WIP: "Stokeship" Huh. Some basics for as shown: - OD: 14m - Starlink-2's: ~15x - engines: 60x 0.5m-dia "Raptettes" - fuel volume: ~1400 tonnes - "chopstick compatible": YES! 60x Raptettes = same "nozzle area" as 9x Raptor-SL's, or just 2x Raptor-Vac's. A little more: 🧵 1/5

@Devintcotter @BellikOzan Certainly makes sense.

@borgrobotic @USPS Speak for yourself. I want one of these BAD.

Any wiz kids out there who feel like sharpening your pencils and mashing-up - Crew Dragon - RL-10/BE-3 - Starship-lifted LH2 & LOX at LEO & LLO ...into believable Lunar Commercial Crew and Cargo services, hit it! You'll have my admiration and appreciation. #ArtemisBankruptcy

@NoLifeJordan69 I don't know anything special, but SpaceX has cooked up all this amazing infrastructure (Dragon, Starship, LEO tanking), but not invested in LH2/LOX. And fine! It's fine. But we also have RL-10 and BE-3, and mashed-up, we could end up with a SWEET hot rod for moon tricks.

@NoRiskNoParty Be careful and make sure that your clients really CAN register it and drive it locally. Maybe ALL states are impossible, or maybe SOME are.

@Xaraphim Kickass, young sire.

@KiwiThinker N+4: "Star-o-Scope" This is essentially a super-sized Hubble telescope, with a gigantic and heavy glass parabolic mirror system (low tech and heavy, but freaking perfect and "easy" to make on earth).

@KiwiThinker N+3: "Starstage" This is just a 2nd stage that's made to throw away, either after launch or after refilling in LEO and a single use after that. Nothing fancy, but useful for some things.

@KiwiThinker N+1A: "Tugboat Starship, Nuclear" Similar to Tugboat Starship, this has a nuclear machine of some kind to do its pushing work, probably pointed out the top through a gigantic custom nozzle. The fairing falls off during launch.

@KiwiThinker N+2: "Moon Truck" This is does nothing but pick up loot in lunar orbit from a more typical Starship, take it down to the surface, and then return to lunar orbit. This never hits an atmosphere, so it can have no TPS and be as goofy looking as it wants to.

@KiwiThinker N+1: "Tugboat Starship" Like a fuel depot, but with a "pusher" mechanism on the front that lets it get behind another Starship and give it an initial boost, like toward the outer planets.

@Xaraphim Tell me more about this "FIRST robotics" thing, please. What's that?

@Robotbeat There are young guys out there, good with computers, who are semi-moving to other COUNTRIES for an affordable place to live and do their "laptop work" from. The more I look at this fact, the crazier I feel.

@Robotbeat Our buddy Scott Adams has been on this for years now, that our problems aren't about money, really, but about costs. And there's a lot to that, of course, some real "coup complete" type stuff, but maybe the iron is hot enough now.

@elonmusk An even safer Wikileaks, please. Somehow!

@heskelbalas If you're a "real" machine shop person, and not just a pontificating dilettante like your buddy here, can you comment further on this? How "full robo" can and should a machining center be? (And is Hadrian Manufacturing attacking this subject well?)