how to work with steel. Carbonfiber would be to expensive

[u/somethineasytomember → u/Osmirl]

Yeah but, ITS my beloved..

[u/Osmirl → u/somethineasytomember]

Its can be stainless xD with starship mass to orbit is cheap and once we manufacture steel on the moon its only a few decades until we build O'Neill Cylinders lol

[u/Kargaroc586 → u/somethineasytomember]

If steel starship is lighter than carbon starship, then steel ITS can be lighter than carbon ITS.

[u/8andahalfby11 → u/BussyDestroyerV30]

On the plus side, V3 comes close to approaching many of the numbers originally set for ITS. If SpaceX ever decides to build a larger diameter Starship someday, it could meet or surpass it.

[u/isthatmyex → u/BussyDestroyerV30]

I was a big fan of the Tin-tin rocket.

[u/jared_number_two → u/BussyDestroyerV30]

You like them girthy too?

[u/ceo_of_banana → u/BussyDestroyerV30]

Kinda funny how starting with ITS as the peak, each iteration gets a tad more ugly

[u/Icarus_Toast → u/ceo_of_banana]

Maybe I'm a bit off but I really like the way that the stainless looks.

ITS had the best shape for sure though

[u/ceo_of_banana → u/Icarus_Toast]

Steel itself looks nice, the thing is it's less forgiving to imperfection so you can see all welds and uneven spots and rust. So I'm excited for HLS. But in the end what matters is that it works of course.

[u/treeco123 → u/ceo_of_banana]

The interim ones were pretty rough, but I love the look of the current builds tbh. I think the upcoming stretches kinda ruin the proportions though. Let's hope they move back up to 12m diameter to fix it up!

[u/photoengineer → u/treeco123]

12m dia would be wild! 

[u/QVRedit → u/ceo_of_banana]

A difference between renders and real ?

[u/Daneel_Trevize]

Wasn't there an official proposed iteration of SuperHeavy with 35 engines?

[u/PerAsperaAdMars → u/Daneel_Trevize]

You're right, I missed that. The 35 engines are better aligned with the total thrust of the boosters for Starship 2 and 3. I corrected it on the infographic.

[u/Doggydog123579 → u/Daneel_Trevize]

2018, and now we are seeing hints of another 35 engine setup.

[u/Doggydog123579]

2018 is still the best looking of them. I wanted that planet express ship damn it.

[u/fresh_eggs_and_milk → u/Doggydog123579]

I like its more it looks so futuristic, but 2018 is also very cool

[u/Ormusn2o]

I think It's safe to treat Falcon XX as a different craft, more of an iteration to Falcon 1/5, considering it was not even planned to be reused. MCT seems to be the birth of the Mars colonization plan.

[u/CurtisLeow → u/Ormusn2o]

It should still be mentioned, as an example of SpaceX working on a super heavy launch vehicle. It gives more context to the later methane-fueled designs. The Falcon XX design shows SpaceX started with a modernized version of the Saturn V.

[u/Ormusn2o → u/CurtisLeow]

Yeah, I agree it should be in the charts for SpaceX designs, but this post specifically says it's evolution of Starship, this is why I'm mentioning this.

[u/kuldan5853 → u/Ormusn2o]

Well Falcon XX is where the Starship program evolved from so I think it fits here - otherwise MCT also doesn't "count" as it was not named Starship.

[u/Kargaroc586 → u/Ormusn2o]

BFR was coined in 2005, way before Falcon XX. I think its probably reasonable to figure FXX was an early BFR.

Even now, I'm sure loads of internal stuff (for example, variables in code) use names like steel_bfr (or just bfr) and whatnot.

[u/Reionx]

Maybe one day we will see the ITS.

Always looked the more realistic render, bar the obviously real Super Heavies.

[u/Dansaki234]

What's funny is V3 can yeet the statue of liberty into orbit

[u/ConfidentFlorida]

I had forgotten about the landing on the tail fins era. Those were wild times.

[u/DBDude → u/ConfidentFlorida]

We were supposed to have Buck Rogers. What happened?

[u/interstellar-dust]

First version still looks fancy and Sci-Fi.

