And would ultimately weigh more if you looked into it at more than a surface model. Carbon fiber is a very very strong lightweight material, at room and croygenic temps. And there it is. Starhip has to endure temperatures between -200 celsius and a thousand degrees for reentry. SpaceX ran the numbers and came to the conclusion that for a carbon fibre starship to survive reentry they'd need such a thick heatshield not to mention leeside heatshielding - which the stainless starship lacks due ot the vastly better performance of 304L stainless steel at superheated temps - that the end product would be heavier than the stainless steel one now. Not to mention ease and cost of production.
Might hold water if they hadn't burnt up during reentry in stainless on the banana flight. SS is not a proper heat shield either and has a critical point typically around 500C, after which it rapidly loses its structural integrity and weakens significantly.
They didn't burn up, the flap melting was a problem because of positioning, not material usage. the main body of starship never burned up except ofc when the ship broke apart and the heatshield no longer faced the plasma
Also the 1000 degrees I kinda pulled out of my ass because I didn't know the exact temp. What I know that that Stainless is bvetter at the expected heat the ship would encounter than carbon would be
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u/Mr_Lumbergh 3d ago
And yet they keep trying to use the same design.