Posted on 06/16/2020 7:23:35 AM PDT by BenLurkin
Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken piloted the first manned flight of the Falcon 9 on May 30. Each astronaut had previously been on on two space shuttle missions, and they spoke of their surprise at how comparatively smooth the SpaceX launch was.
“From the time the engines lit, the first two-and-a-half minutes to staging was about like we expected, except you can never simulate the Gs, so as the Gs built you could certainly feel those,” Hurley told Spaceflight Now. “What I thought was really neat was how sensitive we were to the throttling of the Merlin engines. That was really neat. You could definitely sense that as we broke Mach 1.”
He added: “We didn’t even need to look at the speed. You could tell just by how the rocket felt, so it’s a very pure flying machine.”
“Remember, [the] shuttle had solid rocket boosters to start with,” Hurley said. “Those burned very rough for the first two-and-a-half minutes. The first stage with Falcon 9 were the nine Merlin engines. It was a much smoother ride, obviously, because it was a liquid engine ascent.” Liquid engine ascent is a reference to the mix of super-chilled kerosene and cryogenic liquid oxygen propellants consumed by the Merlin engines.
After the smooth launch, the astronauts said the second stage felt a bit rougher.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
But you know how FReepers do. We're part ADHD, part easily distracted.
Or is that the same thing?
More like the Saturn 1B, just less expensive and more efficient.
Nasa is giving away a surplus booster stage for a Saturn 1
Been in storage for over 50 years
If have 250 K can haul it away
Be cool for someone to refurb it and then launch it
i HAVE A STORY i SAVED FROM Epoch News. Its titled Rocketman and gives the full story that what we paid Russia to take our folks financed there entire missile program. So now we Americans have the NASA contract with 3000 less government employes.....I wonder would Musk ever think about running the DOD....Great story called Rocket Man...Now I have to figure out how to post it its from the web site NERDIST...any ideas hot to post saved items from my homepage got millions of them...
The WWII engines were the first tbing I thought of.
The Mustang originally was produced with an Allison engine but the performance of the plane was less than desired.
The Brits replaced the Allison engines in a few with Merlin engines and the plane became what documentaries call a war winner.
Packard was building Merlin engines under license of Rolls Royce for the Spitfire so it was simple to have the Merlin installed at the point of manufacture.
Back in the ‘60s I saw a monster tractor with four Rolls Royce Merlin Spitfire engines.
The Mickey Thompson Challenger had 4 pontiacs if I recall.
4 Merlins are another class.
Heh, yeah, good luck with that. :^) It was the NASA ride to orbit post-Gemini and all the way through the Skylab, hmm, Apollo-Soyuz. Probably would cost a huge amount of cash to rebuild sufficient infrastructure to actually launch it, even after the booster is restored to operability.
http://www.astronautix.com/s/saturnib.html
It would fly straight and fast, even with the wings breaking off. And then it would stop flying.
“I love the sound of those Merlin engines that powered the Spitfires.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKEMpREO-TY
Another hijacking of the Thread...
I’ve always been a Fan of the P-47D.
The P-47 was designed around the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine.
It weighed eight tons fully loaded and it was the first Prop Plane to reach 500 MPH. It was an armored Tank with Wings and didn’t have the weakness the P-51 had with its Water Cooled Engine.
They have an operational P-47D at the Air Museum in Galveston TX. Super Duper Cool.
All those WWII planes sounded cool.
The P-47 was a great Ground Attack Aircraft as well. Late in WWII they would do a little plinking in Germany after the Bombers they were escorting turned for home.
The Pilot was surrounded by an Armored Tub just like today’s A-10.
What is “plinking”? Picking off small targets?
Yeah, plinking Railroad Cars, Vehicles, Planes on the Ground, that kind of .50 Caliber plinking. #;^)
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