One of the tidbits there comes from Musk’s twitter feed, where he notes the final production version of SuperHeavy will have 32 engines, totalling 7500 metric tons liftoff thrust. That means the next upgrade to Raptor gives it just under 516,000 pounds sea level thrust. Which makes it more or less a drop in replacement for BE-4 on Vulcan (less thrust, higher ISP). That would be funny (especially since it appears New Glenn is being redesign for stainless steel and won’t fly before 2025). Someone in the comments also turned up an image of “Ocean Spaceport Deimos” (Musk term) with onboard lox manufacture and methane brought in by pipeline (someone’s guess, Musk replied “more or less” as usual).
It’s odd that Apollo started out at 7.5 million pounds of thrust, while Raptor has 7,500 tonnes of thrust. Could the whole Superheavy project be explained as a system/units mistake?
I managed to find my copy of “The Mars Project” It’s the 1991 edition, with the Paine Foreword, a reprint of the 1962 edition, with Von Braun’s intro, then the text of the 1953 English translation of the 1952 German edition. I think I may have been mixing some stuff up from both the Colliers magazine articles from, I think, 1954, and also Willy Ley’s children’s books from 1967 (I still have those). I have some other Von Braun books I got in maybe 1967. I wrote to NASA and got back a huge package of stuff, including some Von Braun books. I think that’s all in the same box with newspapers and magazines from the summer of 1969.
Anyways, the Three-Stage Ferry Vessels had a liftoff thrust of 12,800 metric tons. The Mars Space Ships were made from inflatables (!) and the Landing Boats were designed for a Mars atmosphere of 83 millibar (oops).
The article mentions the high bay and the mid bay. I remember seeing those terms used in NASA contexts, too, but never heard an explanation of what they are. Is it something mundane like what the floor level is, or is there some other meaning? I tried searching for it but all I got were hits about ceiling lighting.
Mid and high simply refer to their height. The current mid bay used to be the high bay, when they were only building Starship first stage prototypes. They needed to build a new structure (~80 meters tall) so they could build the huge boosters. The new building is now the high bay and the old one is now the mid bay.
The main section of the VAB at the Kennedy Space Center where the Saturn V was fully stacked is referred to as the High Bay. Actually it contains 4 high bays, one in each quadrant.
On the south side there is a lower section of the VAB which is referred to as the low bay, where sub assembly work takes/took place.
I think the “Mid Bays” might be in the Operations and Checkout Building, but this is not stuff I’m super familiar with. I had a press pass for STS-1 and went on the tour, but it’s 40 years ago now.
One of the tidbits there comes from Musk’s twitter feed, where he notes the final production version of SuperHeavy will have 32 engines, totalling 7500 metric tons liftoff thrust. That means the next upgrade to Raptor gives it just under 516,000 pounds sea level thrust. Which makes it more or less a drop in replacement for BE-4 on Vulcan (less thrust, higher ISP). That would be funny (especially since it appears New Glenn is being redesign for stainless steel and won’t fly before 2025). Someone in the comments also turned up an image of “Ocean Spaceport Deimos” (Musk term) with onboard lox manufacture and methane brought in by pipeline (someone’s guess, Musk replied “more or less” as usual).
It’s odd that Apollo started out at 7.5 million pounds of thrust, while Raptor has 7,500 tonnes of thrust. Could the whole Superheavy project be explained as a system/units mistake?
I managed to find my copy of “The Mars Project” It’s the 1991 edition, with the Paine Foreword, a reprint of the 1962 edition, with Von Braun’s intro, then the text of the 1953 English translation of the 1952 German edition. I think I may have been mixing some stuff up from both the Colliers magazine articles from, I think, 1954, and also Willy Ley’s children’s books from 1967 (I still have those). I have some other Von Braun books I got in maybe 1967. I wrote to NASA and got back a huge package of stuff, including some Von Braun books. I think that’s all in the same box with newspapers and magazines from the summer of 1969.
Anyways, the Three-Stage Ferry Vessels had a liftoff thrust of 12,800 metric tons. The Mars Space Ships were made from inflatables (!) and the Landing Boats were designed for a Mars atmosphere of 83 millibar (oops).
The article mentions the high bay and the mid bay. I remember seeing those terms used in NASA contexts, too, but never heard an explanation of what they are. Is it something mundane like what the floor level is, or is there some other meaning? I tried searching for it but all I got were hits about ceiling lighting.
Mid and high simply refer to their height. The current mid bay used to be the high bay, when they were only building Starship first stage prototypes. They needed to build a new structure (~80 meters tall) so they could build the huge boosters. The new building is now the high bay and the old one is now the mid bay.
The main section of the VAB at the Kennedy Space Center where the Saturn V was fully stacked is referred to as the High Bay. Actually it contains 4 high bays, one in each quadrant.
On the south side there is a lower section of the VAB which is referred to as the low bay, where sub assembly work takes/took place.
Some links:
https://kscpartnerships.ksc.nasa.gov/Partnering-Opportunities/Capabilities-and-Testing/Physical-Assets/Vehicle-Assembly-Building
https://petermcrow.wordpress.com/tag/layout-of-vab/
I think the “Mid Bays” might be in the Operations and Checkout Building, but this is not stuff I’m super familiar with. I had a press pass for STS-1 and went on the tour, but it’s 40 years ago now.