CSI Starbase is the Daily Show of Starship news. Our goal is to explore the advancements and updates happening at Starbase with extremely deep analysis. These episodes are intended to be lighthearted yet extremely informative.
Thanks! The filter panels need to be corrugated like Technip Energies Stone and Webster Ripple Trays. The corrugations will provide extra surface area, trap the particles in the bottom of the corrugations while maintaining flow at the top of the corrugations and provide strength in one direction reducing the structure needed. You can make the corrugations 6 inches deep to provide the surface area needed. Google Technip Energies Stone and Webster Ripple Trays and you will see what I mean.
43:55 "It's important to remember that there will be a gravitational force acting in the direction of the Earth." Is it? Gravity is acting equally on ship, fuel, and ice; can't it be ignored? As I see it, the forces that matter are whatever thrust the engines are producing, plus the very small amount of air resistance up at 90km. Plus the sloshing effects of the roll/pitch/yaw maneuvers the booster is doing. Gravity mattered _a lot_ at an earlier stage of analysis, when you took the telemetry for altitude(time) and speed(time), and from those calculated speed_vertical, speed_horizontal, acceleration_vert, accel_horiz, accel_total, and distance_horiz. Got to add in that lost 1 gee of vertical acceleration.
This is a fantastic video, congratulations. But if I may, I have a comment that I find important: at multiple times during the video you refer to the fact that the solid CO2 might "drown" to the Earth-facing side of the booster. This is the same mistake as in the so-called "pendulum falacy", there is no such thing as an Earth-facing side as seen from the booster. If we omit air friction for this example (does not change the conclusion), the rocket is in free fall when the engines are off. When they are on, the ONLY acceleration felt by the ice particles is the acceleration of the engines. The side facing the Earth or opposite of the Earth is not different from an acceleration perspective, it is ONLY when the rocket sits on the pad that the Earth-facing side provides acceleration. As soon as it leaves the pad, there is not any external acceleration anymore, only the engines dictates the direction to which the particles will fall. Considering the air friction now it does not change the principle that the Earth-facing side is not favored, as the air friction is mainly in the velocity direction which is roughly the same (or opposite) as the engine thrust direction. Well, aside from this physics error, this video is awsome and I want to warmly congratulate you.
i'd wonder if you could have kind of bladder to keep the co2 snow separated from the lox. the fact the contaminant exists in the lox is really going to throw a wrench into the rapid reusability bit. i wonder if you could use a hilsch tube in the ullage gas to split the hot from the cold, which should pull the water with it. you're going to be dumping a lot of gas, but at least what you put back into the tank would be dry.
I wonder if they're considering rotating mesh screens and if it's discounted, why. In marine intakes, the filters often aren't static, and as the mesh rotates out of the line of suction any trapped particles can be released into a sump, keeping the mesh clear. The flow of propellant through the filters could act on some small turning vanes to power the rotation.
A flat screen is a mistake. The screen should be covered in steep sided peaks like little mountains. This will force the “snow” to the valleys leaving the peaks clear to allow fluid flow. If steep enough, the snow will stay in the valleys during a roll.
Why not a centrifuge in a cone shape which would slowly spin and keep the CO2 snow away from the center of the LOX tank? 2 of them spinning in opposite directions to cancel rotation torque.
Your show is great. You are a good anchor and you're graphics wonderful. I think it is important to remember that gravity will always pull on every part of the ship equally. Always! Every part! Only maneuvering affects sloshing. I can think of no reason why would a rocket engineer would use a flat filter screen. It seems ridiculous. There are at least two other ways of helping to trap or ground the snow. Given the weld marks, my choice would be an in tank exchanger ring. Your deep dive into the swirl was great! It does seam a center of mass happened. Keep going. This is art.
You know Musk isn't really an engineering genius, right? That's just BS he puts out to gild his image. He's just repeating things that actual experts told him. That's why he avoids answering some questions - because he's never asked those questions himself so he hasn't got an answer.
Best Space (X) channel on the web, period. You never have CLICKBAIT titles, no terrible AI voiceover and your obvious background research is impeccable. Great work, it is appreciated!
Gee whiskers! The engineering is astonishing. But, Engineering rests upon Physics. It becomes abundantly clear that Elon should pay much more attention to the work of Dr. Charles Buhler of NASA, lest all this magnificent engineering becomes instantly redundant. Dr. Beuler has achieved 1G force with his massless thruster.
A possible reason there was only a single piece of rebar in the piles is that they were trying to maximize the pure compressive load the piles could handle. Concrete is better under compression than steel. Also, SpaceX probably figured that if a significant shear stress was experienced then the pad is doomed anyways. Just my thoughts.
52:30 Stuff like this is why I seriously doubt going so fast ans having so many different prototypes around is actually making the project faster (certainly not cheaper).
I havent watched the video yet, but im already disappointed that this wasn't a video about how to stop prehistoric raptors from destroying a Superheavy booster
I imagine the "ice slosh" also would cause the mesh to act like a vegetable dicer to the ice as it falls back down and shave a lot of it to pieces small enough to fall through.
Is anyone here watching from 2024? Seeing how small the starbase at Boca Chika was in 2018 is insane! Unbelievable progress. I admire and respect every man and woman working there to make science fiction a reality! LET'S GO OCCUPY MARS!
Brilliant work again CSI... I love how this medium allows people to make a career in what they love. The employment market is far too formal........ 'you must conform to the norm' and we will choose or reject you... "if you have trust issues" LOL I need to use that with my boss at work!