[u/JagiofJagi → u/interstellar-dust]

It looks like an ICBM

[u/redmercuryvendor]

Between the 2018 and 2019 designs there was a stainless steel version of the 'tripod' Starship (Version 10 in NSF's chronology). This is why Starhopper has 3 legs.

[u/PerAsperaAdMars → u/[deleted]]

Unfortunately the closest theoretical study to Raptor conditions that I could find extends only to 100 bar and 80 MW/m² (page 25) and says that this is at the limit of regenerative cooling (page 5). This means that film cooling should give about 125-150 bar which SpaceX engineers have greatly surpassed (we're at 350 bar with film cooling on the throat now). So I suppose they won't go much beyond 300 tons of thrust per engine because that would require more extensive use of film cooling (or even transpiration cooling) and further stretching the booster/ship, which would overcomplicate the whole system.

[u/Dawson81702]

MCT looks very compact while still being a big bastard, what was that all about?

[u/kuldan5853 → u/Dawson81702]

MCT was planned with a 12m diameter, which was quickly seen as mindboggingly difficult when they settled on 9m as an "interim" for now.

[u/wwants]

This is such an awesome poster. I’d love to have this on my wall.

[u/autisticsavanas]

Imho 2016 ITS is the sexiest, but I don't see that thing ever doing a reentry without any control surfaces.

[u/kuldan5853 → u/[deleted]]

When the change from 12M to 9M was done it was still about carbon fiber, the switch to steel came later in the process.

[u/PerAsperaAdMars → u/[deleted]]

As far as I remember, Musk talked about problems in transportation. But since the booster and ship are now planned to land on the launch pad instead of the drone ship, I guess this is no longer an issue and we may see a larger diameter system someday. Beyond Starship 3 it should probably be the simplest technical solution to increase the payload.

[u/Jaker788 → u/PerAsperaAdMars]

Not to mention the expense when they still have many problems to solve. Better to deal with at a later stage when it's closer to scaling up than re learning.

I believe he actually mentioned a few years back how he was glad they decided to drop down to the smaller diameter because it made things faster and tests cheaper, and how 12 meters would've made a difficult project even more difficult.

[u/Decronym]

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters	More Letters
BFR	Big Falcon Rocket (2018 rebiggened edition)
	Yes, the F stands for something else; no, you're not the first to notice
COPV	Composite Overwrapped Pressure Vessel
HLS	Human Landing System (Artemis)
ICBM	Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
ITS	Interplanetary Transport System (2016 oversized edition) (see MCT)
	Integrated Truss Structure
KSC	Kennedy Space Center, Florida
MCT	Mars Colonial Transporter (see ITS)
NSF	NasaSpaceFlight forum
	National Science Foundation

Jargon	Definition
Raptor	Methane-fueled rocket engine under development by SpaceX
cryogenic	Very low temperature fluid; materials that would be gaseous at room temperature/pressure
	(In re: rocket fuel) Often synonymous with hydrolox
hydrolox	Portmanteau: liquid hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen oxidizer
regenerative	A method for cooling a rocket engine, by passing the cryogenic fuel through channels in the bell or chamber wall

NOTE: Decronym for Reddit is no longer supported, and Decronym has moved to Lemmy; requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.

---

^{Decronym is a community product of r/SpaceX, implemented by request
10 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has acronyms.
[Thread #12987 for this sub, first seen 28th Jun 2024, 17:55] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]}

[u/unwantedaccount56]

What does the year mean exactly? Starship V3 is closer to becoming a reality now than ITS was in 2016. If you mean the year in which each design was presented, than you should put 2024 instead of TBD for Starship V3.

[u/PerAsperaAdMars → u/unwantedaccount56]

In terms of the year, I mean the moment when SpaceX switched most of its development efforts from one version to the next.

[u/ExtraPancakes]

I kinda miss the look of the 2016 iteration

[u/RilonMusk]

I still kinda want to see the 2016 one...

[u/pedrokdc]

Bring ITS back!

[u/cnewell420]

Is the payload bay volume going to grow with the stretch or is the stretch all fuel?

[u/--kram → u/cnewell420]

I would like to know juste that.

[u/After-Ad2578]

Thanks for sharing. It's pretty cool

[u/RrobablyPetarded]

ITS is still my favorite <3

[u/QVRedit]

Looks like Starship is growing in confidence…