[Ericson2314]

Guess solar isn't so good at industrial scale, eh?

They should go build some fission reactors instead.

[Jweb_Guru]

Yeah wow you sure showed those people trying to power rockets with solar power.

[dragontamer]

The FAA document is pretty clear on this subject.

SpaceX is building a 1MW solar plant and a 250MW natural gas plant. See the document in question: https://www.faa.gov/space/stakeholder_engagement/spacex_star...

Just Ctrl-F on "250 MW", to find page 130/131, which discusses the 1MW solar + 250MW natural gas plan.

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As such, we know how they're planning on powering the rocket. With traditional natural gas methodologies: a 250MW natural gas power plant, as well as this liquid-natural-gas processing plant.

[Ericson2314]

Oh thought they were burning the gas for more base electricity.

This does make sense, but it is odd that the existing gas market is not sufficient.

[dragontamer]

> This does make sense, but it is odd that the existing gas market is not sufficient.

Its not very clear why the PEA is setup in this manner at all. We know that SpaceX wouldn't ask for something from the regulators unless they had a plan for it, but that's about it.

I think it would have been reasonable to just pipe 99.9% pure methane from some other producer (it is Texas after all, surely there's a supplier out there willing to sell a bunch of methane to SpaceX??).

What's absurd is that the PEA calculations seem to be calculated from the standpoint of a raw-mining operation, and not pre-treated methane. This implies that SpaceX is planning on purifying its own methane, instead of buying it up from a large market that already exists in the area.

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I'm sure rocket fuel needs more treatment steps than commodity natural gas. But starting from commodity natural gas probably would have been easier, rather than starting from a well?

[MayeulC]

I mean you can produce methane trough CO2 capture and a lot of solar power. That's basically what musk said was the goal on mars, so they could develop that tech as well.

Or space-based solar. If anyone has the capability, it's spacex.

[Jweb_Guru]

Musk says a lot of dumb things. I'm about as far as a Musk fan as you can be. But acting like rockets are going to be powered by clean energy in the foreseeable future is just wishful thinking.

[rpmisms]

> But acting like rockets are going to be powered by clean energy in the foreseeable future is just wishful thinking.

So were practical electric cars 20 years ago.

[nsonha]

it was already practical? The 20 years was just for the economics to work it out.

If you want to make that comparison watch how long commercial clean energy air travel will take. Then we can make prediction about rockets, which, mind you, escape freaking Earth's gravity

[roywiggins]

Given how much Musk gets compared to Iron Man, you'd think he'd spend some time working on fusion to build his own Arc Reactor.

[roywiggins]

to be clear, I'm not even against this. it seems like the sort of thing he might take a crack at, and it would be substantially more useful than car tunnels to nowhere