Joe Latrell writes, in response to Robert Bradbury, about the loss
of Saturn V design information:
> ... if the Rocketdyne people kept anything about how the
> engines were built, then we could design a HLLV (heavy lift launch
> vehicle) that could lift significantly more than the Saturn did. We now
> have lightweight and strong composites. Even if the craft were not
> reusable, at $250 Million a launch the craft would be cheap.
Nothing that costs $250 million can be called "cheap." No matter
what, you're still talking about tens of thousands of dollars per
pound of payload launched. The typical engineering response to this
high launch cost is well-known: adding tens of thousands of dollars
per pound of "added value" to payloads on the ground.
While I doubt some of the figures cited on this Slashdot thread
(despite SlashDot's stratospherically-high reputation as a
source of accurate information) accepting the figures at face
value still doesn't give you "cheap" launch. Maybe a launcher
that cost $250 million in 1969 on a one-shot basis could be
made for $100 million now, but making it reliably reusable
as a whole system is almost certainly not a simple matter
of attaching return parasails to New Improved Saturn Vs,
Any approach that does make such a system reusable
is going to have its own recurring costs.
The Shuttle solid fuel boosters are quasi-reusable, but they
really aren't very big -- designed (according to what may be
somewhat of an urban legend) to be shippable through railway
tunnels if need be. If making "big dumb boosters" reusable
were so easy, why haven't the Russians done it already?
Why hasn't *anyone* done it already? If there were some
factor of 5 or 10 improvement in launch costs with big
boosters, available so easily, comsat companies alone
(forget about NASA) would have footed the R&D bill, long
ago, on bank credit willingly extended.
In an op-ed on SpaceDaily.com, entitled "Back to the Future,"
I chimed in about returning to a more ballistic style of launch.
It is, after all, hardly an original proposal. However,
it never occurred to me that this would involve significant
reusability, except perhaps for the return capsules (which
appears more practical than I realized.)
I'm not against using older, proven techniques. I am
against wishful thinking, however -- which is precisely
why I wrote that essay. The Shuttle is a collection of
wishful thinking concepts flying in close formation. As
always, if you want real traction, it helps to have your
feet on the ground.
-michael turner
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Joe L.
>
> On Fri, 2003-09-05 at 16:55, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> > The recent release of the CAIB report has caused both
> > hearings in Congress as well as lots of speculations,
> > e.g.:
> >
> >
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/05/1731237&mode=thread&tid=
134&tid=160&tid=98&tid=99
> >
> > Obviously if we had inexpensive heavy lift capacity today, the
> > entire debate about what to send to Europa (or Pluto) and when
> > to send it would be very very different.
> >
> > The most interesting comment I found in the above URL:
> >
> > "When NASA killed Saturn, they killed more than the vehicle. Rocketyne
> > engineers did an analysis, and the engines on the Saturn 5 were so
> > overengineered that they could have been re-used 13 times each without
> > overhaul before being refurbished! The Saturn 5 system, if built today
> > with modern technology and some basic return features could be built for
> > about 100 million each after initial investment! That's 100 TONS of lift
> > that could be made reusable (imagine putting a giant deoployable
para-sail
> > on the beast) and could lift payloads as wide as 30 ft across. Two of
> > these launches could have put the entire ISS as it currently is
configured
> > in orbit!"
> >
> > Does anyone know if this claim is valid and what the source might be?
> >
> > I have heard that the Saturn 5 blueprints were destroyed -- does anyone
> > know if this claim is valid or an urban legend?
> >
> > If these claims are true, does anyone know who is most directly
> > responsible for the termination of the knowledge of how to build
> > a Saturn 5 -- and whether they are still alive -- because I'd
> > certainly like to contact them and give them a piece of my mind.
> >
> > (A related but slightly different conversation vector is whether or
> > not Russia still has the ability to build the Energia since it is
> > the most recently flown rocket that might be considered to have
> > heavy lift capacity.)
> >
> > Robert
> >
> >
> >
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