20 ms·

I'm concerned about the cracking clearly visible on the heat shield tiles. It doesn't bode well for rapid reusability.

by SJMG 4mo ago

simmonmt 4mo ago
I mean ... step 1 is probably fixing the part where it lands in the ocean, falls over and explodes. Once they've done that and can get their hands on the tiles I'm guessing they can continue to iterate there until they get a more easily reusable design.
- shigawire 4mo ago
  That part was intentional
- idiotsecant 4mo ago
  Dang, a random HN user solving all the world's problems yet again, what would humanity do without you random HN guy?
WalterBright 4mo ago
I thought the tiles were designed for easy replacement, so not a big concern with replacing cracked ones.
EA 4mo ago
The tiles ablate. The shuttle returned from every mission with missing tiles.
- throwaway85825 4mo ago
  The shuttle required long expensive refurbishment after each flight.
  - b112 4mo ago
    Just made me realise, this is just like the F-35. Its turn around time is ridiculous, it has to be maintained with specialized equipment/hangers, along with external contractor assistance. Compared to the Gripen, as an example, which can land on a freeway and be up in the air again in a few minutes. One was designed to be used in war, in desperate scenarios, with no ability to coddle it. The other, the F-35? Is designed around milking the taxpayer as much as possible, and employing people in as many politician's states as possible. The shuttle was like that, I think. Which is really sad.
    - noir_lord 4mo ago
      Agreed and specifically in the case of the Gripen the “test condition” was “Needs to be serviceable by a few conscripts working under the direction of one person who knows what they are doing”. It’s an extremely different design goal, the US doesn’t mind exotic weapons that require exquisite (and expensive) methods of servicing, they have the budget and the assumption that a well equipped air field will be immaculately maintained. Meanwhile the Mig-29 designers assumed it’d operate from damaged/poorly maintained fields, so on the ground you can shut the primary air intakes and it uses ones on top of the plane to get air, drastically reducing the FOD risk on taxi/takeoff. I do wonder how well the F-35 would fare in an actual shooting war against near peers when all the peacetime assumptions breakdown.
      - throwaway85825 4mo ago
        That's a reason the Mig-29 is no longer in production. Point defense fights are obsolete. The F-35 was just in a war, in Iran. It performed as expected and was able to roll back Iran's air defense network in days.
        GolfPopper 4mo ago
        >It performed as expected and was able to roll back Iran's air defense network in days. "Rolling back" Iran's air defense seems like very fuzzy phrasing. Certainly, Iran was not able to close its own airspace, nor prevent ongoing airstrikes on many American and Israeli targets. At the same time, my armchair observation is that a great many US and Israeli airstrikes were accomplished using stand-off weapons [1], which would not have been needed if the United States and Israel had achieved 'air supremacy'[2] as has been the case in America's conflicts in recent history. The observed trend in USAF readiness has been downward for some time [3][4]. Air war is more than single sorties. If you have anything resembling an accurate summary of sorties flown, targets successfully hit, and number of combat-ready aircraft throughout the (currently on hold) war, and so on, please share. Absent such detailed information, all we have are various degrees of speculation. 1. https://news.meaww.com/us-used-tomahawks-himars-standoff-weapons-and-drones-to-attack-iran-defense-official-reveals https://news.meaww.com/us-used-tomahawks-himars-standoff-wea... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_supremacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_supremacy 3. https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-mission-capable-rates-fiscal-2024/ https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-mission-capable-... 4. https://havokjournal.com/culture/military/the-hidden-erosion-of-usaf-readiness/ https://havokjournal.com/culture/military/the-hidden-erosion...
- jordanb 4mo ago
  Shuttle's tiles not being durable as hoped is what killed it's turnaround time. The problem was never solved and turned what was supposed to be a few days into weeks or months. Every mission the shuttle had to go back into the assembly building and have all tiles inspected and potentially replaced.
  - dnautics 4mo ago
    Shuttle tiles were also unique per position and starship tiles have a few base forms that are interchangeable
    - amluto 4mo ago
      I would also believe that a robot could inspect and replace tiles a lot faster than humans.
    - laughing_man 4mo ago
      Shuttle tiles were also bonded to the body, which I don't believe is the case with most of the Starship tiles.
    - cma 4mo ago
      I thought Starship has many unique tiles, they ended up needing to vary thickness to match heat patterns to save weight and have some complicated geometry near the fins. Shuttle had more unique perimeter shapes, but starship still has a lot of variation due to tickness. I don't know if that is easier to vary in production or still needs custom molds for the variation.
  - dzhiurgis 4mo ago
    Total 6 shuttles built over 35 years. SpaceX already crashed 12 over 5 or so years. Obviously doesn’t guarantee they’ll find solution, but fast iteration will definitely help.
- sidewndr46 4mo ago
  Well, every mission that it returned from it had missing tiles. That is not the same thing as returning from every mission.
- daemonologist 4mo ago
  The tiles are not supposed to ablate - they're supposed to be ~fully reusable. That said I think it's plausible that the much higher iteration speed and lack of a need for human-rating (at least during reentry, for now) will allow for more success than the space shuttle saw with its similar approach.
- NetMageSCW 4mo ago
  Starship’s tiles are not designed to ablate. They are intended to last multiple flights.
NetMageSCW 4mo ago
That wasn’t cracking.

