S8 Ep662: 4. Innovating for Power and Precision at Sea To increase rocket efficiency, Musk pushed for propellant densification, chilling liquid oxygen to nearly -300°F to fit 10-12% more mass on board. This segment also explores the "Falcon 9 full thrust" version,
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
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🗓️ 30 March 2026
⏱️ 6 minutes
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Summary
4. Innovating for Power and Precision at Sea To increase rocket efficiency, Musk pushed for propellant densification, chilling liquid oxygen to nearly -300°F to fit 10-12% more mass on board. This segment also explores the "Falcon 9 full thrust" version, which was rebuilt for rapid reuse with upgraded avionics and landing legs. A major challenge involved landing boosters on moving barges in the ocean, an aerodynamic feat likened to nine Dixie cups falling from space. These innovations were essential for making spaceflight economically viable by refurbishing and flying rockets multiple times. (4)
1897 WAR OF THE WORLDS
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is CBSI on the world. I'm John Batchel with Eric Berger, a senior spacewriter for Ars Technica. |
| 0:08.7 | I recommend following the reporting very carefully because SpaceX rolls on. However, right now we're getting to where we are with the book reentry that Eric publishes to help us understand after Falcon won success in the Pacific, |
| 0:23.2 | after Elon Musk becomes a success with Tesla. |
| 0:27.1 | SpaceX is punching way above its weight. |
| 0:31.5 | However, it knows in order to win, to get to Mars. |
| 0:35.6 | That's the idea here, not to get to the low Earth orbit, not even to get to the moon, to get to Mars with That's the idea here, not to get to low Earth orbit, not even to get to the |
| 0:39.0 | moon, to get to Mars with colony, a million tons. It needs power. And one of the ways you get power |
| 0:45.7 | in a space engine is something called densification. What is that, Eric? Well, densification is the |
| 0:52.9 | idea that you take your liquid oxygen, which is |
| 0:54.8 | you're already, you know, so liquid oxygen is oxidizer, right? To make a fire, you need oxygen. |
| 0:59.3 | And so as part of a rocket engine combustion, you need oxygen. And long ago, you know, it was |
| 1:05.3 | realized that if you could take oxygen and cool it down to be a liquid, it would be much more efficient because you'd get much more bang for your buck in terms of the amount of oxidizer you could put on your rocket in terms of mass and volume. |
| 1:17.6 | What Elon wanted to do, and really this was his vision, he was driving this forward against the recommendations of almost everyone in the industry was to take that |
| 1:27.8 | liquid oxygen and chill it further and so we're talking about you know almost minus |
| 1:33.9 | three hundred degrees Fahrenheit and if you chilled it further you could actually |
| 1:38.9 | make it more dense so you could put 10 to 12 percent more liquid oxygen, densified liquid oxygen on the |
| 1:47.0 | rocket than you could like a traditional rocket. Now, 10 or 12 percent may not sound like much, |
| 1:52.0 | but that makes a big difference in terms of the efficiency of your rocket and the payload |
| 1:56.3 | it can get to, because you're shaving, you know, thousands or tons, literally tons of mass |
| 2:03.8 | off the propellant side that you can then put into payload into orbit. And so, you know, |
| 2:10.5 | no one had really tried to do this densification. NASA had looked at it several times in the |
| 2:14.8 | past and rejected it as being too impractical or unsafe. |
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