Re: Space Shuttle Grounding....depressing....

Andrew Swallow wrote:
> Wesley Struebing wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 2 Aug 2005 04:23:32 +0000 (UTC), dg411@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> (Andre Lieven) wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Andrew Swallow (am.swallow@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx) writes:
>>>
>>>> Matt Ion wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>
>>>> Or give the orbiter a fourth engine and a bigger fuel tank.
>>>
>>> Given that the SRBs each put out 3,000,000 pounds of thrust, you'd
>>> need to add 6,000,000 pounds of thrust in eliminating the SRBs.
>>>
>>> As the SSMEs only put out around 400,000 pounds of thrust each,
>>> you're going to need not one more, but about fifteen of them. Plus,
>>> the starter three.
>>>
>>>
>>>> The SRBs are heavy so the mass trade off could be very interesting.
>>>
>>> Most of that is fuel. Most of any rocket, as lift off, is fuel.
>>>
>>
>> Just a question (I believe someone mentioned the "possibility" in
>> another post here...)
>>
>> Didn't the Saturn V have a main stage thrust of right around 7.5
>> million pounds?
>>
>> Of course, as pointed out, it was a couple years dead already...
>
> Even if the blue prints have been lost photographs
> still exist. Museum exhibits may be a little rusty
> but they can be measured.
>
The Saturn V blueprints have never been lost, they are kept at Marshall
Space Flight Center on microfilm.
However they are useless now, because they incorporated much
off-the-shelf 1960 components which are not available any more.
They got to the moon in one decade, and it was a great feat of
engeneering, but they did it with a technology that is just totally
obsolete, and we'd be better off just to start from a clean sheet, using
todays computers and composite materials to do a much better rocket.

> Andrew Swallow

--
Salutations, Greetings
Guiraud Belissen, Château du Ciel, Drachenwald
Christophe Bachmann, Rennes, France



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