On Aug 7, 1:25*am, Robert Clark wrote:
*This Astronautix page gives the old Saturn F-1 engine a vacuum thrust
of 1,740,134 lbf at a weight of only 18,498 lb for a thrust to weight
ratio of nearly 100 to 1:
F-1.http://www.astronautix.com/engines/f1.htm
*The Astronautix page on the Ares I solids give it vacuum thrust of
3,480,122 lbf but an empty weight of 221,230 lb (!) for a thrust to
weight ratio of only 16 to 1 (!):
Ares.http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/ares.htm
The tank mass for a kerosene-LOX engine is only about 1/100th that of
the propellant mass. So even if you used the same propellant mass as
the Ares I solids of about 1,400,000 lb that would only add 14,000 lb
to the lower stage empty mass. But actually the propellant mass would
probably be less since the F-1 had a better Isp at 304 s compared to
265 s for the Ares I solids.
Given this, how much larger payload could we launch to LEO using the 2
F-1 engines in place of the Ares I solids as the 1st stage?
*How much could we launch to LEO using just 1 F-1 engine as the 1st
stage?
* *Bob Clark
You are very correct, in that liquid fueled stages are superior in
just about every application of getting payloads into LEO and beyond.
However, they can require more technical expertise than solid fuel
alternatives.
The Saturn 5 was nearly 100% foolproof, and at least thus far our most
failsafe alternative, that's also 1000+% bought and paid for. Problem
is that all the essential R&D is oddly missing in action (along with
those 700 large boxes of clearly marked Apollo mission and original
science stuff), and there's not an original Zionist Nazi rocket
scientist in sight, perhaps because they all flew the coop as soon as
their ARPA and NASA job was done, perhaps because they were actually
some of the worse Nazi bad guys, and more than likely Zionist to boot.
For today's expertise in liquid fly-by-rocket standards, the Saturn 5
package was somewhat inert hefty. Without all that much trouble, I
believe 10% of its inert mass could be trimmed and thus replaced with
even greater payload. Now we get to wait until Russia, China or India
manage to do one that's equal or better, or perhaps even ESA.
Brad Guth, Brad_Guth, Brad.Guth, BradGuth, BG / “Guth Usenet”