Gassin' Up Starship

[@waldmeisterexperte]

this rocketry channel gets more and more unhinged. i like it a lot. please don't change.

[@miniminerx]

Space phase 2 is long overdue

[@tedarcher9120]

No make it more crazy

[@EagerSpace]

Can you give me examples, so that I don't accidentally become more hinged in the future?

[@waldmeisterexperte]

@@EagerSpace 19:50

[@miniminerx]

@@EagerSpace Space Tether Rotovators to the moon that carry starships

[@acarrillo8277]

"Launching 4 Starships in one day would consume the entire US production for that day." Ok that is Fricking mind bending!

[@That_Awesome_Guy1]

Before they ever get to that point they will be making their own.

[@Ionut-bg6vw]

Only 4 lounches😂 sounds big and small at the same time

[@EagerSpace]

It is a lot. Industry tries to avoid using liquid oxygen because it's expensive to make and if you can use a concentrator it's a lot cheaper.

[@tedarcher9120]

Starship tower should have been built on a natural gas field. Just pump it straight up

[@davidelang]

most starship plans are 😜

[@noonesomeone669]

In a media ecosystem full of clickbait and pointless updates your focus on the organizational, financial, and logistics aspects of the space industry is incredibly refreshing. The inner undergrad economist in me is always happy when you post.

[@EagerSpace]

Thanks... I took an econ class a *long* time ago - I think it was 1984 - as part of my business minor, and I try to keep the full picture in mind. There is so much hype in space (and tech in general) where it's pretty obvious that there is no visible market for something or the competitive moats are vast. If you like my stuff, try listening to Anthony Colangelo's "Main Engine Cutoff" podcast. He has a similar focus to me and does really useful interviews with a lot of people in industry. He co-hosts the "Off Nominal" podcast with Jake Robbins and it's also good.

[@chrissouthgate4554]

For some reason, my inner child found the thought of heading to Mars propelled by cow farts amusing. Thank you for that!

[@EagerSpace]

Cows breathe out a lot more methane than the fart.

[@danielcaban-l5t]

I love this channel, its great. I have one suggestion. I have to turn my speakers up quite a lot to hear you properly, and every time an ad plays my ears get blown out. Can you somehow increase your volume relative to the ads so that they are at approximately the same level? Thanks!

[@EagerSpace]

Noted. I used a new windscreen on my mic for this one and it reduces the volume more than I expected.

[@rstomahawkty]

Eager dude - your videos are some of the best on KZbin. I watched this video the day it came out, but I check out the channel every so often to see if I miss anything. THe only thing I end up missing is new videos, but I wouldn't dare say "give us more" because I am already so grateful for everything you put put, although if I had to watch only Eager Space videos in a torture room for the rest of my life, I would be perfectly fine with that haha. Can't wait for the next video! Cheers! P.S. - I love your sense of humor. It's dry but it's also subtly not dry, like it's the good part of the turkey at a family holiday party and it was just a lucky piece chosen from the platter surrounded by dry pieces

[@EagerSpace]

Thanks. I'm trying to add in a bit more humor, but it's really hard to write stuff that lands well, especially when you aren't getting any reaction from the watchers. Mostly I just do small stuff as it occurs to me, and I'm happy if anybody finds it funny.

[@miroslavmilan]

As a long time subscriber, I can safely say this is one of the best videos so far. Jam-packed and fast paced, but very well laid out. I feel like this channel is picking up traction. Keep’em coming sir.

[@EagerSpace]

Thanks. This one came together fairly easily, but I ended up learning way more about natural gas than I expected.

[@mattbland2380]

Heads up, I just searched to see why I hadn’t seen a new video from you and my channel subscription had been turned off, just disappeared of its own accord. I immediately resubscribed and thankfully I hadn’t missed any new stuff. Hopefully my subscription setting was an anomaly and hasn’t been duplicated for any other viewers. Wishing you a happy new year and looking forward to your next production. All the best for 2025!

[@EagerSpace]

Thanks for the note. AFAICT, my subscription numbers are pretty much where I expect them to be. October/November/December has major time commitments for me and now we're headed into ski season so that pulls some time away, but I'm working on a couple of new videos.

[@mattbland2380]

@ enjoy the snow ❄️

[@frogshapedplane]

When you said that the nitrogen from the air was in excess, that's not exactly true. SpaceX uses a TON of liquid nitrogen (more than LOX and Liquid CH4) to super chill the CH4 and the LOX, to increase propellant density before it is put onto the vehicle. So while there is a lot of nitrogen made, that is actually a good thing, and they can just use that to chill their propellant and chill down GSE before launch. Around 50% of the the tanks at Starbase are for LN2. Great video, keep them coming.

[@EagerSpace]

Yes, I was going to go into that use there, but I thought it was more detail than was needed. Without oxygen concentration, you get about 3.25x the mass of oxygen in nitrogen, or somewhere around 65,000 tons per day in my scenario. I suspect that is far in excess of what you need to do subchilling. Okay, I had to do the math. The specific heat of liquid oxygen is 1.71 KJ/ kg K, so it takes that much energy to chill it by 1 Kelvin. LOX starts at 90 K and SpaceX reportedly cools it down to 66 K, so a 24 Kelvin reduction. 24 * 1.71 = 41 KJ / kg K to do the subchilling. The heat of vaporization of liquid nitrogen is 200 KJ / kg, so - assuming no losses - each kilogram of liquid nitrogen can subchill 5 kilograms of liquid oxygen to 66 K. Liquid methane starts at 112K but would freeze at 91K, so I'm going to guess they only go down to 100 K, a 12 kelvin reduction. 12 * 2.01 kg KJ/KG K, so about 24 KJ/ kg K to do the subchilling, or about about 8 kilograms of liquid methane subchilled. It's going to depend a lot on what your losses are, but that suggests that you can pretty easily get by with only a third of the liquid nitrogen you would generate if you used straight air. That means you can use an inlet mixture that has a lot more oxygen in it.

