This never gets old
- Thread starter glhs837
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Grumpy
Well-Known Member
Was that an electric crane?
glhs837
Power with Control
Yes, sort of. Those arms, referred to as chopsticks, are raised and lowered using what's called a drawworks. They also plan to catch returning ships with them. Hence the drawworks. That tech is from oil rigs, where they are used to keep a constant tension on the drill pipe as it and the rig move relative to each other.
About two minutes in this render shows the catch plan....
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Sneakers
Just sneakin' around....
Good thing this guy makes his own batteries...
glhs837
Power with Control
Fun fact, the flaps on Starship and the grid fins on Superheavy are powered by Model S batteries and moved by Model S drive motors
Sneakers
Just sneakin' around....
No idea if it has any validity, but I saw a vid that the CyberTruck was actually developed for off-world use.
glhs837
Power with Control
So more pics and one drawing
The arms can more independently to open or close horizontally like chopsticks, and also also pivot together to translate the lifted rocket over to the mount in the case of the booster or onto the top of the booster in the case of Starships themselves. The lift points in each case are not much bigger than a fist. Booster is a simple downward facing roller pin that sits in tracks, while Starships have a sort of ball and socket arrangement since reentry from orbit doesn't like protrusion. the lift points on each arm cam move in and out on each arm to rotate the lifted rocket about its vertical axis.
The whole point, in addition to catching the rockets, was to do away with transporters like Kennedy, since those are very slow, and do away with overhead cranes that require a lot of hands on rigging time.
The arms ride up and down on those wraparound sections that are lifted and lowered on rails on the tower by the drawworks motor, the last pic. That was salvaged from one of the offshore drilling rigs they bought.
glhs837
Power with Control
Well, its methalox, which is the cleanest after hydrogen. But no rocket can be zero emissions
But that's worth the price to get humans off this one rock. 
How much do rockets pollute?
Some might find it ironic that an organization like NASA, who studies our atmosphere, is ok with rockets polluting it so much. Or isn’t it weird that Elon Musk, the same person who is pushing sustainable energy with Tesla also has a rocket company that runs on fossil fuels? So today we are going...
everydayastronaut.com
