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How America lost its Soyuz
After reading Breakfast of Champions I wrote a letter to Kurt
Vonnegut, to which he graciously replied. We had a number of letters back and forth following that letter. In one letter he related to me that he worked at GE back in the 1950s. While there he suspected that the GE Apollo D2 was given to the Soviets by a GE board member. He never said who. http://www.friends-partners.org/part...g/geavslok.jpg http://www.friends-partners.org/part...g/gevssoyc.jpg |
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How America lost its Soyuz
The RS-68 engine is an interesting engine. An aerospike engine using
a single RS-68 pump set can easily be built, just as Rocketdyne built their first aerospike engine using the J2 pump set back in 1966 (the J2T-250K, J2T-200K) http://www.friends-partners.org/part...es/j2t200k.htm To build seven ET style elements that are 31.6 m (103.6 ft) tall, 6.7 m (18.6 ft) in diameter. That mass 31,670 kg (69,673 lb) empty and 263,912 kg (580,606 lb) fully loaded. These elements are equipped with cross-feeding to allow them to operate as three separate stages to carry 125,000 kg (275,000 lbs) to LEO. http://www.scribd.com/doc/30943696/ETDHLRLV http://www.scribd.com/doc/31261680/Etdhlrlv-Addendum The booster masses 1,973,282 kg at take off. Four of the seven elements drain to feed all seven elements at lift off. Burning 928,969 kg of propellant the booster achieves 2,621 m/sec. After the four elements fall away, and are recovered down range by their own tow planes, three elements continue, massing a total 916,735 kg. Two of the three elements drain feeding all three engines, burning through 464,484 kg of propellant. At the end of this burn 6,364 m/sec before subtracting gravity and air drag. The two empty elements fall away, also to be recovered downrange. Meanwhile, one element containing a 125,000 tonne payload in the stretched intertank region, continues skyward - totaling 388,911 kg and carrying 232,242 kg propellant. After completing this final burn, the idealized speed is 9,273.5 m/sec - actual speed after air and gravity drag, 7,900 m/sec. This system will cost $2.5 billion to develop, and five built (35 elements) for another $1.5 billion - for a total program cost for $4.0 billion. With complete reusability, less than $1.25 million per launch - $10 per kg - recurring cost - providing another $1.2 billion is spent automating launch procedures. This is less than 1/3 of one year's NASA budget. 125,000 kg payload is comparable to the Saturn V rocket's capacity. This stage consists of two sections. With three RD-0128 engines, each with 474 sec Isp, 30,000 kgf thrust and 7% structural fraction. The top section is a recoverable propellant tank carrying 58,827 kg of propellant and the tank massing 4,118 kg - with no engines. This propellant carries the 66,172 kg to 10.85 km/sec - on a lunar free return to the moon. The stage containing three engines burns through 26,861 kg of propellant to land 39,311 kg on the moon. Of this total 15,958 kg is propellant to return to Earth. 23,353 kg is payload that returns to Earth. To re-enter the atmosphere, and landing at the launch center, to be relaunched and reused on the next flight. This is 10x the payload of the Lunar Ascent Module; due in part to improved structure fraction and in part (and mostly) due to improved performance of the LOX/LH2 engine. Enough to take 20 people to the moon for a few days. Enough to support 7 people for a few weeks. Lunar Module Masses Ascent stage: 10,024 lb (4,547 kg) Descent stage: 22,375 lb (10,149 kg) Total: 32,399 lb (14,696 kg) Crew: 2 Crew cabin volume: 235 cu ft (6.7 m3) Height: 9.29 ft (2.83 m) Width: 14.08 ft (4.29 m) Depth: 13.25 ft (4.04 m) Mass including fuel: 10,300 lb (4,700 kg) Atmosphe 100% oxygen at 4.8 psi (33 kPa) Water: two 42.5 lb (19.3 kg) storage tanks Coolant: 25 pounds (11 kg) of ethylene glycol/water solution Thermal Control: one active water-ice sublimator RCS propellant mass: 633 lb (287 kg) RCS thrusters: sixteen x 100 lbf (440 N) in four quads RCS propellants: Aerozine 50 fuel / nitrogen tetroxide(N2O4) oxidizer RCS specific impulse: 290 s (2,840 N·s/kg) APS propellant mass: 5,187 lb (2,353 kg) APS engine: Rocketdyne RS-18[10] APS thrust: 3,500 lbf (16,000 N) APS propellants: Aerozine 50 fuel / nitrogen tetroxide oxidizer APS pressurant: two 6.4 lb (2.9 kg) helium tanks at 3,000 pounds per square inch (21 MPa) APS specific impulse: 311 s (3,050 N·s/kg) APS delta-V: 7,280 ft/s (2,220 m/s) Thrust-to-weight ratio at liftoff: 2.124 (in lunar gravity) Batteries: two 28–32 volt, 296 ampere-hour silver-zinc batteries; 125 lb (57 kg) each Power: 28 V DC, 115 V 400 Hz AC |
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