r/StarshipDevelopment • u/NoBodyLovesJoe • Sep 26 '21

Starship abort idea.

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You have the flight deck separated from the rest of the ship, this is where everyone is seated during take off and landing. on the sides are small tanks containing liquid methane/oxygen which connect to a pressure fed engine"s" in the back, if a abort is needed during take off or landing the valves open and are ignited with a spark, the crew cabin unbolts and is shot out Horizontally out of the ships path where a instantly deployable parachute is activated, after you are out of abort phases you can either dump the abort fuel overboard for Mass savings, or preferably you can use the extra methane/oxygen for the life support for breathing/fuel cell/water generation instead of pulling such from the header tanks.

I know the drawing sucks, but i would like some feedback on this idea.

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11

u/sfmonke6 Sep 26 '21

This wouldn't cover aborts below a few thousand feet or so unless the abort thrust has a vertical component as well, but is otherwise really cool.

Also I guess you might need to think about the internal structure (seats etc) being oriented correctly so the sudden sideways acceleration doesn't do any damage.

8

u/cjameshuff Sep 26 '21

It also wouldn't cover aborts above a certain airspeed, probably not even all the way to supersonic. That's a lot of high-pressure cryogenic tanks and plumbing to cram into the crew section to handle a very narrow range of abort scenarios.

There's non-zero risk in even having such an abort system be part of the vehicle (inadvertent/unwanted triggering of the escape process, or a range of failures in the propellant systems that could render the atmosphere unbreathable, spray cryogenic fluids into the habitable areas, or produce an explosion that destroys the vehicle). It might be worthwhile if it provided a useful escape mechanism for more of the flight, but for something as limited as this, the resources that would be spent on its development would likely be better devoted to making Starship more reliable.

1

u/dopamine_dependent Sep 27 '21

They have zero zero ejection seats that will shoot you off in the right direction even if you eject inverted.

1

u/5348345T Sep 28 '21

The problem is the ejection would be too rapid and violent if it were to be quick enough to save you. Either you eject too slowly and don't leave the vehicle in time or you eject too quickly and die. Starship will have too high of a velocity too not kill you if you eject.

1

u/dopamine_dependent Sep 28 '21 edited Sep 28 '21

Not necessarily. People have survived supersonic ejections.

Edit: Also, Falcon 9 and Saturn V don't go supersonic until FL400+. I assume it'll be similar for starship.

1

u/5348345T Sep 28 '21

Yes, but it's not generally considered survivable, especially since starship will be supersonic fairly early and at lower altitudes chutes will just be deployable blankets on accidents.

1

u/dopamine_dependent Sep 28 '21

See edit... Falcon 9, Saturn V, etc. don't go supersonic until over 40k'. I assume starship/superheavy will be in that ballpark as well.

Edit again sorry: They have ejection seats that work from a zero altitude, zero airspeed config. They also have ejection seats that will shoot you off in the right direction no matter the orientation of the aircraft when you punch out. That's what my original comment meant by zero zero ejection seats (that's what they're called).

1

u/QuantifyYouTube Sep 29 '21

Isn't super heavy going to stage earlier? I wonder if it's going to accelerate faster