The problem I see with Starship is the leaking of methane into the high atmosphere. In the second test flight so much propellant was released at termination it showed up on weather radar. There will likely be less RUDs as time progresses, but every engine shutoff and start up event leaks an unknown amount of propellant. That will definitely stop being a rounding error if these things are launching at the cadence spacex intends.

Well, thanks! I’ve been following spacex since grasshopper. I started really paying attention as they started to attempt landings and I watched every launch. I followed starship development super close. The first full stack launch I watched with great excitement, but when I saw it lift off I felt this hole in my stomach, this was meant to happen as often as an airplane taking off? Looking at Falcon 9 and starlink you just know they’re going to get it working. So this “rounding error” is about to become a gigantic industry.

I thought “yay! They’re going to use methane! That just turns to water! Huzzah!” but it only turns to water if it combusts. Otherwise it’s just methane. And it turns out, it’s really terrible as methane. I already didn’t think too highly about RP1 exhaust in the high atmosphere, but that’s already happening with airplanes. But that has a kind of cooling effect on the planet, during 9/11 the lack of plane exhaust led to a measurable decrease in temperature. What does injecting methane into the high atmosphere? We’ll find out I guess, but certainly nothing good. The good news is they’ll stop blowing up every launch but there’s always leakage at ECO.

I’m rambling a little, but thank you for the discussion! Any other time I’ve brought anything like this up I usually get attacked. I also wonder if this kind of argument I’m making is why Elon suddenly became such a right wing petro-state dickwad instead of the “no Planet B” guy I thought he was.

I appreciate the discussion!

methane needs to be considered carefully when at high altitude

My point exactly. The “it’s just a rounding error, bro” ain’t going to hold up when these things are launching twice a day. And how many current environmental or industrial methane emissions are currently being injected into the high atmosphere? True, we have no word on how much methane gets leaked on engine cut off, but it’s greater than zero and less than a hundred tons. How much gets lost on the pad due to transfers and venting during static fires?

but if sufficiently scattered

Dilution is the solution to pollution? Looking at that radar I find it quite hard to believe it’s metal flakes. Just looking at the rocket equation leads me to believe there’s more propellant there than rocket.

For all the talk about the launch pad, I’ve heard precious little about the gigantic cloud of methane and oxygen released at engine cut off (the clouds streaming out of the shut off engines are propellant, the pumps don’t shut off) and at flight termination. So much that it showed up on weather radar. As per Scott Manly

I guess it happened outside the environment 🫤

I thought you’d like that. Speaking your language.

I’m rubber you’re glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you.

That was a statement of fact. I suggest you do some research into a thing called “discourse”

You have a removedty world view.

That’s what I was getting at though. Differing opinions are attacked around here. The lemmy “hive mind” is way more bullremoved than reddit ever was.

My point has been proven. You fell right into my trap.

Gas stove >>> induction stove

Blocking communities is a full-time job in this place.

I’m liberal, but no techbro. Try saying something remotely luddite and watch what happens.

Put a Linux filter on and lemmy gets better.

I feel you. I don’t give one single removed about Linux. My lemmy experience got better when I filtered out Linux across the board. The “hive mind” here is way more super-geek than reddit ever was. I’m a craftsman, just about the only reason I turn my computer Chromebook on is to send invoices. And that makes a lot of lemmy mad it seems. I feel way more like this guy here than I ever did on reddit.

I got quite a lot of socks and computer screen posts.