Engineering considerations for Space X’s quest to turn oil rigs into floating spaceports

With the race to commercialize space underway, engineers at Space X are looking to the ocean for the landing and take-offs of their massive new Starship vessel. Using the same technology the oil and gas industry pioneered for a different application, floating spaceports can keep their operations safe from population centers. 

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1272972228326379520?s=20

In this episode, I detail the engineering considerations to renovate a drilling rig for space applications. Tune in below! 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Omar (00:31):

We're going to talk about something that I was asked on an ask me anything on Reddit, which is about the transformation of oil and gas platforms into space platforms. Now, this might be a little bit niche for you today, but why is this relevant one? It's all about project management. I mean, building these offshore oil platforms are huge project management projects and they can cost billions of dollars easily. Some of the ones I've worked on have been in the tens of billions of dollars. And the other portion is this is where the future's going guys. So I like to talk about things and technology space is becoming a commercialized industry, and this may just be the future of what we see with some of this industry, as far as the oil and gas existing assets. So let's just dive into this. And the first thing I'd like to do is just bring up. What's already out in what's available in the news.

Omar (01:25):

If you want to look around. So space X has purchased two vessels, and honestly I had to double check this stuff and you can look it up. I'm on NASA space, If you search space X rig Starship, spaceports they have a facility out in Brownsville, Texas, which is right at the border of Mexico in the United States. It's actually living in Houston for a little bit. It's knowing where that's at. I mean, it's literally like right across the Rio Grande, but they built a facility out there and they're doing a lot of testing out there for space X. And what they did is they purchased these two oil and gas platforms. And I'm looking at some of the pictures right now, they're called Phobos and demos. And they're named after the two moons of Mars, but these are pretty large drilling rigs. And that's what they look like.

Omar (02:17):

I'll let you know why. I think it's a drilling rig. Number one, it has a pretty large stack, which is probably where they have the risers for drilling and being able to kind of do the drilling operations. They've also got a living quarters. It has a Hilo pad, which most offshore platforms, especially drilling rigs would have that. It's got definitely some top sides, but I don't see too much processing on it. It looks more like energy production for the energy required for the facilities and then probably simplified processing just to kind of hold whatever, whatever they're trying to work on there. But I don't see too much process operations. I do see quite a bit of a living quarters. They're a control room, definitely the drilling rig itself. And then it looks like what would be a production facility to do some of that drilling rig work activity on the platform.

Omar (03:07):

So this is a pretty large platform. I don't have this full specs on this because I don't know if I can even find that, but let me just talk about why this is so relevant because they bought this at a crazy price. I'm reading here. I don't know if this is accurate, but $5 million or less for each one, like 2.5 million. Let me see here. If I can find it online, $3.5 million each to space X. So they bought two. So they're spending $7 million. Can I just please say that that price is ridiculously low? I am blown away that they were able to get something like this for that price. I mean, they bought it at a time. I think when the industry was definitely getting hit pretty hard. So they're, you know, looking at these things are expensive to run the day rate to rent. One of these drill ships out is super expensive because of the crew because of the energy use everything.

Omar (03:57):

So if you don't have any production, they're pretty expensive to just have them floating around or waiting for work, but still $3.5 million. I don't know. That's a hell of a deal that they got, but to do the retrofit on this, let's talk about this from an engineering standpoint, there's a couple of things. One is all rigs platforms like this they're really made up of a couple of key components. One of them is called the top sides and that's everything that's above a waterline really it's above the hole, which is the floating structure that gives you the buoyancy. And it's kind of just like you would have a hole on a boat. You have the hole first, and then you put the top size on top of that. You similar with a platform as you have your whole, and then your top sides. So you definitely want to be modifying your top sides because that's going to need to land a spaceship.

Omar (04:44):

And they're using this to land their new spaceships. The hole itself is what sticks into the water. And then it comes up and rises. That actually is probably not going to need much modifications. The reason is yes, you're going to have a really heavy piece of equipment sitting there and a lot of thrusts that need to be designed for. But when you're doing these oil rig platforms, there's a lot of weight that's coming in on top with equipment. And also if they're doing anything, when they're doing installations to the sea floor, sometimes they're able to, depending on what they're working with, maybe have some anchors tethered to the sea floor. You need to be able to take that weight. So the thrust issues, I don't see that being an issue. I bet you, that's why they've selected this design. So I don't see too much modifications being needed on the hole itself.

Omar (05:30):

I think you probably going to be okay there where you're definitely going to see the bulk of that is going to be around the top sides. Whereas you're going to have your fabrication facilities, your living quarters, your control room outside of that, you may have some process equipment on the top sides. You're going to have your living quarters, which I mentioned. And then you have your Hilo pad. I don't know how they plan on having people come out to shore on this. There's two options. You can obviously do a boat that becomes a little tricky when the weather's not great. And I mean weather, I mean the waves are a little high. It can be a little dangerous to get out there on a boat and try and make that offload. Sometimes that's typically you want to try and avoid that. You can have things like such as floating or, or cantilevered bridges, almost that you can connect with a larger vessel to the platform and you can do those things, but there's still some security risk or some safety risks there.

