Hacker News Reader

Comment by Cu3PO42 | Hacker News Reader

u/RGVaerial on r/SpaceXLounge has overlayed these plans onto an aerial photo [1]. It looks a lot smaller than one might expect.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXLounge/comments/lzf9z7/propos...

View on HN

If you add the massive Starship+SuperHeavy in for scale, it looks even smaller.

https://twitter.com/Caspar_Stanley/status/136834862870895001...

It looks like those cylinders are representing the launch towers, a few meters taller than the stacked Starship sitting on the launch mount.

Hmm can they stack and fuel and launch multiple in parallel if the pads are so close?

I think everything is a backup with the possible exception of the landing pads. You may need to land the Starship before the booster has been cleared from the other landing pad. In fact, the second landing pad is one of the new items in this iteration.

Basically, I think they want to keep up the testing cadence without having to delay things due to maintenance. They say in one of the applications that there will be no more than about 10-12 orbital launches from Boca Chica per year.

I would say no, but I also was very skeptical about them launching and landing SN9 with SN10 just a stone's throw away, so what do I know.

At Kennedy Space Center, LC39A and LC39B are about 3 km (2 miles) apart. So if one Saturn V blew up, the other pad wouldn't be destroyed. I don't know what would happen if another one was on the pad.

To me it looks like the pads are only a few hundred meters apart. It seems like an explosion on one pad could easily damage a rocket on another one.

So I don't think this can be a high flight rate facility.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com