Civilization of Packages Buys Old Soviet Rocket Engines

Pravda ^ | April 2, 2010 | Sergey Balmasov

[bogusname]

“The West, particularly the USA, is a civilization of packages. They can give a very good visual presentation of things, but the package does not imply good quality of products. US space products often lagged behind Soviet products especially in the space industry. In the USSR the situation was different. The quality of packaging was poor, but the quality of products was superb,” Mr. Sivkov said.

[SIDENET]

[trickyricky]

Isn’t that the spacecraft from the Old Negro Space program?

[SIDENET]

Sure is!

LOL.

[SIDENET]

"It was a different time, you understand."

Wallace "Suitcase" Jefferson

[a fool in paradise]

Two headed dog. Two headed dog. I've been working for the Kremlin on a two headed dog. - Roky Erickson

[kosciusko51]

In some ways, this is old news. Aerojet had previously taken possession of several NK-33s in the late '90s (I know - I saw them with my own eyes), with the possibility of making more under license.

In fact, these engines are being used in Orbital Science Corp's Taurus II launch vehicle.

[GraceG]

Yeah and the N-1 rocket was just so much better than the Saturn V.

/sarc

[kosciusko51]

The Saturn V was better packaged. /sarc

[Leo Carpathian]

You should see the sovietsky pay phones. Marvels of engineering, limit one per city.

[tx_eggman]

Soyuz 9, also known as Deep Sh!t 9 ... better packaging indeed.

[JOAT]

The sad truth is that we can no longer produce a Saturn V engine.

That's why we're buying commie workhorses. They're much cheaper to simply buy than to attempt to re-tool to make our own.

That and the Commies actually make a good product, even if it is not very sophisticated.

[kosciusko51]

You are right about the Saturn V, and relatively low cost of the NK-33.

However, the NK-33 has some interesting features to it, which makes it a good engine. They have the highest thrust to weight ratio of any LOX/RP-1 engine. They can burn Oxygen-rich, whereas US engines burn fuel rich. IIRC, they can also be throttled to 50% of their thrust, and this feature was to be use for a re-usable launch vehicle.

[GladesGuru]

“In the USSR the situation was different. The quality of packaging was poor, but the quality of products was superb,” Mr. Sivkov said. “

Is that why members of the USSR Nomenklatura avoided flying on Aeroflot in favor of Western airliners?

Just wonderin’.

[OCC]

Why would you make up a monkey which you already have in a cage?

Is that a Russian version of the bird in hand thingy?