This Insane Rocket Is Why The Soviet Union Never Made It To The Moon

"Sure, one could go in and argue that the failure of the Soviet
Union to make it to the Moon was a result of an incompatible
governing system, or economic hurdles, or a myriad of other
factors contributed to the communist nation never placing a
human on the lunar surface, but they all culminated in this,
the N1 rocket."

See:

http://jalopnik.com/this-insane-rock...326/@ericlimer

In article ,
wrote:

"Sure, one could go in and argue that the failure of the Soviet
Union to make it to the Moon was a result of an incompatible
governing system, or economic hurdles, or a myriad of other
factors contributed to the communist nation never placing a
human on the lunar surface, but they all culminated in this,
the N1 rocket."

See:

http://jalopnik.com/this-insane-rock...ever-made-i-14
48356326/@ericlimer

I would think that they must have had abig problem with base heating,
with so many engines down there.

Orval Fairbairn formulated the question :
In article ,
wrote:

"Sure, one could go in and argue that the failure of the Soviet
Union to make it to the Moon was a result of an incompatible
governing system, or economic hurdles, or a myriad of other
factors contributed to the communist nation never placing a
human on the lunar surface, but they all culminated in this,
the N1 rocket."

See:

http://jalopnik.com/this-insane-rock...ever-made-i-14
48356326/@ericlimer

I would think that they must have had abig problem with base heating,
with so many engines down there.

Pat was fascinated by this rocket, so I bet there are a bunch of posts
about it in the archives.

/dps "don't get all that fuel too close to the Venusian Fire Women"

--
Killing a mouse was hardly a Nobel Prize-worthy exercise, and Lawrence
went apopleptic when he learned a lousy rodent had peed away all his
precious heavy water.
_The Disappearing Spoon_, Sam Kean

In article ,
says...

"Sure, one could go in and argue that the failure of the Soviet
Union to make it to the Moon was a result of an incompatible
governing system, or economic hurdles, or a myriad of other
factors contributed to the communist nation never placing a
human on the lunar surface, but they all culminated in this,
the N1 rocket."

See:

http://jalopnik.com/this-insane-rock...326/@ericlimer

Very poorly written article. The N-1's downfall has much *less* to do
with how many engines it had and much more to do with the fact that the
program was rushed and they ran into issues during development that took
time, and money, to solve. Yes, it had problems with pogo (so did
Saturn V) and troubles with its engine control system (shutting down the
wrong engines and the like). But it could have been made to work, given
more time and money.

The Saturn V had one mission where a stage was very near to literally
shaking itself apart due to pogo. Luckily in that case, the vibrations
caused one engine to shut down and the stage did not shake itself apart.
If one really delves into the development history of the Saturn V, one
will realize that it's "perfect" flight record was far from "perfect".
The Saturn V flirted with disaster on more than one flight. In the end,
it was more luck than engineering prowess that allowed the Saturn V to
win the Space Race.

And finally, the crowd who claim the N-1 failed due to too many engines
also claimed that the Falcon 9 wouldn't succeed due to its 9 engines on
its first stage. But, it's proven to be quite successful so far. In
fact, the one Falcon 9 flight where one of the first stage engines
failed was able to continue to orbit due to the inherent redundancy that
is provided by so many first stage engines.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

In article orfairbairn-4C8B9D.21542619102013@70-3-168-
216.pools.spcsdns.net, says...

In article ,
wrote:

"Sure, one could go in and argue that the failure of the Soviet
Union to make it to the Moon was a result of an incompatible
governing system, or economic hurdles, or a myriad of other
factors contributed to the communist nation never placing a
human on the lunar surface, but they all culminated in this,
the N1 rocket."

See:

http://jalopnik.com/this-insane-rock...ever-made-i-14
48356326/@ericlimer

I would think that they must have had abig problem with base heating,
with so many engines down there.

And Henry Spencer had quite a few postings which debunked the "N-1
failed due to too many engines" myth.

If you really dig into Saturn V history, you'll see that it was actually
very close to disaster on more than one flight. Notably, pogo was a big
problem with both the Saturn V and the N-1. No one had built such big
launch vehicles before, so some development problems encountered turned
out to be remarkably similar, despite the obvious differing number of
engines in the two designs.

With so few flights of either vehicle, leading to scant reliability
data, one could easily argue that the Saturn V was merely lucky and the
N-1 was unlucky. Given more time and money the N-1 could have been made
to work. But, the Soviet Union was loathe to throw good money after
bad, given that the U.S. had clearly won the Space Race to the moon.
Its attention turned to LEO space stations, where they clearly had the
lead even after they joined forces to develop ISS. The first "core"
module of ISS was Russian (the FGB) with the first U.S. module being
merely a connecting node (Node 1).