Omar (06:19):

So people tend to try and avoid that. But that's definitely one way. It's probably the cheaper way to do that. You could have issues with seasickness. The other way is Hilo pad. And depending on how far out this has to be, this makes a lot more sense. The further out you have to go because in the boat ride becomes pretty long and then you probably just want to use a helicopter to get out there. So once you're about a hundred miles out, helicopter is probably going to be the better way. They've already got a huge network in that area, especially if it's going to be off Brownsville or off the coast of the US and the Gulf. There's a network of helicopter operators that can take you out there and they're super secure, and that's what they do. So that would be perfect for launching astronauts or whoever out on these things or for commercial flying people.

Omar (07:02):

So those are the main areas on the Hilo pad. They're definitely going to have to do something rhinos and maybe potentially keeping that I don't know, depends what space X wants to do with it. The rig itself, that structure seems to be right in a position where you're going to have to have an elevator or some sort of elevated way to get up to that Starship or how you get onto it. So they may use that and piggyback off that struggle. Sure. And just build out either some sort of elevation system on there, or use that support to build out the connection to the space flight. When it's ready for liftoff, you definitely need to build a landing platform. If you've seen space, X is drone ship, I have a feeling they're probably going to want to do something similar with that, and they'll have to do that on the top side.

Omar (07:47):

So that's why a lot of that reworks going to be on the top size portion, the living quarters themselves they're typically designed and in a way that they try and you try and reduce your risk and your exposure. So you're going to design your living quarters to try and prevent an oil rig. You're your biggest risk is going to be right where your drilling rig is. And this one looks like it's located by the Hilo pad. So you're going to put your living quarters on the, on the side or trying to away from that, because if there's an explosion there, you want to protect all your people. In this case, you may want to relocate the living quarters away from the top sides, or maybe just off of it, because you're going to have a whole landing structure. If this ship is going to be, I don't know what their plans are, right?

Omar (08:30):

This is all kind of assumptions. But if they're taking off from here and then coming back and landing on this, you may not want to have your living quarters exposed to where it lands incorrectly and blows up on top of the landing pad. You can have an issue. So I could see the living quarters being redesigned and maybe move to a safer location underneath the top sides or more secure to where it's got a barrier or a blast proof barrier. Other than that, I mean, I know how they bought this for 3.5 million, but I would think in the order of a hundred million dollars in modifications and renovations, just based on the project scope. Now, the thing that's going to make this less expensive is that you can do all of this at a dry dock. You're going to bring this thing in. You're gonna bring it to digest.

Omar (09:11):

They are using one in Pascagoula, Mississippi, and they've already completed these repairs or are, think they're in progress. So from a manufacturing capability, there's a lot of yards right now that need work. I don't see this being too much of an issue for fabrication. It's more just getting it out there, getting it done. I'm really curious to see how this thing looks when it's complete. And I'd love to see kind of the insides, how they plan the living quarters. What do they do? What other safety items they use, the big risks are going to be this huge spaceship that's taking off from your platform. And what if it, God forbid it blows up on the platform. How do you design it in a way that protects all the people on the platform itself? And now I will say that these oil rigs are already designed with this in mind.

Omar (09:54):

So class one, div twos, that's all going to be there, your electrical classifications, all your process like that will be designed in order to prevent any incidents with unintentional sparking, or if you had an explosion. So the material should be pretty sound. It's going to just making sure the design works and running it through all its safety processes and standards. So for those of you that aren't interested in engineering, that was probably a long explanation of what's going on with this refurb of this rocket. But I think it's super neat. I mean, to think that oil and gas platform is something I did for quite a bit of time are going to now become launch pads for the next evolution of spacecraft in this country is incredible. And honestly, it's a great thing to, I mean, for people that have the experience and oil and gas platforms, the engineering will be extremely similar. I mean, you're doing the same type of engineering, just in a different application. That's all I got for today. Guys, if you have any questions for me, you can always email podcast@theomarproject.com. Love to get your questions, get you on the show. If you know somebody who is super interesting in the engineering field, that's a project manager or project director

Omar (11:01):

Or above. I would like to talk to them on this show, send an email to podcast@theomarproject.com. You'll fill out a quick application and if I select you, you can be on the show.

Omar (11:14):

Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you'd like to hear more, you can join us@theomarproject.com. That's O M a R. We have a lot more information on project management, technical skills on the leadership. And also you can hear from more of the top experts in the field.