[@jeremyloveslinux]

@@EagerSpaceI don’t think you’ll hit a detail limit for a good chuck of your audience here 😂

[@EagerSpace]

The math I did here is pretty much at the limit of what I would do *if* it was the main point of a video, but I'd try to avoid it for something that's only a side discussion.

[@djw7141]

@@EagerSpacewhy dont you make shorts on these very specific side topics? They could compliment these types of vids really well.

[@EagerSpace]

Interesting idea. I did try a "thoughts" video and started a couple more, but they generally turn into long-form videos.

[@onalennasehume4586]

Eager Space is my new favourite Space Tuber channel

[@pugglez4798]

I would like to add that running fuel rich is not purely for thermal reasons, it’s also for ISP. For ISP you just want the biggest momentum of your exit gas, so your velocity and molar mass are important. If you run different options through NASA CEA or other combustion solvers, fuel rich ends up being better as an optimization between velocity and molar mass combination.

[@EagerSpace]

Yes, though if you go more fuel-rich than what you want for thermal reasons, you are trading off specific impulse and thrust. There might be cases where you want higher specific impulse and there might be cases where higher thrust (to reduce gravity losses) is worth more.

[@nyx2875]

Please boost your volume a bit... It gets annoying since I need to max my volume to just fully hear you, and get my ears absolutely ruptured the moment an AD pops up.

[@douginorlando6260]

Agreed

[@usingthecharlim]

Density separation doesn't work like that. Does beer have a 5% ethanol layer floating on top? Methane, ethane and propane are highly miscible, same as the mixed hydrocarbons in RP1 remain intermixed.

[@AmericanCrusader222]

A vision from the future: Titan will have a Buc-ee’s Methane Station

[@asper8164]

😂😂😂

[@NomenNescio99]

I'm betting on circle k

[@hawkdsl]

Arthur C. Clark envisioned mining the gas giants for all kinds of purposes. The Cloud City in star wars was a mining station on a gas giant for example. Titan is one giant Exxon.

[@AmericanCrusader222]

@ indeed

[@Muny]

Excellent, thoughtful video as always. The audio did seem a bit low though

[@EagerSpace]

Yeah, I went with a new screen on a my mic and I think it dampened things more than I expected. Thanks for confirming that.

[@Howtopaintstuff]

Excellent video as always, very informational, thank you for sharing :)

[@EagerSpace]

Thanks.

[@TCarneyV12]

I think SpaceX will build plants to produce their own propellants on earth before they try to build one on mars

[@CensoredUsername_]

15:35 It's not just that having an excess of oxygen would be a problem due to the oxygen-rich gasses, running those rocket engines fuel rich is also just more efficient than running them oxidizer rich. The lighter the exhaust gas, at the same thermal energy input, the faster the engine exhaust. Oxygen as a molecule (O2) is pretty heavy. Methane is only half as heavy. It isn't quite a straight relation due to their different thermal capacities, but adding excess methane to the exhaust has a significantly lower drawback in ISP compared to adding the same weight of oxygen.

[@EagerSpace]

Definitely true.

[@EpicChicken8]

Thanks so much eager space for making good informative videos 😊

[@zhentaa]

To add a scale the liquid methane demands, Corpus Christi exports over 40,000 tons of LNG daily. It's probably not much of a stretch to supply all the methane Starship could want, if they've got the trucking capacity.

[@simonschaller857]

Making the lox on site would be inevetable with a high flight rate

[@Iangamebr]

I can't believe at the start you didn't talk about the liquid nitrogen. It's the most tankers they receive when refiling the tank farm, more than either oxygen or methane. So the real number of trucks is 50%+. Not only that but the deluge, since they don't have water pipe that go to the launch site you need a lot of water tankers as well. The real number of semis is approaching the double of what you said.

[@snakevenom4954]

He said in a comment that for every kg of LOX you make, you produce 3.25kg of Liquid Nitrogen. Way, way more than necessary for sub chilling. They would have so much excess liquid nitrogen, they would need to dump it

[@Iangamebr]

@@snakevenom4954 talking about the beginning of the video.

[@snakevenom4954]

@@Iangamebr Look man. You're clearly knowledgeable on this stuff. So is Eager Space. Forgive him for this extremely slight issue and connect the dots yourself. You're clearly more than capable of doing so

[@hawkdsl]

@@snakevenom4954 They don't make any gases at BC right now. Everything is trucked in. The OP is talking about current truck traffic needed for all consumables, which includes water and nitrogen. BC getting cleared to make any sort of plant or pipeline is practically fantasy in that regulatory nightmare of a location. SX has already been denied that idea once already. However, that could change with the new admin and congress, but it's still not going to be easy, or fast. The best option is at the Cape, which already has the infrastructure in place.

[@imconsequetau5275]

Liquid nitrogen is consumed to create the high pressure gas for the water suppression system. It is also evaporated to maintain and sub-chill the LOX.

[@ThePhiphler]

A pipeline makes the most sense, you can produce near but not at the site and just pipe in the liquids. As needed trucks can unload at this separate location, preventing total congestion of the trafic at the site.

[@EagerSpace]

Yes, though your pipeline that keeps your propellants liquid is going to be *expensive*.

[@hawkdsl]

SpaceX is barley able to stay at BC, and is constantly facing lawsuits there. Getting a pipe line through Indian lands, and a nation environmental park/wild life sanctuary will be laughable to say the least. However, who knows with the new admin coming in.

[@ThePhiphler]

@hawkdsl At least one has company proposed years ago to build a green hydrogen pipeline to the Boca Chica site. The law suits are also disingenious, none of those "advocacy groups" sue Blue Origin when they violate their environmental permits.

[@hawkdsl]

@@ThePhiphler Blue Origin is not in BC, nor does that even matter. You can have a belief that the people and groups are disingenuous, but it's part of the regulatory nightmare that is the BC site. One that will never go away. SX already tried to build a plant at BC and it was denied. But like I said, maybe the the new admin will change all that. The best option for major operations is at the Cape, which has all this needed infrastructure in place already.

