Posted on 04/21/2016 12:22:55 PM PDT by Kaslin
At least NASA has Muslim outreach.
Excellent article.
Retired after 45 years in aerospace and considerable experience with the RD180’s.
NASA quote from the 60’s:
“There are no rewards for on-time failures!”
I printed that sign many times, but never posted due to potential bad reactions from the customer.
Yeah thanks to that arrogant pos occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Obviously the author has not studied enough economics.
Apparently the author of this article isn’t aware of SpaceX.
Humans are currently only flying using entirely Russian equipment (Soyuz). For heavy lift Falcon 9 is currently flying, and Falcon Heavy (with more payload than any Atlas version, 53,000 kg to LEO) will fly this fall.
SpaceX is also working on a manned system, which should be available in a couple more years.
Or the new Russian new tech system which puts all of those to shame and should be flying at about 2030.
Imagine where we would be now, had the US invested in the technology research for an electromagnetic sled launch system back in 1990’s or 2000’s
I am thinking an electro magnetic rail to get the sled carrying a payload up to sub-mach speed, launch with air breathing engines to reach 6 miles up, and then launch the payload off the sled with regular but smaller rockets. Sled then flies and returns to earth for re-use.
“Or the new Russian new tech system which puts all of those to shame and should be flying at about 2030.”
The Russian effort is typical of their inferiority complex, in that they always have to build the “biggest” of whatever it is.
SpaceX will kill them (and the rest of the space industry) with the reusable booster technology used in both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy.
53 tons to LEO is plenty to build the modular orbit-only nuclear-powered interplanetary ships we ought to be building...
Jesus do we not have the plans for the engines in the Saturn v and 1b ?
Russia has stolen so many designs from us, why not just start building the RD-180’s here and tell Putin to bite me if he complains?
Nope, we don’t. Jeff Bezos had to recover one from the bottom of the ocean to assist Rocketdyne in recreating the F1.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/
Ted Cruz is Chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness. The Subcommittee's jurisdiction includes oversight of NASA, the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. For the 111th Congress, the Subcommittee gained additional jurisdiction on science matters from the former United States Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Innovation.
Russian effort is 150 tons or more. Used to have the link - think it is called the Fenix or similar - could be the overall project name.
Agree we need to build something like the original Project Orion ships once the steering problem is solved and we can find someone willing to design and build very small nukes - the last designer quit because of his fear that his creations would be used as weapons instead of ship power.
Classic government F-ing job.
3 of the Saturn V’s did not go to space. Not a single engine left? No plans? No microfilm? How many Billions did we spend ( when Billion was A LOT of money) on those?
I've read that ARS Technica article before. It states on the first page that every scrap of information on the Saturn V - including the Rocketdyne F1 plans - is still on file.
Given modern manufacturing processes, it was decided that creating a modern, accurate 3-D scan of every component of the F1 engine would be the necessary path towards reviving that design. A big, expensive project, but much more beneficial than transcribing blueprints.
Read the article linked at post #12. You’ll see one or two related articles linked at that site, regarding the F-1b engine. Interesting stuff.
We kept the plans and the spare engines. What we didn’t keep is the knowledge base of *why* they were built that way - the rationale for the design decisions as it were - and the skills to build an exact copy. We also didn’t keep the jigs, fixtures and machinery needed to make more - as the article points out, even the test stands were repurposed beyond the ability to reuse.
Without those, what you have is a bunch of useless paper. And that’s more or less what we had.
See my immediately prior post - Pantex here in Texas recently ran into the same problem when attempting to overhaul some of America’s older nuclear warheads. Yes, they had all the plans and manuals on hand, but none of the staff could figure out how to refurbish the units let alone build another one from parts. There were several news articles on it at the time; several retired engineers had to be coaxed to come back in and train current workers.
What did the Atlas have for engines before the RD-180? Weren’t they American built?
What happened?
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