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this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2024
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Is it worth trying land such a large rocket/ship when a small capsule does the job? Is it possible at all?
I get that SpaceX aims for re-usability, but if they have ambitions, go big and recycle materials in space to build space parts/ships/stations in-situ.
If you mean in orbit, that's orders of magnitude harder than reaching the Moon, and possibly harder than colonizing Mars.
We don't have some scifi "gravity plating", with some force fields to keep air in, to build a space dock, or a factory on a space station. Microgravity is fun for the first half hour, after that moving stuff around is a whole challenge on itself, something like screwing in a screw, or a lightbulb, is a separate challenge. Most of the knowledge about processes and logistics we use down the gravity well, with an atmosphere made primarily of nitrogen, goes out the window in microgravity.
The nearest "practical" place to recycle any materials, would be the Moon.
Yes it's hard, which I acknowledged by saying if they have ambitions, go big and recycle materials in space. But you make it sounds like it's nearly impossible, which I doubt.
We know how to keep air in space stations and capsules, without involving force fields or any other sci-fi tech.
For sure, building in space it different from building in earth gravity, but that doesn't necessarily make it impossible. There already have been experiments and small-scale demonstrations in space:
Another example is a microgravity extrusion experiment in the ISS between from 2021 to 2023,
I assume it's easier to start by building small parts, and progressively build larger parts, until hopefully we're able to build most ships parts. The assembly can presumably happen in the vacuum of space, without air. There's potential for ultimately building ships in orbit larger than anything we could lift with a rocket.
SpaceX, in a perfect world, just wants to be the railroad to facilitate others who want to build stations, bases, mining, recycling, etc.
As far as the greenness of rockets, recycling would be 5th in the 5 R's:
While you are correct. Human experience wise.
We have long had theories and full maths on centrifugal force's needed to create a gravity like enviroment
Its really more about the will and dedication to develop such ideas.
The difference between theoretical math vs. applied math, is that one gives you spherical cows in a vacuum, while the other needs to take into account valve intake shapes and positioning so they can relight the reentry engines while fuel is experimenting those centrifugal forces.
"Will and dedication", is what SpaceX is doing right now: getting stuff explode until they manage to account for all the variables you need to plug into the formulas... and this is just for the easy rocket science.