Saturn V - inherently expensive or simply no economy of scale?

On Feb 2, 7:02*am, " wrote:
On Feb 1, 6:18 pm, Rick Jones wrote:

Was the Saturn V an "inherently expensive" launch vehicle or were it's
$/lb to orbit more a function of lack of scale - ie frequency of
launch?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V#Costgivesa figure of
$2.4 to $3.5 billion per launch in 2007 dollars but does not state how
much of that was the fixed costs and how much was marginal.

rick jones

Fixed costs must of been much lower than shuttle. The public was told
its flight rate was too low, and there werent many needs for such a
large booster.

Von Braun wanted to make it partially reusable but nasa wanted new
pork to pass out to its friends$$$$

We would of been far better off to have kept the saturn family of
launchers, there was even a proposal for a saturn to send a shuttle
like vehicle into orbit.

Really there is no single RIGHT vehicle. You driving across town all
by yourself? take a compact

You moving your household? You need a moving van.........

There were also proposals for Shuttle-derived launch
vehicles:

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/...isaster.h tml

But, as the article sez, they probably would have been
real budget-busters.

Burning underwater isn't the problem. It's the backpressure and other
factors.



wrote in message
...
On Feb 2, 1:37 am, Pat Flannery wrote:

Doesn't the solid-rocket fuel contain it's own oxidizer? Once it
lights
off, it should keep burning, even under water.

wrote:


Doesn't the solid-rocket fuel contain it's own oxidizer? Once it
lights
off, it should keep burning, even under water.

It had problems: http://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/m-44.html
I imagine the Subroc formed a cavitation bubble around it as it traveled
underwater, like the Russian Shkval torpedo:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VA-111_Shkval



Pat

Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
Burning underwater isn't the problem. It's the backpressure and other
factors.


I can picture it bouncing around inside of its own cavitation bubble,
since it didn't have the four stabilizing strakes like the Shkval has:
http://pbrasil.files.wordpress.com/2...valtorpedo.jpg
Subroc's warhead was a nuclear depth charge that would fall out of the
sky near the position of the target submarine.
Although this is a photo one surface-launched by a ASROC from the
destroyer in the foreground (the USS Agerholm, DD-826), this gives some
idea of what a nuclear depth charge looked like in action:
http://www.naval.com.br/blog/wp-cont...oc-nuclear.jpg

Pat

On Feb 2, 8:34*pm, Pat Flannery wrote:
Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:

Burning underwater isn't the problem. *It's the backpressure and other
factors.

I can picture it bouncing around inside of its own cavitation bubble,
since it didn't have the four stabilizing strakes like the Shkval has:http://pbrasil.files.wordpress.com/2...valtorpedo.jpg
Subroc's warhead was a nuclear depth charge that would fall out of the
sky near the position of the target submarine.
Although this is a photo one surface-launched by a ASROC from the
destroyer in the foreground (the USS Agerholm, DD-826), this gives some
idea of what a nuclear depth charge looked like in action:http://www.naval.com.br/blog/wp-cont.../asroc-nuclear...

Pat

It is fun to imagine the Saturn V being rebuilt with today's
technology. I think first stage would still be Kerosene/Lox but the
tanks would be composite. How much more payload capacity could you
give it using today's tech?
Trying "re-usable" was simply bad thinking. I remember the argument
that throwing away the rocket engines was like throwing away your car
after one use. However, I never heard anybody pointing out what a
poor analogy that was. Your car is not 90%+ fuel whereas rockets
are. In fact, throwing away the first stage does make sense because
recovery and refurbishment is at best a wash. You might get some gain
from recovery of the second or third stage but even today nobody re-
uses the Soyuz capsule. Seems that re-usability was a dead end.

On Feb 2, 8:02*pm, Frogwatch wrote:


It is fun to imagine the Saturn V being rebuilt with today's
technology. *I think first stage would still be Kerosene/Lox but the
tanks would be composite. *How much more payload capacity could you
give it using today's tech?

NASA would try to use Shuttle-derived technology for a heavy booster.
Most likely with disappointing results:

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/...isaster.h tml

wrote in message
...
NASA would try to use Shuttle-derived technology for a heavy booster.
Most likely with disappointing results:

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/...isaster.h tml

This article treats launch vehicles as Lego pieces. You can't do that.

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon

On Feb 1, 4:40*pm, "Jeff Findley" wrote:
The logical conclusion to such a philosophical change is a
launch vehicle more like Sea Dragon than Saturn V.

I looked that one up on Astronautix. Not only was it accepted as being
economical, but it was four times the size of a Saturn V. Clearly an
ideal vehicle for a Mars mission; we should find the company that
designed it, and start building them as soon as possible.

John Savard

"Quadibloc" wrote in message
...

I looked that one up on Astronautix. Not only was it accepted as being
economical, but it was four times the size of a Saturn V. Clearly an
ideal vehicle for a Mars mission; we should find the company that
designed it, and start building them as soon as possible.

At the top of the article it clearly says that this was proposed by Aerojet:

http://www.aerojet.com/home.php

Good luck with getting them to build and test one.

Jeff
--
"Take heart amid the deepening gloom
that your dog is finally getting enough cheese" - Deteriorata - National
Lampoon

Frogwatch wrote:

It is fun to imagine the Saturn V being rebuilt with today's
technology. I think first stage would still be Kerosene/Lox but the
tanks would be composite. How much more payload capacity could you
give it using today's tech?

Hard to say; there would obviously be major weight savings in the
electronics with today's technology.
As far as decreasing the weight of the first stage via using composites,
that would greatly up its price of manufacture, particularly given its
size - so they maybe wouldn't do it nowadays even if they could.
You get a lot more performance increase if you decrease the weight of
the upper stages rather than the lower one.

Trying "re-usable" was simply bad thinking. I remember the argument
that throwing away the rocket engines was like throwing away your car
after one use. However, I never heard anybody pointing out what a
poor analogy that was. Your car is not 90%+ fuel whereas rockets
are. In fact, throwing away the first stage does make sense because
recovery and refurbishment is at best a wash. You might get some gain
from recovery of the second or third stage but even today nobody re-
uses the Soyuz capsule. Seems that re-usability was a dead end.

They did look into a recoverable Saturn V first stage so they could get
the engines back for reuse, but the total number of missions to be flown
didn't justify the expense of building it.
They might have developed it had the Saturn V first stage been used to
boost the Shuttle/ET instead of the SRBs, which was one idea that was
considered.
This semi-SSTO variant of the first stage was pretty interesting also:
http://www.up-ship.com/drawndoc/sdoc63ad.jpg
Sort of a super Atlas ICBM concept.

Pat