To this day, the two "core" modules of ISS are still Russian. One of
the Russian "core" modules is still the only permanent module capable of
providing propulsive re-boost and propulsive attitude control of ISS.
And, with the retirement of the space shuttle, Russia is the only
country which can currently launch astronauts to ISS.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

In article ,
says...

"Jeff Findley" wrote in message
...
...

And finally, the crowd who claim the N-1 failed due to too many engines
also claimed that the Falcon 9 wouldn't succeed due to its 9 engines on
its first stage. But, it's proven to be quite successful so far. In
fact, the one Falcon 9 flight where one of the first stage engines
failed was able to continue to orbit due to the inherent redundancy that
is provided by so many first stage engines.

My view is the fact that one of the engines disintegrated on an actual
flight, not on a test stand, is not a point in its favor.

Certainly any engine failure is a negative. But, in this case, the
engine failure did not lead to loss of the primary mission, so that's a
still a positive, for the primary customer.

Note that SpaceX is moving to a heavier thrust engine where so many
engines will not be needed on a core stage.

SpaceX has indicated that they would like to develop a much larger
engine than Merlin, which I've seen referred to as Merlin 2. However,
I've seen little in the way of concrete evidence that this is anything
more than a long term desire. Falcon 9R and Falcon Heavy are both
slated to use Merlin 1D and Merlin Vacuum 1D.

Beyond paper studies and computer simulations, do you have any evidence
that Merlin 2 is being actively developed?

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

In article ,
says...

SpaceX is moving to a larger engine to replace the Merlins for a
reason. Afterall if they could use 27 engines on a Falcon Heavy,
why not use, say, 100 engines on super heavy lift vehicle for
their Mars mission plans.

Again, other than paper studies and computer simulations, is there any
evidence that Merlin 2 is being actively developed?

There isn't much of a downside of Falcon Heavy using 27 stages on the
boosters and the core first stage, especially if their plans for fly-
back and re-use come to fruition.

But you're right, if SpaceX does (eventually) want to build and fly a
super heavy lift launch vehicle, they'll most likely move ahead with
Merlin 2 development. But I don't see that happening anytime soon,
since the new Merlin 1D has only flown on one Falcon 9 mission. I'd
expect the Merlin 1D to become the "workhorse" engine for SpaceX for the
quite some time.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer

In sci.space.history Robert Clark wrote:

It has been announced that SpaceX will be working on a 300 ton
thrust, i.e., ca. 600,000 lbs., methane engine:

Hancock County's Stennis Space Center lands SpaceX rocket-testing program.
Published: October 23, 2013 Updated 9 hours ago.
http://www.sunherald.com/2013/10/23/...er-rocket.html

Good news. I'm not a fan of the 9 engines on the Falcon 9, much less
the 27 engines on the Falcon Heavy.

So Raptor isn't simply an upper stage engine any longer? Or, put
another way, is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_%28rocket_engine%29 out of date?

rick jones
--
portable adj, code that compiles under more than one compiler
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

In article ,
says...

In sci.space.history Robert Clark wrote:

It has been announced that SpaceX will be working on a 300 ton
thrust, i.e., ca. 600,000 lbs., methane engine:

Hancock County's Stennis Space Center lands SpaceX rocket-testing program.
Published: October 23, 2013 Updated 9 hours ago.
http://www.sunherald.com/2013/10/23/...er-rocket.html

Good news. I'm not a fan of the 9 engines on the Falcon 9, much less
the 27 engines on the Falcon Heavy.

So Raptor isn't simply an upper stage engine any longer? Or, put
another way, is
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_%28rocket_engine%29 out of date?

Methane would make a good upper stage engine. It's got higher ISP than
kerosene, which is currently the fuel in Falcon 9's upper stage. It's
also more storable and has fewer headaches in general when compared to
LH2. LH2 is still the fuel of choice for upper stage engines for most
"traditional" aerospace engineers.

Methane's density is less than kerosene, so I doubt SpaceX would want to
use it in lower stages. Kerosene is "good enough" for lower stages.

Jeff
--
"the perennial claim that hypersonic airbreathing propulsion would
magically make space launch cheaper is nonsense -- LOX is much cheaper
than advanced airbreathing engines, and so are the tanks to put it in
and the extra thrust to carry it." - Henry Spencer