Posted on 01/17/2021 7:15:21 AM PST by BenLurkin
A critical test-firing of NASA’s Space Launch System moon rocket in Mississippi ended just 67 seconds after it began Saturday, well short of a planned eight-minute burn that was supposed to clear the way for the space agency to finally ship the rocket’s core stage to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for launch preparations.
The SLS core stage, built by Boeing, lit its four Aerojet Rocketdyne RS-25 engines for the first time at 5:27 p.m. EST (4:27 p.m. CST; 2227 GMT) Saturday for a burn that was expected to last more than eight minutes, the culmination of a year-long series of checkouts at the Stennis Space Center in southern Mississippi.
Fastened to the mammoth B-2 test stand at Stennis, the 212-foot-tall (98-meter) SLS core stage throttled up to full power after the four main engines lit at 120-millisecond intervals.
The engines, leftovers from the space shuttle program, built up to 1.6 million pounds of thrust, making Saturday’s hot fire test the most powerful rocket firing at the Stennis Space Center since NASA tested the Apollo-era Saturn 5 moon rocket on the same stand in the 1960s.
But after rumbling to life and generating a ground-shaking thunder for a little more than a minute, the RS-25 engines cut off on command of the rocket’s on-board computer system, which detected an unspecified fault in one of the powerplants.
(Excerpt) Read more at spaceflightnow.com ...
I’ve been collecting slide rules for about 50 yrs.
Early calculators were not allowed in tests.
“Yep....a case of use it or lose it.”
To be fair, nobody uses the same fabrication techniques today that they did in the 60’s. Look at cars. They just don’t make them like they used to. Thank God.
I watch Mecham auto auctions. I see the old corvettes, chevys, fords, etc from the 60s and wonder why have one in light of the new safety and performance characteristics of the new cars.
I do enjoy seeing the old cars though. Some good looking cars.
But they wouldn't pass a safety test today.
“Early calculators were not allowed in tests.”
I’m not sure they even use calculators anymore.
Great comparison of SLS vs. Starship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KA69Oh3_obY
Key points: https://i2.wp.com/everydayastronaut.com/wp-content/uploads/2...
Mass to the Moon:
- Saturn 5: 49 metric tonnes
- SLS: 43 metric tonnes
- Starship: 156 metric tonnes
Price per launch:
- Saturn 5: 1.2B dollars
- SLS: 0.875B dollars
- Staraship: 0.1B dollars worse case scenario (Elon aims at 0.002B$)
Price per kg:
- Saturn 5: 25 600 $
- SLS: 20 000 $
- Starhip: 2 000 $ worse case scenario (Elon aims at 40$)
They best thing about cars from the 60’s and 70’s is that I still had lots of hair. And it wasn’t all growing out of my ears.
“at this point why not just rebuild the Saturn V engines??”
Materials and processes used back then either no longer exist or have been outright banned by the Left. We’re never going back to those days and I’ll be surprised if NASA even has a manned space program 2 years from now...given that those in charge see it as nothing more than a piggy bank, to fund some of their ‘great ideas’.
Lots of NASA workers voted against Trump, who was great on the Space Program...so I can’t say that I mind seeing those workers ending up on the street. If they don’t want to vote on issues, but instead on Third World priorities, they’ll get a Third World society...and they’ll learn that their ‘skills’ are not needed in that society.
How many years (or decades) late AND HOW MANY BILLIONS OVERBUDGET?
NASA is a dottering bureaucracy
When I think about all the money, time, effort, and yes, blood, that we expended trying to make a spaceship look like an airplane, and then look at what they do landing these boosters, it is just proof to me of what complete government folly much of NASA is.
I hear ya!
“They have plans, but most of the expertise is gone.”
...along with the entire supplier base, tools, jigs and fixtures.
I suppose they’ll google it.
NASA should be congratulated for the past wonderful decades creating manned lunar colonies, manned Mars colonies, and space stations around every planet and dozens of moons in the Solar System.
Oops—that happened in a parallel universe, not this one!
NASA is a bunch of clowns in this universe.
Why nasa is reusing the shuttle main engines
I remember as a kid the F1 was tested at the Santa Susana test facility made for a loud night at times in the San Fernando valley
It was a enging controller on engine 4 that stuff down that engine and ended the test.
at this point why not just rebuild the Saturn V engines??
—
The tech is long gone to rebuild them. But canceling their lunar venture has long been predicable - only DJT keep them on course. Now it will be back to climate change and muslim ICBMs in Iran outreach programs.
I grew up in Michigan, and in the 60’s if you managed to nurse a car over the 100K mark you had really accomplished something. Today at that point they are just getting broken in.
Don’t you just love they they are doing it with “United Rentals” cranes and guys/gals with hard hats out side of a clean room.
NASA thought it cheaper to reuse parts from the space shuttle than to develop new engines.
The engines, fuel and oxygen tanks, and solid rocket boosters are all adapted from the shuttle program and use the same companies and facilities used for the Shuttle.
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