Elon Musk Explains Why He's Building 'Starship' Out of Stainless Steel

Long-time Slashdot reader darkwing_bmf writes: In an exclusive interview with Popular Mechanics, SpaceX founder Elon Musk explains why stainless steel is the best material to build rocket ships, beating carbon fiber in cost, durability and even weight.

'As far as we know, this marks the first time the material has been used in spacecraft construction since some early, ill-fated attempts during the Atlas program in the late 1950s,' reports Popular Mechanics.

'It took me quite a bit of effort to convince the team to go in this direction...' Musk tells them. But among the other benefits 'It has a high melting point. Much higher than aluminum, and although carbon fiber doesn't melt, the resin gets destroyed at a certain temperature... But steel, you can do 1500, 1600 degrees Fahrenheit.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.