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by dsfyu404ed 3061 days ago
That has nothing to do with titanium and everything to do with material expansion, the design/shape of the assembly and ambient vs operating temp.
1 comments

Cant reply directly to wand3r for some reason. Re his comment spacex could engineer something that wouldn't leak or need instant refuelling - I wouldn't be surprised if they could - but they have around 30 years of advancements to help them!
They could do it back then too.

If you dig past the internet comments and read some of the "primary source" books, the picture of the leaks is very different. I can't remember the exact book I read it in, but the author states there was a tank sealant, and it lasted around 50 hours (I think), before it needed to be replaced.

This is somewhat backed up by the Jenkins book [1] which talks about the time consuming process of replacing sealant, and the Graham book [0] that is the source for the Wikipedia claims on expansion. It talks of different sealants used, and how leaks were precisely noted and collected in _shallow_ drip trays.

[0] https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=dX5cCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA129&dq...

[1] https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=lEpWE748QUsC&q=sr71+seal...