[@shaya_g]

It seems to be significantly easier for spacex to extract their own lox locally

[@davidelang]

Thanks for the good video. The port of Brownsville is in the process of building a large facility for handling LNG, and I've seen comments about a planned pipeline across the salt flats to highway 4 in the vicinity of the build site. I could see them implementing the distillation plant to separate the methane at the port. Any reason why the rest of the LNG (without the methane) couldn't just be sold retail as normal natural gas? Any reason LOX could not be pumped from the port through a pipeline as well? I thought there was a air separation plant listed on the long term plans. It's in the PEA, but I believe it was on the Army Corps of Engineers approvals (uncomfortably close to the 2nd tower from what I remember). SpaceX also had a air separation plant at Sanchez for a while, so they have a bit of an idea of what's involved with the technology. There is a bit of a difference between the current flight rate of once every 2 months, to next year's plan of twice a month, to their long term plan of multiple times a day (and that ideal was 4 times/day from each tower 🙂 )

[@EagerSpace]

Pipeline gas has to be at least 75% methane, so the excess ethane and propane can be added to the main stream as long as it isn't worse than the limits. My guess is that you would just find a supplier who could load the tanker with a higher-purity product that's mostly methane. You can sell that as pipeline gas and it makes your later refining a lot easier.

[@michaelmicek]

I thought the plan for Cape Canaveral included a (new) air separation plant also.

[@onlyit4708]

A 23 minute video about Starship from Eager Space? Instant click

[@donjones4719]

I'm a bit confused. When Berger referred to 4 launches a day I presumed he meant 2 from Boca Chica and 2 from Cape Canaveral. That would reduce the delivery truck numbers by half. Also, IIRC Air Liquide's site very near to KSC delivers liquid hydrogen by pipeline to Pad 39B for SLS. There was a problem with the Green Run because it couldn't supply enough hydrogen due to the plant not having been expanded enough.

[@EagerSpace]

I assumed that some people would make the opposite assumption so I went with the bigger numbers.

[@Halengar-o7]

You went over the 2021 and the 2022 environmental reviews but I'm really surprised nobody here or you yourself brought up the 2024 draft environmental review that includes an air separation unit on site I would have liked to know a bit more about that and logistically how something like that would work because it seems like that is very much SpaceX's intention

[@EagerSpace]

I've seen the 2024. There's a map with a section labelled "air separation", but I couldn't find any mention in the text.

[@lucass.decordoba8195]

​@@EagerSpace nasa space flight showed in some weekly update-If i'm not mistaken, could haver been other show- That WEG posted on their website that they partnered with spacex to build an oxygen destilation plant, in boca Chica (don't remember If they said boca or south Texas or even mentioned starship). They took the post out a few hours later, looking like they made something that wasn't supposed to be done: spacex didn't want to turn it public. WEG is a brazilian electric motors and other related stuff manufacturer.

[@anonymous-q2b5s]

Wait, why can't the stratification process mentioned at 17:18 be used to physically separate the methane? Seems a lot cheaper than the whole heating and compression thing.

[@zhentaa]

The compression thing can't be skipped, you have to get it cold enough to turn liquid. You could use stratification to separate out components, but that's slow & hard to do reliably or to a high purity, and it's not very expensive to heat something up to a balmy -190C.

[@anonymous-q2b5s]

@zhentaa Ah that makes sense! But does that mean that after separation the stuff is kept at these temperatures for storage?

[@EagerSpace]

Yes. With liquid gases, some of the volume of the gas will vaporize and that requires heat and therefore carries heat away, so you end up with the same temperature until it has all vaporized away.

[@DrSomeGuy]

@@EagerSpace I'm not sure LNG would actually stratify? The constituents of LNG are short chain hydrocarbons so they are highly miscible. Any stratification that did occur would be mixed vertically during fueling and by convective currents in standby.

[@derekwood8184]

Thank you, liked it, whenever I see your videos I know I'm going to enjoy them. In general I'll agree with everything you said (I liked the cowthane maths) You missed one aspect where I think they could do some of their fuel from synthesized methane. As part of the reason for picking methane in the first place is to ISRU it on Mars, that means they'll want to be able to take a plant to mars, and operate it. Thus I expect they'll want a minimum of one plant back here on earth so they can get experience with the technology, even if they only fuel one ship a year with it, I'm guessing they'll do that as a side project and it clearly doesn't need to meet the primary demand.

[@EagerSpace]

I think that's probably true.

[@skepular]

Long wait for this one. Thanks for making these

[@EagerSpace]

I have a volunteer gig that takes 5 hours a day 6 days a week in early november, and then we had no power after a bomb cyclone in the seattle area the week before Thanksgiving, plus I had two days of ski instructor training. I'm a little less busy but still have a bunch of research to do on the next topic, so we'll see when the next one comes out... Oh, and I've heard there's some sort of holiday this month... Don't know much about it.

[@EcMcMuffin]

How do you only have so few subscribers? Your the This Old Tony of Spaceflight!

[@TheProky]

The giant CH4 storage facility in Browsville port could hold how much prop? The tanks are absolutely gigantic.

[@EagerSpace]

I'm going to assign that as homework... 1) Use google maps to measure the size of the tanks 2) Assume that they are spheres to calculate the volume 3) Assume that they are storing liquid methane only. Report back to class tomorrow what you find out...

[@mskiptr]

.

[@Quasarnova1]

12:48 I see you're looking forward to the launch this Friday.

[@keithrange4457]

I saw your question to Beff Jezos's Limp CEO "What customers want to do this?" (Regarding Blue Origin's Blue Ring. No reply of course, would love one

[@EagerSpace]

I did a video on space tugs, and I just don't get products like Blue Ring... Kick stages are a really useful thing, but beyond that I think they are a solution in search of a problem. I was pretty sure that there was no chance of a response so no surprise there.

