Rocket Girls and the reality

Thanks to their policy of unprecentented openness, the today's update at SpaceX contains a few interesting pictures, which really bring up memories of adventures with Yukari Morita.

First up, the hypersonic flow:


SSA Mangosteen


SpaceX Dragon

Colors are not directly comparable. In case of Mangosteen, the temperature is shown (presumably), but it's a "pressure coefficient" for Dragon.

Next, the heat shield:


SSA Mangosteen


SpaceX Dragon

One thing which may be difficult to appreciate is just how big the Dragon is when compared to Mangosteen, not to mention Tanpopo. The base diameter of Mangosteen is 2.1m, but Dragon is 3.6m wide. Mangosteen tips the scales at 1880kg, but Dragon pulls almost 9 tonnes, of which the hypergolic propellants alone take 1200kg. The tiny tiles in Mangosteen's heat shield are 4 to 6 times smaller than those of the Dragon.

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