If I Were Building Starship Space Ports

I'd give serous consideration to a race-track like architecture with
long straightaways for assembly and the launch/landing pads at the
short straights between the curves on the oval. Like so:

Service Bay Service Bay Service Bay
.-------Z------------Y--------------X--------.
| |
Pad-A Pad-B
| |
.-------X'-----------Y'-------------Z'-------.

Direction of Travel: ---

I would also stack Starship in reverse order. So Service Bay X and X'
assembly the nose. That is then raised and the upper and lower rings and
tanks assembled below at Y and Y' and finally the Raptors are installed
at Z and Z'. This simplifies launch platform and bay design because
everything works on one-level. Whether the bays themselves have doorways
remains to be seen. It would have advantages.

Everything is moved around the track on rails using diesel-electric
locomotives. Not shown are the sidings used to house the locomotives,
etc. when not is use. When merely cycling Raptors you might then need to
have vertical stations in bays X/X' and Y/Y' since you are not doing any
assembly. But then no heavy lifting required either. Interestingly
enough Z/Z' don't need vertical access.

You can play around with this to your heart's content...

Dave

On 1/25/2021 10:42 AM, David Spain wrote:
I've neglected Super Heavy, but I could imagine a separate ring for it,
switched to merge with the Starship ring at the pads. A crane at the pad
is used to lift Starship atop SuperHeavy?

Dave

On 1/25/2021 10:48 AM, David Spain wrote:
On 1/25/2021 10:42 AM, David Spain wrote:
I've neglected Super Heavy, but I could imagine a separate ring for it,
switched to merge with the Starship ring at the pads. A crane at the pad
is used to lift Starship atop SuperHeavy?

Dave



Or just add more service bays as needed along the straightaway as the
vehicle evolves? I like that idea.

Dave

JF Mezei writes:

On 2021-01-25 10:48, David Spain wrote:
On 1/25/2021 10:42 AM, David Spain wrote:
I've neglected Super Heavy, but I could imagine a separate ring for it,
switched to merge with the Starship ring at the pads. A crane at the pad
is used to lift Starship atop SuperHeavy?


Realistically, how often would Starship take off by itself from Earth?

Wouldn't all launches be of a Starship atop super heavy?

Yes I believe so, well except maybe for trans-continental p2p flights,
if sonic boom ordinances are changed to allow it. Fat chance I suppose.

But given majority flights with Super Heavy, it's still no big deal, see
above. A sub-ring of rail tracks allows contruction/re-furbishment of
Super Heavy and maybe assembly with a Starship in one of the final
Service Bays before pad arrival, or maybe stacking at the pad.

It does appear now that the launch platform for SuperHeavy/Starship will
also serve as the primary recovery mechanism for SuperHeavy
return. Which means another recovery platform (mobile or otherwise, as
in sea based) will likely be used for landing Starship upon return,
possibly just a flat deck.

Dave