/sci/ - Science & Math

>>11977112
>>11977129
>>11977123

IIRC the largest rocket to launch from a trenchless raised box or cage-style launch pad like the ones SpaceX is using at Boca Chica was the Saturn IB when it launched from LC-34.

The Saturn IB was tiny compared to Starship, it's little early 60s kerolox engines might as well have been toys compared to the Raptor, so it stands to reason that SpaceX will need something larger and much tougher for Starship and Super Heavy.

They're probably still figuring out what that new pad is going to look like, and in the meantime it's probably far cheaper to just spend a few hundred grand rebuilding the pad after each test than sink hundreds of millions into a pad that Blue Origin is doing at LC-36 when you don't even know what the final design might look like.