SpaceX’s Starship launch plan gets an environmental OK from the feds | Hacker News Reader

SpaceX’s Starship launch plan gets an environmental OK from the feds

arstechnica.com

24 pointsctoth15 comments

In a country that approves fracking sites without a second thought, they hold up a project that could advance science and give a huge advantage in the space race for 5 months? For what? Turtles and civil war reenactment sites?

ULA has too many politicians in their pockets. Even though these environmental issues seem plausible, this was 100% political. I assure you they do not think of the turtles when contaminating the ground water with fracking.

"A" is inadequate, so we shouldn't do an adequate review on "B" is not the answer. Applaud the fact that they took this seriously, and hope that they get their act together with the oil companies and mineral rights.

Can I play devil's advocate here?

The Startship's booster has a propellant mix of 2800 tons of oxygen and 800 tons of methane [1]. Since in the reaction CH4 + 2 O2 = CO2 + 2 H2O there's 4 times as much oxygen by mass (2x32 = 64) than methane (12+4=16), it follows that only 700 tons of methane burn, and 100 are vented in the atmosphere.

This might not seem like much, but Musk has a goal of 1 million launches per year [2]. The EPA considers that one ton of methane is equivalent to 25 tons of CO2, so that brings us to 2.5 Gigatons of equivalent CO2 emissions.

Currently the whole of the US emits 6.0 Gigatons equivalent CO2.

Take a moment to ponder this.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starship#Super_Heavy_bo...

[2] https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/17/elon-musk-shares-details-a...

> Musk has a goal of 1 million launches per year [2]

Is this a mistake?

FTA: "SpaceX’s goal, according to Musk, is to ultimately send one million people to Mars by 2050"

Not all the launches will aim to sent people to Mars. Some will just send cargo, and some will send stuff to LEO.

FTA:

  Musk said that the spacecraft is being designed with the plan of flying [..] a total of more than 1,000 flights per year, per vehicle.
  Ultimately, Musk says that he hopes to achieve [...] a goal of hitting 1,000 in total in service over the course of the next decade.

So that's one million launches. That's corroborated by the goal of 100 megatons of cargo per year (given that each Starship can carry 100 tons to space).

> So that's one million launches.

In a decade. Not a year.

No. It will take a decade to build enough Starship to have 1000 in operation. At that point, each will launch 3 times a day, for a total of about 1000 a year. One million per year in total. Not tomorrow, but starting about a decade from now.

Getting a little pedantic, but presumably some of those will be heading to or from Mars at any given time.

Anyway, it’s a long ways out and has nothing to do with the immediate Starship launch plans.

Well, sure but that has nothing to do with approving a launch site.

If Starship was used to maximum extend it would basically replace the airline industry and it would have about the same amount of impact.

If that is acceptable to society depends. Potentially this can be made reusabilty in the future as well. At least its easier to make methane then to make jet fuel.

Starship could not replace the airplane industry and would get far worse gas mileage.

> The Startship's booster has a propellant mix of 2800 tons of oxygen and 800 tons of methane

How much of that is burnt in the lower atmosphere? Most orbital flight profiles involve quickly getting out of the atmosphere before adding horizontal velocity.

How many launches per year will be permitted? Didn't SpaceX in the end want to launch 2 to 3 a day? That seems like a problem eventually.

This will not be a reality in next 5 years at least. Honestly some of those requirements seem to be just an excuse for the feds to delay the testing as much as possible. Yeah, I'm looking at you, California.

The Boca Chica site is for R&D, not regular launch operations. They are only planning a handful a year from this site.

They are already building the starship launch facilities in the cape for regular operations

5 orbital and 5 sub orbital.

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