I'm concerned about the cracking clearly visible on the heat shield tiles. It doesn't bode well for rapid reusability.

by SJMG 4mo ago

I'm concerned about the cracking clearly visible on the heat shield tiles. It doesn't bode well for rapid reusability.

I mean ... step 1 is probably fixing the part where it lands in the ocean, falls over and explodes. Once they've done that and can get their hands on the tiles I'm guessing they can continue to iterate there until they get a more easily reusable design.

shigawire 4mo ago
That part was intentional
idiotsecant 4mo ago
Dang, a random HN user solving all the world's problems yet again, what would humanity do without you random HN guy?

WalterBright 4mo ago

I thought the tiles were designed for easy replacement, so not a big concern with replacing cracked ones.

EA 4mo ago

The tiles ablate. The shuttle returned from every mission with missing tiles.

throwaway85825 4mo ago
The shuttle required long expensive refurbishment after each flight.
- b112 4mo ago
  Just made me realise, this is just like the F-35. Its turn around time is ridiculous, it has to be maintained with specialized equipment/hangers, along with external contractor assistance. Compared to the Gripen, as an example, which can land on a freeway and be up in the air again in a few minutes. One was designed to be used in war, in desperate scenarios, with no ability to coddle it. The other, the F-35? Is designed around milking the taxpayer as much as possible, and employing people in as many politician's states as possible. The shuttle was like that, I think. Which is really sad.
  - noir_lord 4mo ago
    Agreed and specifically in the case of the Gripen the “test condition” was “Needs to be serviceable by a few conscripts working under the direction of one person who knows what they are doing”. It’s an extremely different design goal, the US doesn’t mind exotic weapons that require exquisite (and expensive) methods of servicing, they have the budget and the assumption that a well equipped air field will be immaculately maintained. Meanwhile the Mig-29 designers assumed it’d operate from damaged/poorly maintained fields, so on the ground you can shut the primary air intakes and it uses ones on top of the plane to get air, drastically reducing the FOD risk on taxi/takeoff. I do wonder how well the F-35 would fare in an actual shooting war against near peers when all the peacetime assumptions breakdown.
    - throwaway85825 4mo ago
      That's a reason the Mig-29 is no longer in production. Point defense fights are obsolete. The F-35 was just in a war, in Iran. It performed as expected and was able to roll back Iran's air defense network in days.
      - GolfPopper 4mo ago
        >It performed as expected and was able to roll back Iran's air defense network in days. "Rolling back" Iran's air defense seems like very fuzzy phrasing. Certainly, Iran was not able to close its own airspace, nor prevent ongoing airstrikes on many American and Israeli targets. At the same time, my armchair observation is that a great many US and Israeli airstrikes were accomplished using stand-off weapons [1], which would not have been needed if the United States and Israel had achieved 'air supremacy'[2] as has been the case in America's conflicts in recent history. The observed trend in USAF readiness has been downward for some time [3][4]. Air war is more than single sorties. If you have anything resembling an accurate summary of sorties flown, targets successfully hit, and number of combat-ready aircraft throughout the (currently on hold) war, and so on, please share. Absent such detailed information, all we have are various degrees of speculation. 1. https://news.meaww.com/us-used-tomahawks-himars-standoff-weapons-and-drones-to-attack-iran-defense-official-reveals https://news.meaww.com/us-used-tomahawks-himars-standoff-wea... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_supremacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_supremacy 3. https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-mission-capable-rates-fiscal-2024/ https://www.airandspaceforces.com/air-force-mission-capable-... 4. https://havokjournal.com/culture/military/the-hidden-erosion-of-usaf-readiness/ https://havokjournal.com/culture/military/the-hidden-erosion...
jordanb 4mo ago
Shuttle's tiles not being durable as hoped is what killed it's turnaround time. The problem was never solved and turned what was supposed to be a few days into weeks or months. Every mission the shuttle had to go back into the assembly building and have all tiles inspected and potentially replaced.
- dnautics 4mo ago
  Shuttle tiles were also unique per position and starship tiles have a few base forms that are interchangeable
  - amluto 4mo ago
    I would also believe that a robot could inspect and replace tiles a lot faster than humans.
  - laughing_man 4mo ago
    Shuttle tiles were also bonded to the body, which I don't believe is the case with most of the Starship tiles.
  - cma 4mo ago
    I thought Starship has many unique tiles, they ended up needing to vary thickness to match heat patterns to save weight and have some complicated geometry near the fins. Shuttle had more unique perimeter shapes, but starship still has a lot of variation due to tickness. I don't know if that is easier to vary in production or still needs custom molds for the variation.
- dzhiurgis 4mo ago
  Total 6 shuttles built over 35 years. SpaceX already crashed 12 over 5 or so years. Obviously doesn’t guarantee they’ll find solution, but fast iteration will definitely help.
sidewndr46 4mo ago
Well, every mission that it returned from it had missing tiles. That is not the same thing as returning from every mission.
daemonologist 4mo ago
The tiles are not supposed to ablate - they're supposed to be ~fully reusable. That said I think it's plausible that the much higher iteration speed and lack of a need for human-rating (at least during reentry, for now) will allow for more success than the space shuttle saw with its similar approach.
NetMageSCW 4mo ago
Starship’s tiles are not designed to ablate. They are intended to last multiple flights.

NetMageSCW 4mo ago

That wasn’t cracking.