[@KubaJurkowski]

@@EagerSpace it's just a marketing gimmick to get on the "reusable" hype train.

[@JoinTheNoob]

Nice one! ❤

[@EagerSpace]

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.

[@JoinTheNoob]

@EagerSpace I like all your videos! You have a different approach, you put what I believe to know to the test. I always learn a lot. Keep it up! I would love to contribute in some way. Unfortunately it's not possible at the moment. Maybe soon.

[@krypton13_56]

Oh my god I needed this video

[@WhatsleftofTom]

I’ve been wondering about this, thanks!

[@RetroNipponGames-eq1pf]

You could always use marine traffic and set up a barge dock somewhere near starbase. That would solve the truck problem and they could order the methane to specification

[@RetroNipponGames-eq1pf]

Okay I was assuming that you could use regular lpg barges but that doesn't seem to be possible. Although there is an lng bunker barge made by Crowley that holds 12000m3 so you would only need one barge every 2 days at that point. Maybe get something set up in the port of Brownsville and pipeline it in.

[@zeevtarantov]

Any chance Casey Handmer can lower the price of synthetic methane?

[@douginorlando6260]

I wonder if SpaceX will use LNG ship technology … either for transporting methane from a distant source to starbase & Canaveral (and shipping liquid oxygen), or the spherical LNG container technology on ships for huge efficient cryogenic liquid storage tanks at Starbase and Canaveral … or both.

[@EagerSpace]

Could make a lot of sense for liquid methane, because there are a bunch of suppliers already doing that and you could probably get pure liquid methane rather than LNG from some of them. It would make less sense for liquid oxygen as it's essentially just air + electricity, so you'd need a remote place with cheap enough electricity to make it cheaper than the shipping cost.

[@ThomasKwa]

Minor correction, propane/LOX mixture ratio should be 3.6. 5.0 is the mole ratio.

[@gustavinus]

SpaceX will eventually try the Sabatier process, since they plan on doing that in Mars.

[@imaginary_friend7300]

I agree!

[@imconsequetau5275]

I'm sure SpaceX has already run the Sabatier process at various scales to build up an in-house expertise.

[@TheHeavenman88]

I love this! very well put

[@douginorlando6260]

So $600k per launch for methane. How much per launch for Oxygen?

[@EagerSpace]

NASA was paying about $160/ton for liquid oxygen in 2001. 5000 tons is about $800K. It would very likely be cheaper in larger volumes.

[@PetesGuide]

Couple of nitpicks that will make your future videos better. 1) The thin dim red text on a black background is extremely hard to read, at least on a small iPhone screen. 2) I’m pretty sure you’re using a hyphen as the minus sign in your temperatures. a) its width is less than an actual minus (and a +) so it looks funny. b) its height is lower than the horizontal bar on the + symbol, so it also looks funny because of that. c) There’s an actual minus sign in Unicode that is the same width and height as the horizontal line in the + symbol. I forget what the code number is, but it’s easy to look up, and I’m 99% sure it is one of the characters listed in the article _The Trouble With Em ‘n En_ which I’m hoping you will find slightly unhinged. 3) From the same article, you should be using an En dash instead of a hyphen between a range of two numbers.

[@EagerSpace]

Thanks for all of those.

[@Combatant5]

It is worth adding, that you will need the liquid nitrogen produced by your air liquefier to keep your liquid oxygen cool for transport, if you are transporting it any distance. The liquid nitrogen boiling off over time during transport will keep the internal temperature of the liquid oxygen tank at the temperature of the liquid nitrogen's boiling point, reducing transportation losses. Not to mention that it would also be very easy for SpaceX to pay somebody to lay rail to a loading/unloading station to allow rail transportation of propellant as well. That would not only reduce traffic on the highway, it would also allow potentially greater transportation capacity than any amount of highway would allow.

[@EagerSpace]

The liquid nitrogen is important for that and went back and forth whether it belonged in the video, and I decided it didn't change any of my conclusions so it missed the cut. I hadn't thought about rail. It is a great way to carry bulk goods.

[@Combatant5]

@@EagerSpace Yeah, the LN2 will be very useful for propellant suppliers for that reason alone. I agree that it probably doesn't change much, though, because you'll still end up with a significant excess of it, given it's ~78% of your input anyway. Rail suffers from the same issues you're going to have with any kind of pipeline or new in-situ propellant production plant: it's an infrastructure project in the middle of a wetland preserve, and it's going to be a litigation magnet. Same thing with the concept of expanding the highway to the launch site. It's much more relevant whether or not the currently exigent infrastructure can support deliveries or not.

[@lanceanthony198]

SpaceX will need their own local production factory

[@reagank.2268]

2:44 Version, variant, and block! 😂

[@JKTCGMV13]

Are there any applications for liquid air? Prior to boiling off nitrogen etc

[@EagerSpace]

I looked and I didn't find any.

[@WHEREAMI42]

Are there road closures if you’re launching 4 starships a day??

[@imaginary_friend7300]

I guess that depends on where you're launching them from. Last I heard missions would fly from the cape, R&D from Boca.

[@koijoijoe]

Maybe you could use the extra liquid nitrogen the same way as you use the counter current heat exchanger system to help with the earlier part or the process

[@keithrange4457]

Whooo! Hooo! Love an Eager Space vid drop Tuesday!

[@MADSK_LLZ]

It's Wednesday lol

[@keithrange4457]

@MADSK_LLZ 🤣

[@Scrogan]

Could you please increase your audio volume? I don’t know if it’s just me, but I find myself turning your volume up, and then an ad comes along and splits my eardrums.

[@maverick9708]

Firstly, another fantastic video! second, if you feel inclined to entertain my silly questions, is the solution to stratification they used on the Titan II propellant still possible with modern propellants or is this lost, obsoleted, or irrelevant when it comes to modern workarounds to fuel stratification?

