Sunday, JF Mezei quipped:
Out of curiosity, ins't Starship/Superheavy way over sized to launch
Starlink ? is there value in launching a gazillion Starlink satellites
in the same orbital plane?
240.
It was often argued that the Shuttle had a lot of "dead" weight at
launch (wings, crew cabin etc( abd still needed to acceleratre mass of
its SSMEs engines to orbital speeds.
If Musk only fills Starship's tanks halfway since more fuel not needed
to laujch a bunch of Starlink satellites, isn't there still a lot of
dead weight in this steel glorified grain silo with lots of engines on it?
Dead weight where? The booster is almost all fuel. The flaps on
Starship have a penalty, but much smaller than the wings on the Space
Shuttle, and there aren't compromises for cross-range capability (that
ended up never used anyway).
Or is this recognized as a truly inefficient launch, but due to re-use,
ends up beimg better in long term compared to Falcon 9 that is more
efficient but discards 2nd stage every time?
Price out 6 to 7 Falcon 9 launches vs 1 Starship launch. Then compare
to an Atlas launch.
BTW, the usual question is why isn't Falcon Heavy used for Starlink?
The answer seems to be that it's still stuck with the Falcon 9
fairings, so it can carry more weight or throw it farther, but it can't
carry more bulk.
/dps
--
"This is all very fine, but let us not be carried away be excitement,
but ask calmly, how does this person feel about in in his cooler
moments next day, with six or seven thousand feet of snow and stuff on
top of him?"
_Roughing It_, Mark Twain.
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