NASA Cancels RS-84

On 20 Mar 2004 07:56:38 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(ed kyle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

...looks like the beginning of the end for U.S. rocket
engine manufacturing.

Only if you think the future of US rocket-engine manufacturing is in being
government design bureaus forevermore.

There are no U.S.-based commercial high-thrust rocket engine
development efforts now, and none for the forseeable future.

Again, XCOR, among others, would disagree.

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in
:

On 20 Mar 2004 07:56:38 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(ed kyle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

...looks like the beginning of the end for U.S. rocket
engine manufacturing.

Only if you think the future of US rocket-engine manufacturing is in
being government design bureaus forevermore.

There are no U.S.-based commercial high-thrust rocket engine
development efforts now, and none for the forseeable future.

Again, XCOR, among others, would disagree.

I suppose it depends on how one defines "high-thrust."


--
JRF

Reply-to address spam-proofed - to reply by E-mail,
check "Organization" (I am not assimilated) and
think one step ahead of IBM.

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 10:56:05 -0600, in a place far, far away, "Jorge
R. Frank" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

There are no U.S.-based commercial high-thrust rocket engine
development efforts now, and none for the forseeable future.

Again, XCOR, among others, would disagree.

I suppose it depends on how one defines "high-thrust."

Mr. Kyle probably defines it as "large enough to lift a heavy
booster." If that's the case, then it doesn't matter, since we don't
need one.

In article ,
ed kyle wrote:
Only if you think the future of US rocket-engine manufacturing is in being
government design bureaus forevermore.

There are no U.S.-based commercial high-thrust rocket engine
development efforts now, and none for the forseeable future.
There have been none since Beal tried and failed.

In other words, there have been none since the last time there was a
vehicle requirement for them. It's not obvious that there is anything
wrong with this.

And by the way, Beal's development effort didn't "fail". Development was
proceeding generally successfully -- perhaps not quite as quickly as
originally intended, but without disastrous problems -- when the sponsor
pulled the plug because of a combination of poor market projections and
political problems.
--
MOST launched 30 June; science observations running | Henry Spencer
since Oct; first surprises seen; papers pending. |

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..
On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 10:56:05 -0600, in a place far, far away, "Jorge
R. Frank" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:

There are no U.S.-based commercial high-thrust rocket engine
development efforts now, and none for the forseeable future.

Again, XCOR, among others, would disagree.

I suppose it depends on how one defines "high-thrust."

Mr. Kyle probably defines it as "large enough to lift a heavy
booster." If that's the case, then it doesn't matter, since we don't
need one.

Is XCOR Aerospace going to launch the manned Lunar/Mars
missions? Or are you saying that it is the missions
themselves that "we don't need"?

- Ed Kyle

ed kyle wrote:

h (Rand Simberg) wrote in message . ..

On Sat, 20 Mar 2004 10:56:05 -0600, in a place far, far away, "Jorge
R. Frank" made the phosphor on my monitor glow
in such a way as to indicate that:


There are no U.S.-based commercial high-thrust rocket engine
development efforts now, and none for the forseeable future.

Again, XCOR, among others, would disagree.

I suppose it depends on how one defines "high-thrust."

Mr. Kyle probably defines it as "large enough to lift a heavy
booster." If that's the case, then it doesn't matter, since we don't
need one.


Is XCOR Aerospace going to launch the manned Lunar/Mars
missions? Or are you saying that it is the missions
themselves that "we don't need"?



He's saying that we don't necessarily need a new heavy booster.

Missions launched from assembly in LEO don't require a heavy
booster, for example.

Not having a heavy launcher just means that you do it with the
existing tools at hand.

On 20 Mar 2004 14:50:56 -0800, in a place far, far away,
(ed kyle) made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:

There are no U.S.-based commercial high-thrust rocket engine
development efforts now, and none for the forseeable future.

Again, XCOR, among others, would disagree.

I suppose it depends on how one defines "high-thrust."

Mr. Kyle probably defines it as "large enough to lift a heavy
booster." If that's the case, then it doesn't matter, since we don't
need one.

Is XCOR Aerospace going to launch the manned Lunar/Mars
missions?

Perhaps, if they're given an opportunity.

Or are you saying that it is the missions
themselves that "we don't need"?

Well, actually, we don't need them, but that wasn't what I was saying.
We can do lunar/Mars without heavy lift, or new government-developed
high-thrust engines.

ed kyle wrote:
Sander Vesik wrote in message ...
ed kyle wrote:
News today that NASA has canceled the Rocketdyne RS-84
program, an effort to develop a high-thrust, highly-
efficient, reusable hydrocarbon rocket engine. RS-84's
cancellation cements Russian Energomash's now-total
dominance of the high-thrust hydrocarbon engine field
and looks like the beginning of the end for U.S. rocket
engine manufacturing.

So what you are saying is that if US government doesn't pay for
it US companies are not able to develop rocket engines?


Well, yeah. No high-thrust rocket engines, in any country,
have been fully developed without government support. And
before you say "RS-68" or "RD-180", ask yourself if those
engines would have been developed without government money
for EELV.

But this is a biased picture that derives more from the past and
ballistic missile based lineage of launchers than from some kind
of inherent necessity.


- Ed Kyle

--
Sander

+++ Out of cheese error +++

(Henry Spencer) wrote in message ...
In article ,
ed kyle wrote:
Only if you think the future of US rocket-engine manufacturing is in being
government design bureaus forevermore.

There are no U.S.-based commercial high-thrust rocket engine
development efforts now, and none for the forseeable future.
There have been none since Beal tried and failed.

In other words, there have been none since the last time there was a
vehicle requirement for them. It's not obvious that there is anything
wrong with this.

If no engine development is underway, the resources needed,
like the big test stands and the technical expertise, will
wither away, making it less likely that future development
will happen in North America.

And by the way, Beal's development effort didn't "fail". Development was
proceeding generally successfully -- perhaps not quite as quickly as
originally intended, but without disastrous problems -- when the sponsor
pulled the plug because of a combination of poor market projections and
political problems.

Sure it failed. It failed due to lack of commercial market
demand. Clearly, non-government-funded high-thrust rocket
engine development is *technically* possible.

- Ed Kyle

Sander Vesik wrote in message ...
ed kyle wrote:
Sander Vesik wrote in message ...
ed kyle wrote:
News today that NASA has canceled the Rocketdyne RS-84
program, an effort to develop a high-thrust, highly-
efficient, reusable hydrocarbon rocket engine. ...
looks like the beginning of the end for U.S. rocket
engine manufacturing.

So what you are saying is that if US government doesn't pay for
it US companies are not able to develop rocket engines?


Well, yeah. No high-thrust rocket engines, in any country,
have been fully developed without government support. And
before you say "RS-68" or "RD-180", ask yourself if those
engines would have been developed without government money
for EELV.

But this is a biased picture that derives more from the past and
ballistic missile based lineage of launchers than from some kind
of inherent necessity.


That same past is littered with failed attempts by
non-government outfits to build commercial launch
vehicles. Remember American Rocket Company? Beal?
The outfit that tried to launch Conestoga? Kistler?
Roton? Then there were/are a host of startups that
produced nothing more than Power-Point presentations.
Orbital Sciences comes closest to having succeeded,
but it is now almost totally dependant on Uncle Sam.
OSC's heir apparent, if it succeeds technically, is
SpaceX - a company that is angling for access to the
same taxpayer money.

- Ed Kyle