[@EagerSpace]

Okay.. I know that Titan II used a blend of fuels, but I don't know how they dealt with stratification.

[@oremooremo5075]

I'm curious what solution did they use on the Titan II

[@maverick9708]

@@oremooremo5075 they used a weird proprietary process to blend 2 liquids together into a mix called aerozene-50 or something. They aparently needed a balance between performance and storability for the ICBM silo I think they were hydrazine and unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine (UDMH) And the oxidized was nitrogen tetroxide

[@thearpox7873]

Having others do the manufacture and refining offsite, transporting the materials by pipe, then liquefying the things at Starbase is also an option.

[@mattheweasterling7558]

I think the synthetic methane cost will actually come down quite a bit. Terraform Industries synthesized methane for $2/kg earlier this year (2024). Excluding credits, this scales to $1,814/ton CH4. It's very likely that they get to something like $1/kg eventually, hard to say on what timescale. That pushes it to ~$900/ton of CH4. I highly recommend checking out their S3 episode!

[@SojournerArt]

Thanks for this video! ive always wanted to know why SpaceX wasn't working on making their own fuel plants, and the details on how that works

[@pseudo_goose]

21:15 your units don't make a lot of sense here - dollars per (4 launches per day). I assume you mean either dollars per 4 launches or dollars per launch?

[@pseudo_goose]

Or maybe you meant (dollars for 4 launches) per day

[@EagerSpace]

Dollars for 4 launches a day.

[@Vatsyayana87]

I thought a "#lane" highway means in each direction? This section of highway 4 only has one lane going either direction, is that what you mean by two lane in this case?

[@disorganizedorg]

My understanding is that it's the total number of travel lanes regardless of direction. A "one lane bridge" therefore requires divers to take turns as it can pass traffic only in a single direction at a time. I would not be surprised though if the usage varied regionally among non-civil-engineers.

[@calebmccoy4572]

Would the LNG plant being built next to star base help out with the methane?

[@donjones4719]

Do you mean from the old well, aka the Sanchez site, at the southern end of the Starbase property? He covered that. SpaceX dropped it because it would complicate the environmental approval for the site as a whole.

[@EagerSpace]

If you could get it built in a convenient place it would help out a ton. But the Boca Chica area is this weird hodge-podge of private land and public land that's a wildlife refuge so it's a hard problem to crack. Cape Canaveral and Kennedy had the huge advantage that they were built before there were environmental laws so they just filled in huge amounts of habitat.

[@vevenaneathna]

hydrgen is always easier on paper and hard/impossible in real life lol

[@GawainNYC]

Sorry grandma, we're taking you off oxygen so we can get to Mars. We will think of you often. 😢

[@snizami]

There are plenty of SpaceX fanatics who essentially think in these terms when they hyper-optomisticly and casually brush away the economic, ecological and climate related limitations on these dreams of space and Mars.

[@asandax6]

​@@snizami Because the goal is reaching Mars. What happens after is of no consequence. There are many people who would go in a one way trip to mars even if the food they brought would last them a few days on the Martian surface.

[@snizami]

@@asandax6 the economic, ecological and climate concerns exist HERE. So it matters.

[@djw7141]

You do realise that the liquid oxygen industry will grow with demand? When we need more buildings, we don’t stop building as many roads.

[@snizami]

@djw7141 Cathie Wood adjacent argument from when she argued crypto's horrific burden on energy supply spurs transition to renewable energy.

[@SALSN]

Isn't the 4 launch/day for when they would launch most of the rockets from Florida, making the highway capacity calculation irrelevant?

[@imaginary_friend7300]

My understanding is that they want to fly most missions from the cape, but perhaps not all.. For refueling flights it might make sense to use both.

[@imconsequetau5275]

Boca Chica is never going to relaunch 4 times per day. But as a manufacturer, it will launch finished products that land at other launch sites.

[@PetesGuide]

At 18:19 , things have changed this year. The NASASpaceflight video _changes are coming to spacex starbase_ from August 8th, 2024, starting at the 10-minute mark, covers the new published map that includes a big triangle next to the new launch pad labeled “air separation unit”.

[@EagerSpace]

There's a map in one of the environmental assessments that has that label but there is no mention in the text. Without explanatory text that describes what that is, the map doesn't mean anything.

[@Hungary_0987]

Yes! Give starship that galaxy gas!

[@danhomerick]

Now I'm curious what your handle is at Ars, and whether you're one of the regulars in the comments. If you're taking feedback on your videos, first let me say that I love them. You pick great topics, and I think your "from first principles" explanations work well. I'm not a fan of the tachyeon tablets thing, though (or the other fake products). They're not interesting enough to justify their screen time.

[@EagerSpace]

I'm not a regular in Ars comments, and I frankly don't remember what my handle is. I don't find the unthreaded comments model to be conducive to discussion.

[@notapplicable7292]

The fact we now talk about launches per day rather than days per launch is fairly exciting (Even though the reality of this flight rate is likely very far away)

[@snizami]

There's no reason to believe the trend line inevitably ends up at multiple launches per day. They haven't gotten anywhere close with a far less complex, smaller and partially reusable f9.

[@moEGGz]

I also paused at that part of Eric Berger’s article. I had a hunch that Spacex will ultimately just have a pipeline built to spacex with a refinery, and a local LOX plant built. I think it’s a quite scalable problem they can handle as they need to. That said I didn’t think cow burps and farts were an actual possible source and that is fantastic. And everytime I see how cheap the fuel is for a launch (or in the case of your video 4 per day) SpaceX’s goal of reducing price per ton to Mars seems within reach.

[@EagerSpace]

I think SpaceX is just going to find somebody who has done this thing for years and work with them to find the optimal solution. No reason for them to waste time on what is an already solved problem.

[@snizami]

It's fascinating how the question of climate change, fossil fuel usage or ecological concern barely ever enters into SpaceX discussions. I mean, do people even understand what getting to net0 means? Or that it has to happen within 30 or so years? Literally every single activity has to be fully renewable from mine to junkyard or beyond.

