/sci/ - Science & Math

I was rereading the "surface to orbit" page of Atomic Rockets and noticed that the infrastructure, heat management, and power delivery/conversion costs of the non chemical launch options get completely retarded long before you get to 200 ton payload vehicles, let alone multiple of them a day, except for boomboom Orion, which has... other problems. Starship being so fucking big and able to use its own cryogenic propellant for cooling and chopsticks for RTLS/restack beats every proposed alternative that doesn't rely on fringe physics. Focusing on reducing expended dry mass instead of reducing wet mass was SpaceX's first great contribution that almost nobody else has internalized.

soon

>>16271624
Starship being NASA rated for lunar/Mars reentry and landing with crew on board. Until that happens, SLS+Orion is the moon(ish) bus.

This is canon. This is actually canon.

>>15896464
So it isn't that HLS needs 18 refueling flights but that the Depot is so large it needs 18 to fill.

>>15835503