Timeline for How does the economics of orbital refueling vs bigger rocket work?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
11 events
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| Mar 31, 2021 at 17:54 | comment | added | Russell Borogove | In the multiple-launch scenario, given boiloff and other consumables limits, you probably need to have an extra backup tanker ready for prompt launch in case one of the others fails, but that's still probably easier than building the Megaheavy. | |
| Mar 31, 2021 at 4:58 | comment | added | Cort Ammon | I think also worth noting is that this substantially decreases risk. A failed launch of one of the refueling rockets only puts one rocket's worth of fuel at risk. A Megaheavy has to have all of its rockets work perfectly. | |
| Mar 29, 2021 at 19:59 | history | edited | Russell Borogove | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 29, 2021 at 19:58 | comment | added | Russell Borogove | Yeah, with full reusability you might well approach 7x mass. I don't think you can quite make it at 25000 tons all-up with similar mass fractions to SS+SH. I'll edit to clarify that. | |
| Mar 29, 2021 at 12:50 | comment | added | Christopher James Huff | Does it somehow manage reuse while doing this? Because that'll impact the economics just a tiny bit... | |
| Mar 29, 2021 at 11:51 | vote | accept | VIBrunazo | ||
| Mar 29, 2021 at 5:01 | comment | added | Russell Borogove | My proposed Megaheavy wouldn't be simply a scaled SS/SH. There's no scaled-up Megastarship that dispenses the Mars-mission Starship and then lands. The payload fraction is thus very different. | |
| Mar 29, 2021 at 4:58 | comment | added | Russell Borogove | Musk gives a lot of interesting estimates; the only mass-specific price I could find for methane ($1.35/kg) was from 2016. | |
| Mar 29, 2021 at 2:45 | comment | added | Christopher James Huff | Musk gives an estimate of <\$500k propellant costs here: twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1258580078218412033. Apart from that, a rocket 5x as large as Starship using the same technology would have a payload ~5x as large, which falls quite a bit short of lifting a fully-fueled Starship. | |
| Mar 29, 2021 at 2:40 | history | edited | Russell Borogove | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Mar 29, 2021 at 2:28 | history | answered | Russell Borogove | CC BY-SA 4.0 |