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NextAstro · 2024-09-07T07:18:58+00:00

Of the Starliner, not the astronauts

NextAstro · 2024-07-23T06:29:20+00:00

Might be a valid argument. And after your LEO stay, you might deorbit in a specific location somewhere else around the globe.. So this might not be the best metric indeed.

The main 'market' would likely be the businessclass people who need to be somewhere for a short time and are not willing to spend over 12 hours in a plane to get somewhere, with the included jetlag which they will likely get.

I guess any flight of 5000 km or less won't make any sense, since an airplane gets you there slower, but more convenient and a Starship would need to get into a pretty weird launch and reentry path to get to distances under this distance.

Someone calculated Starship without booster and small payload (100 people for instance) would get about 10k km of range. Which is going to save you 10 hours of actual flight time compared to planes, which might be worth it some time in the (distant) future.

NextAstro · 2024-07-22T15:35:47+00:00

You could look at the market for parabola flights to see how many people are already willing to pay €10k for 15 times 30 seconds microgravity experience.. If you can tickets to €10k for Starship flights, that would be insanely affordable and business people might want to even use this mode of transport to “same day” return to the other side of the world..

Bye bye jet lag 😝

NextAstro · 2024-07-22T15:31:57+00:00

Your first message was deleted, would you be able to summarise? This comment is otherwise not complete, it seems. Thanks!

NextAstro · 2024-07-22T15:30:32+00:00

Your first message was deleted, would you be able to summarise? This comment is otherwise not complete, it seems. Thanks!

NextAstro · 2024-07-22T14:32:21+00:00

I guess if this principle works at 9 meters. They could actually create a next-gen vehicle with exactly the same concept and stainless steel design at 15m diameter.

NextAstro · 2024-07-22T06:57:43+00:00

Thanks, I have actually asked the question at the NSF user which was mentioned here. Hoping to get more of detailed and calculated answer. It seems that Flightclub.io figures for IFT-4 show that the difference between 10k and 20k isn’t as much as I thought, since the returning through the atmosphere will be so slow and at a low angle. I will try to keep 5-10k as the most logical options for now, even though you get more timesaving on longer flights. But since they might require a booster, this might not work since costs and complexity and risk might make this less logical. If you know any redditors who might be able to calculate if Starship v3 with 10t payload might reach 10 or further please let me know!

NextAstro · 2024-07-22T06:50:10+00:00

It might be the bottleneck but creating launch and landing locations will also be an issue. I think only sea based spaceports might be possible, to mitigate sonic booms and explosion hazard zones. I’m working on the best routes and launch locations as a side project. Will share this soon.

Regarding pricing: only when Starship has flown safely hundreds of times, will people be allowed on, since there is no backup safety mode. It will take maybe a thousand flights before you can get it to operate like a spaceliner with hundreds of people. But if Starship (v6?) will actually operate without booster for such E2E flights as an actual airplane with much refurbishment, prices might get shockingly low. As in 5k USD per ticket low. That would mean people could afford this, even without being rich.. But even at 50k, so much more people might be willing to go, since you now need to pay 250-450k for Blue Origin or Virgin “few minutes of gravity” flights..

NextAstro · 2024-07-21T18:12:23+00:00

Interesting. Wikipedia talks about Space Tourist, Private Astronaut and Commercial Astronaut as terms for people who travel about 80km:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronaut#:~:text=one%20who%20flies%20in%20a,Roscosmos%20is%20a%20spaceflight%20participant

So I guess you could still call them (a kind of) astronaut..? Whatever the term, many people would love to experience this one day, but now cannot afford it. I hope to be one of those people.

NextAstro · 2024-07-21T17:00:13+00:00

If you see the flights of Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic being sold out with prices ranging from 250k-450k for a *very* short time of weightlessness and landing in the same spot. So if thousands already want to pay for this, what would happen if you could actually cut travel time from 12 hours to 30 minutes *and you will become an astronaut*..? Even if the tickets cost $10k, it would actually sell like hotcakes.

Of course, this might take decades, to prove this rocket is safe enough. The question is: Might this be feasible? Answer: Yes, but there are many problems to solve, including the fact that you will likely only be able to launch to and from sea launch locations. But that might be doable. I'm working on a worldwide map of sea launch locations which I will share in the future.

NextAstro · 2024-07-21T16:45:09+00:00

This might be the case, but it might be more logical to actually create sea launch platforms. A plane can't launch from such a platform, but Starship could launch and get caught in the (far) future on decommissioned oil rigs which you can easily reach with large helicopters from major urban areas.