[@moEGGz]

@@snizami Methane is a renewable resource. I don’t think the guy who made an all electric car company has disregard for the environment, there’s ways to make space green and methane is by far the best option. We just need to dramatically increase electricity production with renewables and nuclear.

[@moEGGz]

@ To be clear, I agree with your conclusion that SpaceX doesn’t need to (and probably won’t) do this in house. Just that the industry will find ways to supply a rapidly growing customer with demand. Eric made it seem like a big barrier to entry but I assumed (and you seem to agree) that all of this can be scaled up as starship scales up. Other things will be the limiting factor on Starships progress than sourcing their propellants.

[@snizami]

@@moEGGz if you've been following musk's proclamation and activities, it's absolutely clear by now he niether understands nor worries about climate change. It's almost a coincidence that an electric car company is what he latched on to, so any virtue signaling he does with regards to it is just that. From his political activities, to his personal carbon footprint, to tesla's lack of source 2 transparency, Musk is a massive proponent of kicking the can down the road on the false promise that mere innovation and consumption will get us out of it. He treats it like a practically solved matter which the scientific community doesn't. Methane is absolutely NOT a renewable resource, especially not in practice. Practically all of it that's put to use comes from natural gas, and that'll continue to be the case going forward. SpaceX has no plans or efforts underway for running sabatier reactions or going carbon neutral. They barely even address ghgs and internal whistleblowers show Musk actively dismisses the suggestion to do more.

[@fakestory1753]

Will starship benefit from using ozone? Like "enhance" the liquid oxygen with some ozone? Pure or highly concentrated ozone is explosive, even low concentration can have random boil off and it would be trouble for piping. But what if we keep the concentration low like 1% or 0.1%?

[@imaginary_friend7300]

I can't see how, for all the trouble what does it bring to the table?

[@EagerSpace]

Nice discussion here: www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/1d8isv9/why_liquid_fuel_rockets_use_oxygen_instead_of/

[@JC-IV]

I was studying agricultural emissions in my environmental science class this week an and was learning about cattle emissions and other agricultural emissions. I also thought about using the methane for methalox engines. I’ll look into the experiment as tasked (after finals), but have a feeling perhaps there is a difference in turns of refinement of methane already trapped in the environment compared to directly from the producer (cattle/agriculture). A lot of the emissions are in the form of wastes from the cows, this needs to be processed and treated before being let back into the environment and I’m curious if at this stage there are any applications for methane capture in that process besides burning it off for energy generation.

[@EagerSpace]

Exactly, it's going to be *way* harder than I talk about and the vast majority of Texas cattle are on ranges... I only put it in there because it came up in some searches and I wanted to use the word "Cowthane".

[@davidelang]

> A lot of the emissions are in the form of wastes from the cows, this needs to be processed and treated before being let back into the environment That's going to depend on if the cattle are free range (like they mostly are in Texas), where the return to the environment happens naturally with no intervention, or if you have the cattle in concentrated feed lots.

[@EagerSpace]

Yes.

[@matsv201]

There is other ways of making synthetic methane a part from using electrolysis. One way would be to use therolysis and combined that of a sabatier process to convert hydrogen into methane, this could be done with a high temperature reactor (the three system have been tested out in separation, but never combined to one device). To my calculation this would make the price of methane (almost pure methane, but not compressed and not liquefied down to about $400/ton. A bonus of making it this way you get the oxygen pretty much 100% pure directly from the process. A typical high voltage line can carry 500 to 1000MW, but then again you get the same problem. The line already built, are already in use. Adding 300MW on top of a 1000MW line that is already existing is probobly very unviable. This is really a energy logistics problem. Transporting energy by road or ship is probobly more viable than via power grid. Then just adding that load on a grid that is really already pretty heavily loaded is probobly quite a bit complicated as well. Most aluminum smelting plats was built during a period when we where not shy in adding power production. You kind of sort of have the same problem with both the methane and the oxygen. They are both power logistics problem. If you use a coal power plant, you have to ship in more coal, for a gas power plant, well of cause there is already a gas pipeline near by, but that kind of suggest more gas would needed to be extracted (that may or may not be a problem). Hydro, Wind and solar is not really viable here. So that kind of leaves us with a nuclear plant. The thing is, it don´t need to be a nuclear electric plant, it may be a nuclear thermal plant

[@EagerSpace]

If you are doing thermolysis, what is your feedstock?

[@matsv201]

@@EagerSpace Water for the first steep, then anything organic (like alge, sewage waste, farm waste etc.) for the second step.

[@rje4242]

SpaceX is already working towards self-sufficiency in Boca Chica, and it makes sense to produce their own liquid oxygen and methane since they are going to need a lot of it. A lot has been said about the Sabatier process for producing Methane on Mars, apparently electrolysis currently in use in the ISS to generate oxygen. First, the Sabatier reaction: CO2 + 4H2 → CH4 + 2H2O Then, water electrolysis: 2H2O → 2H2 + O2 plus compressing and chilling the oxygen. Chilling it should be easier on Mars.

[@WHEREAMI42]

Can Airliquide set up a refinery or pipeline in starbase? Or could there be a spacex partnership to enable that? I could see spacex not wanting to manage this themselves, however the question is do they need expertise in refining methane and oxygen on mars? (I could imagine a partnership is the route to solve that too.)

[@EagerSpace]

You need a location, a permit, and enough electricity to run the process, but sure.

[@beefstew6512]

I dont think im going to support Teller's Tachyon Tablets after recent events

[@armandomercado2248]

Gives an idea of the scale of production needed to make fuel on Mars, only add water mining to the process.

