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Old November 18th 19, 01:52 PM posted to sci.space.policy
Niklas Holsti
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Posts: 168
Default Steel for Shuttle

On 2019-11-18 14:24, Jeff Findley wrote:
In article ,
says...

[snip]
But as a business, it is possible that having a super heavy dump truck
may turn out to be a better business than having a lightweight ferrari
to deliver the same payloads.


The above is word salad. Starship is no "lightweight Ferrari". The
prototypes mass 200 tons *dry*.


A point I haven't seen mentioned is that as Mk1 is meant to test the
sky-dive and landing, it is more realistic to have a total vehicle
weight similar to the expected total weight of a returning Starship
*with cargo*. IIRC the return cargo capacity is about 50 tons, so the
total real weight would be somewhat above 170 tons (goal dry mass of 120
tons plus 50 tons cargo plus landing propellants).

With a large dry mass of Mk1, there is no need to add dummy cargo
(assuming that center of mass and centers or inertia are similar enough).

--
Niklas Holsti
niklas holsti tidorum fi
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