Posted on 08/21/2024 8:05:51 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
It depends on your orbit. If you are planning on a polar orbit, you can launch from much higher latitudes.
NASA cannot do that. They can't. They don't have the culture. And they are so risk averse that they are nearly frozen...
Well put. In the aftermath of the Challenger destruction, Feynman found that there was a "1 in a million chance" or some such phrase that permeated the entire Shuttle program and was based on absolutely nothing. It had always been just a matter of time before the complexity of the systems wouldn't be well understood by some desk jockey in charge of things.
While it was a remarkable piece of very complicated engineering, it didn't achieve its supposed advantage, which is reusability, or the main consequence of that, which was to save money.
Apollo, plus the major planetary probes took place almost entirely prior to the early-80s first flight of the Shuttle, and later ones (Jupiter, Saturn, and the flyby of Pluto) were scientifically significant. The ISS (which should have been an all-US "Space Station Freedom" as Reagan wanted) was largely built using Shuttle launches, and those two systems gulped down most of the NASA budget.
The Lunar Gateway is slated to do the same thing -- pork barrel some money around, have some continual but intermittent PR pieces ("a new crew arrived" "the mission specialist tested a zero gravity blender"), gobble up the budget, but accomplish very ****ed little.
There's a slight advantage to equatorial launches from the standpoint of the physics of it, but since staging is needed anyway, people just build the rockets bigger and the payloads smaller.
The US launched the Apollo missions from Florida, which gave just such an advantage over the Kazakhstan launch site used by the USSR.
Buuuuuut, we also had Von Braun, who with his team designed and built the F1 engine, a capability that has never been duplicated (having a bunch of separate engine bells welded together and sharing pumps isn't duplicating much less surpassing the F1). Von Braun and his team solved the cavitation problems by 1959, so the engine was, for a few years, a solution in search of a problem.
The USSR sent up Gagarin, that pissed off JFK, and he asked James Webb if the US could beat them to the Moon, something that was out of reach of everyone at that time. The F1 was ready. Announcing the goal is at least in the running for the biggest green light in history.
In a magazine interview, Von Braun had said that for the upper stages of the moon rocket, the intent was to use 100% cryofueled engines. In the USSR, Sergei Korolev read this and scorned this, saying the US would never be able to solve the technical problems.
A couple years later the 100% cryofueled engines were on the test stand and they worked fine. First flight test was February 1966. I think Korolev passed during heart surgery that very year.
The N1 booster Korolev planned and developed until his death was a 30-engine behemoth which never had a successful flight. His full plan was to use two more or less simultaneous launches. One would send the lunar landing vehicle into lunar orbit, the other would send two cosmonauts.
The manned vehicle would rendezvous with the lander, but as there wasn't enough in the mass budget to include a docking module, the cosmonauts would fully suit up, depressurize their vehicle, and one cosmonaut would do an untethered space walk (that's why they practiced that in low Earth orbit) to the lander.
He'd have fired it up, descended, landed, planted the flag, broadcast the worker paradise BS written for him, then hop back into the lander, take off, rendezvous with his comrade, close the hatch, repressurize, and return to Earth.
Late in 1968 Apollo 8 electrified the world with its lunar orbit mission and stirring broadcast from the Book of Genesis.
The first N1 launch attempt was in February 1969. It malfunctioned, blew up, and took out the entire launchpad. The launch pad was not rebuilt.
In May of 1969 Apollo 10 orbited the Moon and did a dress rehearsal for the landing and returned to Earth.
In July of 1969, Apollo 11 did the first (of six; the others were 12, 14, 15, 16, 17) lunar landings.
The last N1 launch (of four) was November 1972 and lasted about 90 seconds. The fifth attempt was cancelled.
In December of 1972, Apollo 17 wrapped up manned missions to the Moon for at least the next 52 years.
Whomever blows up the most toys wins! :^)
I think it had all nine, if not, five.
I’m reading “The Apollo Murders” right now...:)
They scotched a rocket?
“ Space X went through the same growing pains with boosters blowing up.”
************************************
Yep, such failures can each be a success as they reveal what needs to be fixed. Space X is a firm believer in such iterative development processes.
LIVE MUSK MORE EACH & EVERY DAY
They kilt it.
Okay... My Scottish ancestors and I hereby present you with the Scottish Thistle award for the best one-liner of the day.
Seriously, I’m working my third 12 hour midnight shift in a row and that line made me smile. I needed that. Thank you!
It wouldn’t have malfunctioned, but a few minutes earlier a hugely muscled guy in a tartan tried to toss it.
Lockheed Martin to acquire Terran Orbital
Jeff Foust
August 15, 2024
https://spacenews.com/lockheed-martin-to-acquire-terran-orbital/
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.