[@imaginary_friend7300]

Water provides a lot of the base material, but it will take some doing. At least they will only need to fill a starship not a full stack on Mars. :)

[@rasimbot]

ChatGPT says liquid methane and ethane are fully miscible so do not stratify in a mix

[@phineasphogg2125]

It's about 3 miles from Boca Chica beach launch site to Starbase, and about another 3 miles to get to the inland side of the nature preserve. What do you think about spaceX building a second tank farm inland and running a 6 mile pipeline to the launch site? The Brownsville traffic congestion for 4 launches a day would be the same, but tankers to an inland tank farm would never have to stop for static fires, equipment transfers, or launches, and there would potentially be better turn-around options for quicker unloading. 6 miles of cryo pipeline, maybe $12-60M, plus duplicate storage tanks. I think they nixed the idea of a pipeline all the way back to Brownsville, but....

[@EagerSpace]

You'd have to be able to get the right-of-way to do that, and that might be hard to do. If you want to pipeline I think you'd probably want to bring propellants in by water and then build off-loading facilities.

[@jeffsmith5084]

Enjoyed the article and I'll be back, however a small inaccuracy: The Methane Ethane and Propane do not stratify in the LNG. They are a true solution and the mixture is homogenous. The scenario at 17:34 would not happen.

[@EagerSpace]

Thanks.

[@2150dalek]

I had to re-play this many times to get a somewhat rudimentary understanding......👀😵‍💫 I notice Tesla make solar panels...Perhaps they can build their own power source, too?

[@nedodo2380]

Why didn't you mention SpaceX's plans to build an ASU plant at Pad B?

[@EagerSpace]

Do they have current plans? Can you send me a link.

[@nedodo2380]

@@EagerSpace www.faa.gov/media/87646 Slide 17

[@RandomPerson-zl6uz]

Not much solid plans, but it was labelled in an environmental assessment diagram of Pad 2 a couple of months ago? Don’t have a link to the document but WAI covered it here kzbin.info/www/bejne/iYnUhnSunNh4bKM&pp=ygUaV2FpIHN0YXJzaGlwIG5ldyBsYXVuY2ggcGQ%3D

[@yeahok2470]

​@@EagerSpacewww.faa.gov/media/87646 page 9 has a map showing where it's planned to be built, but as far as I can tell it's not mentioned in the actual text of the document

[@nedodo2380]

@@EagerSpace www.faa.gov/media/87646 Slide 17

[@pewterhacker]

@17:58 That's not how it works, as methane will boil off first.

[@hawkdsl]

I've been making this observation for a few years now whenever the marketing term "Rapid Reusability" comes up with the fandom. There are allot of abilities associated with Starship right now that are obviously never going to happen. Seems allot of hopes and dreams are tied into this rocket, which that's Ok. Disappointment is part of growing up. Starship is a rocket designed to be a LEO barge. That's awesome, because we need that. We need a a rocket that can take the parts and fuel for a real inter-Solar system ship. In orbit, you can build anything you need, and it wont be constrained by having to lift off from the surface... or have the need to return to it. The single most important aspect of Starship right now is to fully understand what phase it's in... Which is Prototype. Starship has many years - YEARS - to go before it's a mature system that can do anything other then launch Starlinks. Shoehorning it as a moon lander aside.

[@imaginary_friend7300]

"There are allot of abilities associated with Starship right now that are obviously never going to happen" I find that an interesting statement. Can you cite any of these abilities in particular? As I see their ambitions for starship nothing seems impossible. Perhaps I have missed something.

[@hawkdsl]

@@imaginary_friend7300 Starship can't go anywhere without refueling. It doesn't have enough delta-v to return from anywhere. It'll only have enough life support on long trips for 12 people. Four launches of the current version would use the entire US supply of oxygen if flown from Boca in one day, etc, etc.. What it actually is, is a barge to LEO. Even though the marketing department has your undivided attention, the engineering department is aware of these things, and that is why Starship is getting bigger. Anyway, time will tell.

[@oljobo]

17:50 That explanation was upside down and absolutely wrong. Methane is the first to boil, and you are left with ethane and propane! (Or do I need to have my brain turned around(?))

[@EagerSpace]

No, you are correct.

[@mr.g937]

You glossed over the finding that you would need 26 oxygen plants, along with gigawatts of power generation, to meet daily launch needs. So sure, SpaceX *could* do this, in the same way that they could do anything. But is it feasible and practical? Doesn't really seem like it.

[@donjones4719]

He used the 26 plants as an example of what's available "off the shelf". The company that builds them can upscale them for a big enough customer. Yes, it'll take a very large amount of electricity.

[@zhentaa]

We spend a couple billion dollars a year on SLS with the goal of one launch per year. Merely a few billion dollars of infrastructure to support 1,460 launches per year seems extremely feasible and practical in comparison.

[@EagerSpace]

I used the Air Liquide design because it was already existing and had some performance factors - you could contact them today and they could build one or more of them for you - they have a design that already works. You'd probably get a bigger one designed if you actually needed 26 of them. It's a lot of power, but electric companies are used to big new users coming online. I think the bigger problems are probably electrical transmission and land, allow with permitting approval.

[@imaginary_friend7300]

Doesn't seem like that much more of an engineering project than building a bridge. It's all developed, no R&D time. Just time and money year after year like any other mega project.

[@interests3279]

Who /sfg/ here?

[@13deadghosts]

Ah yes, my favorite war criminal :P

[@EagerSpace]

That remains my favorite Dmitry Rogozin quote.

[@xymaryai8283]

trains trains trains trains i like trains, trains are cool, trains are fast, trains are powerful, trains are capable

[@rasimbot]

But they will have to get permission from many landowners to build the railway and pay them rent or buy that strip

[@djw7141]

Trains are the best we should build space trains

[@vinhluu2154]

There's the Gulf of Mexico to handle any expanded logistical needs.