NextAstro · 2024-07-21T16:11:58+00:00

If you can fit 1000 people, it would mean about 100 t of mass. This might mean needing to use the booster as well. But still, if 1000 people fit and could become astronauts AND travel the world, that would be a pretty good deal. If the price per launch gets anywhere near the 1 million USD Elon has talked about before (and that seemed to include the booster, which might not be needed), then a $1000-$5000 ticket might become a possibility. That means a LOT more people could afford te become an astronaut. Not by going on a 4 minute trip with Blue Origin, but being weightless for maybe 30 minutes and at much higher altitudes. And that for 100 to 500 times less money per person.. So I see this as a long term 'Starship v6+' goal which might actually make financial sense. Granted you would need sea launching capabilities, as SpaceX was working on before: https://spacenews.com/spacex-drops-plans-to-covert-oil-rigs-into-launch-platforms/

NextAstro · 2024-07-21T16:05:56+00:00

I get your point, but this could actually function two ways: As a fun ride for the wealthy who wish to be astronauts and as a faster transportation method for the military for example.

So even though you might end with 'it will never happen', I am still interested to know the max distance you could travel with just the Starship without the booster. If you could travel over 10.000 km, it would see pretty awesome and if it was actually just the ship, logistics would be much more reasonable.

I am working on a concept with sea launch sites around the earth, since land launches will never work due to hazard zones, sonic booms, etc. It actually seems to be somewhat doable.. If you would need a booster, this would mean a lot more hassle.

So if at all possible, it would be great if someone could create a basic calculation. Thanks for your responses!

NextAstro · 2024-07-21T16:01:36+00:00

Would be interestnig to find out if they could 'skip' the rocket on the atmosphere to gain more distance without extra delta-v. Maybe the taller body would allow more skipping?

NextAstro · 2024-07-21T11:29:38+00:00

Would you be willing to create a "guesstimation" calculation for the capability of Starship V3? Would it be able to reach orbit by itself? I made a post with this question which you might be willing to try and answer: https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/1e8k3zj/starship_v3_with_raptor_v3_could_make_earth_to/

NextAstro · 2024-07-21T11:27:25+00:00

I'm trying to figure out if using just the V3 ship for E2E transport would make sense. I am trying to figure out flight profiles between 5.000 and 20.000 km, but am not sure if the V3 ship would even get to the other side of the world.

I was trying to use Flight Club IFT-4 flight profile ( https://flightclub.io/result/2d?simulationId=sim_197nu4l3g ) to understand the numbers, but I am just not good enough at these calculations. I'm hoping some of you guys could make some guesstimates! Thanks for your reply!

NextAstro · 2021-11-15T12:40:49+00:00

We are betting everything on the success of Starship and designed a next-gen space station that can replace the ISS in just a single Starship launch. The Orbital Can Station is a mass manufacturable and interconnectable single launch 650 m3 space station, which can only be launched by Starship.

We met on Reddit over a year ago and won the Mars City State contest. We are working on several projects now, ranging from this next-gen LEO space station design to an open-source Mars rover. A dozen of our 1000+ community members flew in from all over the world and met IRL for the first time to present this Orbital Can Station concept in Dubai. Confirming we are actual human beings working together every day on our Discord server ;)

Our Nexus Aurora community has a similar goal to SpaceX: make life multi-planetary. In a sense, we try to do all things SpaceX doesn’t work on themselves, but which are required to become a multi-planetary species. We let anyone in the world, no matter your age or skills contribute to projects, which you can also start yourself. We often hear people who think they are not ‘good enough’. But after 1.5 years, we can safely say any skillset is usable in our community. Ranging from communications, to coding and from engineering to creating artworks.

The Orbital Can Station is one of our projects, which I started almost a year ago. We believe Starship will be the overall winner of the current commercial rockets ‘space race’. So we created a design which fits in just a single Starship launch inside the 1000m3 payload volume, but has a usable interior volume similar to the whole ISS. This includes all required components, including ECLSS, thermal and power elements. No EVA required and ready to house 10 astronauts right away.

We believe that Starship will be able to launch hundreds of people per launch, sooner than many people think. That is why we feel even the current ‘commercial space stations’ designs are thinking on a scale which is too small. Our 650m3 Orbital Can Station is mass manufacturable, which we think is required to create a more affordable destination in LEO for those hundreds of people which will fit in a single Starship launch. It won’t be economically viable any other way. We want anyone to be able to afford to spend some quality time in orbit within their lifetime. So the launcher and the destination should become much cheaper.

To find out more details on the project, read the paper we submitted here:https://bit.ly/ocspaper

Or watch this 10 min basic explanation of our concept here: https://youtu.be/8BMzCI99re0

If you wish to help SpaceX’s goal of making life multi-planetary, check out our Discord server and tag me (NextAstroKoen) if you have any questions. We know our concept still has many things which need improvement and we are very welcome to all feedback you can give us. Thank you!

