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A comment on Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico. Parent comment

Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by sixQuarks on Thursday June 06, 2024 @09:07AM (#40596926)
Yeah it’s hard to comprehend how powerful those engines are. The booster is relatively light without all the propellant and starship when it’s attempting to land, but it’s still 30 stories tall and I’m assuming it weighs dozens of tons.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by chasd00 on Thursday June 06, 2024 @09:16AM (#40597027)
iirc only 3 ignite for the landing burn, those engines are freaking monsters. I love how small they are, the latest Raptor revision is so slim and compact. The power density is just mind boggling.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by sobellian on Thursday June 06, 2024 @09:18AM (#40597063)
You can see for yourself in the video - all 13 center engines attempt to light, and all but one do so.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by arpinum on Thursday June 06, 2024 @09:24AM (#40597128)
Similar to ship, they start up more engines than needed in case a few fail, then immediately shut down the extra engines.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by arrowsmith on Thursday June 06, 2024 @09:32AM (#40597218)
Where is this visible in the video? EDIT: oh wait is it the diagram in the bottom left?
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by foobarian on Thursday June 06, 2024 @09:34AM (#40597241)
It blew my mind that just the fuel pump for just one engine has a power rated in the tens of thousands of horsepower/kW.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by schmidtleonard on Thursday June 06, 2024 @04:10PM (#40601820)
Yep, those pumps have to push the propellant into the explosion harder than the explosion pushes back. That takes serious power!
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by foobarian on Thursday June 06, 2024 @04:23PM (#40601944)
So thinking where the leverage is - is it like hydraulics where the input cross-section is a lot smaller than the output cross-section? That's kinda what the nozzle looks like.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by schmidtleonard on Thursday June 06, 2024 @06:33PM (#40603144)
Yes, but also the propellant explodes after being pumped in, so you pump in a tiny volume and exhaust an enormous volume.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by aaronblohowiak on Thursday June 06, 2024 @11:09PM (#40604930)
You pump in a huge volume and exhaust an inconceivable volume
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by schmidtleonard on Friday June 07, 2024 @09:26AM (#40608496)
That's fair, lol.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by dotancohen on Friday June 07, 2024 @01:29AM (#40605597)
No, because the fuel is not a working fluid pushing a piston. All the "leverage" is at the turbopump impeller blade.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by KennyBlanken on Friday June 07, 2024 @01:31AM (#40605603)
Not only that - spacex uses the highest chamber pressures, enormously high compared to almost any other engine.
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Re:Super Heavy has splashed down in The Gulf of Mexico by m4rtink on Thursday June 06, 2024 @04:45PM (#40602192)
Its 200+ tons dry apparently when landing.
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