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A comment on SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocket last night. Parent comment

Re:SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocke... by Ajedi32 on Monday August 02, 2021 @05:34PM (#28042991)
Wow, no kidding. The gold Merlin would be a quarter of the price![1][2][3] (At least in terms of materials.)

[1]: https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/nasa-will-pay-a-stag...

[2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=merlin+engine+dry+mass

[3]: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28630+kg+of+gold+in+U...

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Re:SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocke... by mlindner on Monday August 02, 2021 @08:11PM (#28044324)
Keep in mind gold is a lot denser, so it'd be a miniature engine if you made it out of pure gold. If you take the volumetric space of all the materials that might lead to a different answer, but that's hard to do. (I guess you could make it out of gold foam.)
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Re:SpaceX installed 29 Raptor engines on a Super Heavy rocke... by Ajedi32 on Tuesday August 03, 2021 @10:19AM (#28049495)
Probably closer to half the price of the RS-25 then, assuming normal Merlins are made mostly out of steel:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28%28%28630+kg+*+%28d...

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