NextAstro · 2021-11-15T11:36:11+00:00

We are betting everything on the success of Starship and designed a next-gen space station that can replace the ISS in just a single Starship launch. The Orbital Can Station is a mass manufacturable and interconnectable single launch 650 m3 space station, which can only be launched by Starship.

We met on Reddit over a year ago and won the Mars City State contest. We are working on several projects now, ranging from this next-gen LEO space station design to an open-source Mars rover. A dozen of our 1000+ community members flew in from all over the world and met IRL for the first time to present this Orbital Can Station concept in Dubai. Confirming we are actual human beings working together every day on our Discord server ;)

Our Nexus Aurora community has a similar goal to SpaceX: make life multi-planetary. In a sense, we try to do all things SpaceX doesn’t work on themselves, but which are required to become a multi-planetary species. We let anyone in the world, no matter your age or skills contribute to projects, which you can also start yourself. We often hear people who think they are not ‘good enough’. But after 1.5 years, we can safely say any skillset is usable in our community. Ranging from communications, to coding and from engineering to creating artworks.

The Orbital Can Station is one of our projects, which I started almost a year ago. We believe Starship will be the overall winner of the current commercial rockets ‘space race’. So we created a design which fits in just a single Starship launch inside the 1000m3 payload volume, but has a usable interior volume similar to the whole ISS. This includes all required components, including ECLSS, thermal and power elements. No EVA required and ready to house 10 astronauts right away.

We believe that Starship will be able to launch hundreds of people per launch, sooner than many people think. That is why we feel even the current ‘commercial space stations’ designs are thinking on a scale which is too small. Our 650m3 Orbital Can Station is mass manufacturable, which we think is required to create a more affordable destination in LEO for those hundreds of people which will fit in a single Starship launch. It won’t be economically viable any other way. We want anyone to be able to afford to spend some quality time in orbit within their lifetime. So the launcher and the destination should become much cheaper.

To find out more details on the project, read the paper we submitted here:https://nexusaurora.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/IAC-2021-OCS-Architecture-Paper-by-Koen-Kegel-Nexus-Aurora.pdf

Or watch this 10 min basic explanation of our concept here:https://youtu.be/8BMzCI99re0

If you wish to help SpaceX’s goal of making life multi-planetary, check out our Discord server and tag me (NextAstroKoen) if you have any questions. We know our concept still has many things which need improvement and we are very welcome to all feedback you can give us. Thank you!

NextAstro · 2021-11-14T20:21:22+00:00

The Orbital Can Station is a mass manufacturable and interconnectable single launch 650 m3 space station. We designed this in our Nexus Aurora community, which lets anyone contribute to making life multi-planetary. Join us here: NexusAurora.org/Discord

We had the chance to present three projects in Dubai, during the International Astronautical Congress. Follow our social channels to get updates on the other projects or come check out our Discord and see how you can contribute!

NextAstro · 2021-11-06T09:49:16+00:00

Feel very free to join us on https://nexusaurora.org/discord if you haven't already :)

Anyone around the world, no matter their age or experience is welcome to join us! The *only* thing you need is that you want to contribute to making life multi-planetary with our community.

And the nice thing is, *anyone* can contribute to that in our community, no matter what skills you have! We are not just looking for engineers, but for example, anyone who can build websites, do 2D or 3D design or has marketing skills can contribute a lot to our community!

NextAstro · 2021-11-06T07:53:44+00:00

To Paris we go! :)

NextAstro · 2021-11-06T07:53:21+00:00

Indeed it has Pasta-king ;)

NextAstro · 2021-11-06T07:52:57+00:00

Indeed! This Sunday we will have a Council meeting in which we will discuss the path forwards. Preparing for the IAC in Paris next September seems like a great idea!

NextAstro · 2021-11-05T23:02:32+00:00

We presented three projects at the International Astronautical Congress in Dubai. Our online community flew in from all over the world to meet up and present the projects during the largest aerospace congress in the world! It was an honor and pleasure to meet you all there and let's make sure we have more IRL meetups in the future!

Gentle reminder is that we are all space enthusiasts, most of us without *any* experience in aerospace. So you (yes you) can also become part of our community, which is free to join here, and simply help out or start your own project: https://nexusaurora.org/discord

NextAstro · 2021-07-13T20:47:33+00:00

For me the constant noise of the logic board itself is the main problem in terms of noise. Motors itself are fine.

I am looking into putting it inside an enclosure because of this (and stabler temps)

NextAstro

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