[@rasimbot]

There can build an LNG terminal perhaps

[@ImaginaryFacepalm]

Very happy to see this crossover between space and gas sorption, my private passion and field of study respectively. There are pilot projects that capture CO2 from heavy industry exhaust gas using zeolites. Heavy industry has a lot of waste heat and often a dedicated power plant, which makes it easy to implement the sabatier process and make methane right there. Most of the research in this area is mainly driven by climate concerns, getting a push from the space industry with a clear use case is certainly welcome. All that considered I think getting the required amounts of LOX and liquid CH4 will not be as big of a problem as the article suggests. LOX needs upscaling, lCH4 will come naturally as climate tech + regulations get implemented

[@EagerSpace]

Always happy to hear from somebody who known more than I do... I do think there's a lot of opportunity for cogeneration, but I felt I was already pushing in terms of details for one of my videos. Do you think you liquify the methane there? Or do you ship it somewhere else for liquification?

[@davevann9795]

Set up a large local solar farm "nearby" along with a battery farm, to power a sabatier process methane plant, and power an oxygen and nitrogen plant. If the wildlife don't want to give up their land for the good of the planet, then maybe the solar farm could be in Mexico. Spacex could practice developing their sabatier equipment, which they will probably need for Mars, while also creating some or all of their own fuel in Texas.

[@michaelmicek]

I thought that powering the LOX production with Tesla solar panels was the plan, yes. (It seems to me that processes like this are near-ideal for solar power because you can just run them when the sun shines, no batteries required.) However, natural gas is so cheap right now that synthesizing more than experimental quantities seems unlikely.

[@snizami]

This will not happen. SpaceX and Musk don't care about the climate and the latter demonstrates outright ignorance on its nature and threat. Sabatier reactions require concentrated sources of co2 and take enormous amounts of energy which is why all plans are for fossil fuel or fossil fuel adjacent sources. All of these dreams will be fueled in a carbon positive manner.

[@imaginary_friend7300]

@@snizami Wow, you have the bitter dishonest hater thing going full bore don't you? You people are not the brightest either and of course NEVER shy away from lying. Then again you are desperate and at this point there is no worrying about a reputation. That boat sailed years ago.

[@csours]

KZbin channel "Signal Ditch" has a video titled "Building an Oxikit DIY Oxygen Concentrator" if anyone wants to see the molecular sieves in action

[@EagerSpace]

My mother had an illness that required constant oxygen, and the oxygen concentrators are really pretty impressive. You can get one that can do about 10 kg of oxygen per day for less than $500.

[@Mallchad]

Starship deifnatly creates to create its own liquid oxygen and liquid methane if it wants rapid reusability. it seems like a big huge bottleneck right now. Methane seems hard because you'd need a viable gas well and there just aren't that many around. You'd probably need a dedicated natural gas pipeline. Synthetic methane is also an option, they usually use carbon air capture (CO2), but I don't see why couldn't use coal as the carbon source, or really, coke. It's easy to convert it to CO2 by adding oxygen if need be. The cost may be expensive, but, maybe waiting on the pad is more expensive (burning up payroll time)

[@raifij6698]

Just use coal to produce energy and use that energy to capture the co2 and process it to methane

[@djw7141]

@@raifij6698then u need to mine coal and capturing co2 is hard

[@veedrac]

Willing to entertain four Starship launches per day but not cheap synthetic methane? Seems sus.

[@EagerSpace]

I went off price estimates from people who did studies of various methane sources. It's pretty clear that right now, nobody is doing synthetic methane.

[@fauzin3338]

​@@EagerSpaceCasey Handmer from the Terraform Industries is trying to make cheap synthetic methane of the Sabatier process, but I think it'll take a couple years before the tech is ready

[@snizami]

If SpaceX ever gets anywhere close to that cadence, it'll be fossil fueled. In fact, it's all ostensibly going to be fossil fueled regardless. SpaceX doesn't care about the climate.

[@imaginary_friend7300]

@@snizami That's little better than pure simpleton nonsense.

[@veedrac]

@@EagerSpace Sure, but right now nobody is flying 800 tons to orbit a day either. These will both change.

[@ericjorgensen6425]

It would be useful to look at the predictable costs of future energy. Solar is already cheaper than any other energy in texas, and has a learning curve that will significantly lower energy costs in the next decade.

[@EagerSpace]

Wind is a little cheaper right now, though the long term trends likely lean more towards solar.

[@NintroTV]

This video highlights the massive energy demands of scaling Starship's propellant supply, especially for liquid oxygen. The concept of LNG cold energy, as explored here (kzbin.info/www/bejne/q6LVYqukZ6mXmdk) , could be a game-changer. With 320 PJ of recoverable energy globally, it has the potential to support up to 70,000 launches. Integrating this resource into cryogenic production processes might be key to meeting Starship's ambitious flight rates efficiently

[@mskiptr]

TwiX lol Now I'm torn between calling it that or ex-Twitter.

[@EagerSpace]

Twitter was always a weird name though it has the advantage that you could actually get it. X happened just because Musk thought it was a good idea, and you can see what people in general thought of it.

[@PetesGuide]

@@EagerSpace I agree with your comment, though I have a hunch Musk has a grander scheme for the X in his branding that will eventually make it make sense. Just like how he wanted to name the Tesla models S, then E, then X, then Y. But Mercedes complained, and so he hat to LEET it into S3XY. (He’s on video saying this in case you think I’m pulling a fast one on you.) Maybe his next two apps will by Y and Z?

[@ThanosSustainable]

Synthetic methane will make perfect sense as soon as we have plenty of excess RES energy to spare. Which will be happening in a couple of years for sure.

[@PetesGuide]

I tried to bite my tongue on this comment, but it hurt so I stopped. Next time you include cowthane in a video, I hope you find a way to get a few more “bad cow puns” in. You could watch the music video for Dana Lyons’ _Cows With Guns_ for some inspiration.

[@EagerSpace]

So, you're saying I should milk it for all that it's worth if I want to butter you up?

[@PetesGuide]

@ keep churning!

[@ddew]

Like and subscribe OR more 'splodey rockets? That's a tough one, good thing I'm already subbed. 🤣