• marine_mustang@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    The original idea, as I understand it, was that it would be made of the same stainless alloy that SpaceX was developing for Starship. This steel was too hard to form using stamping, as the tools used would wear down much faster. So, they had to limit themselves to bending the sheet metal with a press brake, which really can’t do compound curves, hence the need for straight lines. Whether any of this was ever the real reason I have no idea, but one tidbit is that for Starship, they were using 304L (same mixture as some of my pans) and may never have switched to their own alloy. So, the design may at one point have been necessary for practical considerations, but that may have been mooted without bothering to change the design.