Ares vs Delta or Atlas

Pat Flannery wrote:
:
:Fred J. McCall wrote:
: :If you did make a rocket engine that, say, used two separate turbopumps
: :to drive its four combustion chambers... yeah, I'd agree to that being
: :two separate rocket engines despite what the designers called it or how
: :the wiring or plumbing on it worked.
: :
:
: Why? Just based on the number of pumps? We just saw that break down
: for your automotive example. Is it any better definition here?
:
:
:It didn't break down for my automotive example.
:

It certainly did initially, where you started out saying that if there
was a single fuel pump then it was a single engine (like your 'single
turbopump' argument for rocket engines). Then I pointed out that a
fuel injected engine with multiple fuel pumps would not necessarily be
too odd, at which point you switched to 'more than one engine block'.

:
:If the Cadillac V-16 engine consisted of two separate Cadillac V-8
:engines connected to a single transmission system, I would have no
roblem at all calling it a two-engine system.
:But it used a single carburetor and electrical system connected to all
:16 cylinders mounted in a single engine block.
:Even if it had consisted of two separate V-8 engine blocks connected to
:a single drive shaft front-to-back but using a single electrical system,
:distributer to fire the spark plugs appropriately, and carburetor to
:feed all sixteen cylinders the correct fuel-air mixture - as well as the
:timing gears that opened and closed all sixteen intake and exhaust
:valves at the appropriate times to make the engine work properly, then
:it's a single engine.
:Split the two engine blocks apart, and at least one of them will be
:nonfunctional, as it no longer has a carburetor system to send fuel and
:air to its cylinders, will have its timing way off due to the missing
:eight cylinders, and won't posses a distributer to fire its spark plugs.
:

So how do you decide where 'the engine' stops?

: : : If I ta
:
: You talked a lot, but the answer is weak. Now lets take a progression
: and see how many engines we're talking about at each stage by your
: definitions:
:
: Start with a pressurized system with four chambers and four nozzles.
: Since there is no pump, presumably this is counted as four engines,
: just like the example of the solids.
:
:But again , you're talking hypothetical rocket systems - not anything
:anyone has really built due to their obvious shortcomings.
:

Of course I am. Any good taxonomy will cover everything, not just
stuff you've currently seen.

:
:You can make a good case for the original pressure-fed version of the
:four barreled XLR-11 used in the original X-1 flights as being a single
r multiple rocket engine... but what's your point? It only existed in
:the four-barreled version, and no one ever suggested making a
:two-barreled or six-barreled version of it.
:When it did get a turbopump in the later version it was a single
:turbopump feeding all four combustion chambers, and it was still
:described as a XLR-11 with the turbopump simply replacing the pressure
:feed system.
:

So to your mind it suddenly (perhaps) transmogrifies from multiple
engines when pressure fed to being a single engine when fed by
turbopump. So IDENTICALLY THE SAME HARDWARE changes from a multiple
engines to a single engine or back depending solely on what is used to
pressurize the propellants?

That just doesn't seem to make sense, Pat.

:
:
: Now add a single set of turbopumps with no other changes. Now,
: according to you, the original four engines are magically transformed
: into one engine.
:
:
:That would be exactly the case, as none of the engine's individual
:combustion chambers can work on its own without that turbopump feeding
:it fuel and oxidizer.
:

Again, multiple engines suddenly transmogrify into a single engine
based solely on how the propellant is pressurized.

Again, that just doesn't seem to make sense.

: Now add three more sets of turbopumps. It's suddenly four engines
: again.
:
: What happens if instead of adding a pump for propellant and oxidizer,
: we only add propellant pumps and leave the oxidizer pressure-fed? Now
: what is it?
:
:
:Again, what you are doing is creating philosophical concepts, not real
:hardware that has ever been built - to try to create some sort of
:razor's edge description of what a thing is via sophistry.
:

No, I'm just trying to point out where your taxonomic system breaks
down. And it *does* break down.


--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn