Posted on 01/24/2013 5:34:29 PM PST by Islander7
A vintage rocket engine built to blast the first U.S. lunar mission into Earth's orbit more than 40 years ago is again rumbling across the Southern landscape.
The engine, known to NASA engineers as No. F-6049, was supposed to help propel Apollo 11 into orbit in 1969, when NASA sent Neil Armstrong and two other astronauts to the moon for the first time.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“Is that engine powerful enough for Muslim outreach? /s”
Indeed it is. After they get it working correctly, all remaining examples will be sent to Iran for further study ...
” I had read that ALL the technical plans for the Apollo project were gone.”
I read the same. What they are using now are existing examples. What is gone per Nixon’s directives are the tools, dies, blueprints to make new ones.
Attempting to remake the engines today would cost so much money that it would be cheaper to start from scratch.
Further, there is probably no one alive that understands the computer languages used to control them correctly.
When Y2K came along, they had to dig programmers out of old folks homes to fix the supposed problems - and that was only 14 years ago. The F1 engines were designed and built over 40 years ago.
Sadly this new generation of “engineers” are too busy making the next “big thing” to enable social media to be the panacea of all the worlds woes.
The brains of the 40-60’s generation did more with a slide rule, pencil, and a pad of paper than their successors can do with the latest macbook or desktop. We sent men to the moon with computers with a fraction of the computing power and storage of your kid’s iPod. It is a funny how most of the software engineers we hire under the age of 30 have no knowledge of how the system actually works. Everything comes in a 4th generation prepackaged application. They can make objects and flashy UI stuff but without the developer tools cannot really tell you how it happens under the hood.
wouuld care to prove that statement that the ISS is a money pit??? it’s being used as intended for science so what is your issue???
BTTT
I think that gets us into the realm of Einsteinian physics and relativity. God is the only real constant, and He is not part of the Universe but transcends it.
The whole ethic has shifted. Things built to last, honesty as a trait. The problem is not with engineering per-se - the one profession (all branches of engineering) closest to my heart and those to whom I best relate. Engineering is simply, like all other professions, subject to the zeitgeist of convenience and profit maximization at the expense of building an objectively superior product.
Yes, 4-GL COTS make us lazy. Some methodologies, while making for pretty source, can impose dramatic penalties on the final compiled product. Anything can be taken to an extremely, including modularity and object-oriented philosophies. Very few people consider cycles, stacks, and memory anymore. These are cheap anymore. I'm thankful that I'm barely old enough that my first professional job was programming assembly language.
The nuclear rocket prototypes built in the 1960’s provide more thrust for less fuel.
Not sure what difference it makes. We don’t have a manned space program anyway.
“A marvel of good ol’ American can do.”
It was Werner Von Braun, who was probably an ex Nazi.
Not probably,,,he WAS a NAZI, and proud of it. As far as I know, he never recanted NAZI’ism. He was a Sturmbannfuhrer (major) of the SS, and personally picked slave workers from Buchenwald to work on the V-2 program. French prisoners have said he ordered beatings of the workers and enjoyed watching the beatings. Everything he did in the field of rocketry was built on the work of Robert Goddard, an American. Sick and tired of that smirking, sneering, NAZI piece of crap getting all the credit for the US space program. Goddard is the father of our space program, not von Braun.
Get used to it. Wernher von Braun put the first man on the moon and not Goddard. Just compare the evolution of both rocket programs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H._Goddard#Roswell.2C_New_Mexico
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregate_%28rocket_family%29
“Explorer 1” was put into space on a rocket inherited with V2.
From January. Thanks Islander7.
NASA Testing Vintage Engine From Apollo 11 Rocket
January 25, 2013 RSS Feed Print
By JAY REEVES, Associated Press
http://www.usnews.com/science/news/articles/2013/01/25/nasa-testing-vintage-engine-from-apollo-11-rocket
What happens if the pressure in the expansion chamber exceeds the out pressure of the main fuel pump? Does the fuel go back into the main fuel pump? That could cause a mess!
The earth’s rotation is used for a boost, which is why they launch as close to the equator as possible on an eastbound trajectory.
Hold muh beer and watch THIS !
(you've been warned .. lol)
That is wonderful! Thanks for posting it.
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