SpaceX’s Starship SN1 prototype blows up during pressure test on its Texas pad

Re:SpaceX’s Starship SN1 prototype blows up during pressure ... by gpm on Saturday February 29, 2020 @07:17PM (#22454202)

> Ideally you would use a turntable to rotate the cylinder while welding the sections together with a sub-arc machine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-hfExEmGsE

Uh, at least in the video that steel is pretty thick. Starships skin is slightly less than 4mm thick... while in that video they have a 2cm deep groove, would the same technique actually work?

For what it's worth, ULA stainless steel (<1mm thickness) upper stages are resistance welded instead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0fG_lnVhHw&t=41m10s

That said, I think a lot of the decisions right now are based on "what can we quickly experiment with" not "what is a good long term plan". Building a 9m turntable (diameter of the rocket) would take a long time.

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Re:SpaceX’s Starship SN1 prototype blows up during pressure ... by frankharv on Saturday February 29, 2020 @07:29PM (#22454245)

I agree a 9m turntable would take some time to make. But once made you could crank these vessels out very fast. 4mm skin sounds OK and I am sure there are some structural supports inside to keep it from collapsing. I am not a weld engineer so I cannot say if Sub-Arc would be the best technique. I know that ships skins are being built with it.

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Re:SpaceX’s Starship SN1 prototype blows up during pressure ... by erikpukinskis on Saturday February 29, 2020 @10:15PM (#22454887)

You’re talking about production engineering. You don’t really do that until your design starts to be nailed down. It’s not.

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