On 8/4/2010 5:18 PM, Matt Wiser wrote:
On Aug 3, 5:15 pm, Pat wrote:
On 8/3/2010 7:36 AM, Jeff Findley wrote:
I wish them luck, but they'll have challenges. The F-1 development
program was filled with engineering challenges, despite the fact that in
many ways it was just a scaled up version of previous LOX/kerosene
engines.
That may be the problem; Lox/kerosene engine designs don't scale up
well, as the Soviets found out with their failed RD-105 engine design;
which was based on scaling up the V-2 Lox/alcohol engine technology:http://www.astronautix.com/engines/rd105.htm
A photo of it hehttp://www.b14643.de/Spacerockets_1/...nes/RD-105.jpg
When the very long combustion chamber shows up, it's a sure sign
something isn't working right in the combustion process.
Glushko foolishly promised Stalin that it would be easy and quick to
develop, and got into real hot water when it flopped.
Pat
Did Glushko live to retell the experience? Stalin was usually
uncompromising when it came to punishment of those who failed to
deliver for him.
Yeah, Glushko lived...he was one of the few people that knew how to make
rocket engines, so was too important to have liquidated.
Mayaschev was lucky that Stalin was dead when the M-4
Bison bomber came out: it clearly lacked the range for a round-trip
bombing mission to the U.S., and when he told Khrushchev that the
plane could hit the U.S. and land in Mexico, Nikita Sergeyich is
supposed to have roard back "What do you think Mexico is, our mother-
in-law? Even if the plane landed there, they wouldn't give it back!"
If Mayaschev had to tell Stalin the same thing, those would be the
last words he ever said.....because a 9-mm brain hemmorage would
follow shortly thereafter.
If you think about it, once WWIII broke out, there probably wouldn't be
a USSR to return to anyway; at least not the base it came from.
The same would apply to our B-52s.
Khrushchev used the M-4 Bison's short range and Tu-20 Bear's
vulnerability due to its lower speed as a rational to curtail the Soviet
strategic bomber program and save defense spending by basing the Soviet
deterrent force on a "Biad" of ICBM's and SLBM's, rather than a "triad"
like the US had.
Even then, he canceled the ICBM version of the Proton rocket, saying "I
can build the giant silos for these or socialism; but not both at once".
The ICBM version of the N-1 was really something to behold:
http://www.astronautix.com/graphics/n/n11gr2.jpg
It was based on the second and third stages of the standard N-1.
Two or three of these would theoretically be able to destroy all major
US cities with huge yield warheads sent in on a depressed trajectory to
help avoid ABM's, or into low orbit from which they would descend onto
their targets when commanded, allowing an attack from the south to avoid
radar detection rather than going over the North Pole like conventional
ICBM's.
Pat