Elon Musk's recent presentation alluded to the quick turn around and
multiple launches per day, likely from offshore platforms because
launching from ground would create a lot of noise for local residents.

So they'll have fancy cryo transfer system for LOX and Methane tank
farms to rapidly fill up the ships' tanks. But how will they refill
that tank farm at a rate that matches launch rate?

This past week there was video of a small tanker truck delivering
methane to Boca Chica. How many of these per launch will be needed,
especially for launches whose purpose is to carry fuel to refuel
orbiting ship?

And once launches move to offshore platforms so they can have high
frequency without noise annoying local residents, how would they bring
such large quantities of methane and LOX to the launch platform?

Or does "iterative design" mean they haven't gotten to thinking about
that aspect yet ?

JF Mezei was thinking very hard :

> This past week there was video of a small tanker truck delivering
> methane to Boca Chica. How many of these per launch will be needed,
> especially for launches whose purpose is to carry fuel to refuel
> orbiting ship?

Lots. A static fire is likely to require somewhere between 4 and 12
truckloads. You can easily estimate how much is in a truck by using
it's length and radius, and ditto estimate a full tank on a booster and
a ship, although I think the nominal capacities are on various
websites.

Also, you can go through the daily footages and count the trucks so
far. The methane tankers deliver on the landing field (the two white
horizontal tanks are in play; the 9M tanks may get repurposed). The
LOX and LN2 deliveries are by the tank farm pipe works.

> And once launches move to offshore platforms so they can have high
> frequency without noise annoying local residents, how would they bring
> such large quantities of methane and LOX to the launch platform?

LOX is easy on the open sea; methane slighlty harder, but since SpaceX
is going to making methane on Mars (Sabatier process?) it wouldn't be
surprising for them to practice it here on Earth.

I would expect the fuel platform to combine solar, wind, and tidal
power sources to run the processes.

Meanwhile, do you know how LCH4 is transported on the sea now? Super
tankers. I'm sure that SpaceX could arrange to have some deliveries
made by the guys that pull up to the dock in LA and other ports.

But I would expect a heck of a lot of launches to be from Kennedy in
preference to the offshore platforms, and Kennedy will almost certainly
be ready first.

/dps

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