| The Breakroom > The Water Cooler |
| Saturn V launch |
| << < (2/4) > >> |
| Lew_Merrick_PE:
Rob, I never saw a V launch up close and personal, but I helped build up three in the Vehicle Assembly Building at the Cape. Does that count? I spent more of my time working on the STS (Space Transportation System -- aka Space Shuttle) and various "payloads" than working on the V. There is a Mars Lander System that has been on "launch hold" since August of 2010 (the "window" was missed) that has a set of hypergolic fuel pumps that feed the steering (vector) motors on it that I designed (as part of a team, of course) on it. I have heard (and heard contradicted) several times that the program will be "scrubbed," but nothing official one way or the other. I spent a good deal of time in the 1971-1974 time frame working on Apollo projects. I spent a large minority of my time 1982-1994 working on STS and various supporting parts of STS. And I spent about half of my time 2004-2007 working on various other things for orbital testing. It is really too bad that the U.S. is no longer a space power. |
| Rob.Wilson:
Hi Lads :headbang: Dean , Stew ,,,, not planning to build one ,,,, back yard is a tad small :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: ,, i have seen some cracking models of the Saturn rocket , what amazes me are the engines :bugeye: Pete ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, i hope to get over there to have a look myself one day ,,,i bet its a cracking day out :thumbup: any photos :poke: :) Dave ,,,,,,,,,, I am pleased you had a trip down memory lane :D ,,,,,, i bet the noise was awesome from the testing ,, sadly just to young to remember the moon landings :( ,, i am reading Neil's biography at the moment ,very interesting . ,,,,,,,, The USA has always been up at the sharp end when it comes to welding practices and processes , i think i saw that vacuum chamber on TV ,, NASA's Greatest missions . Lew ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, it dose count :bow: :bow: :bow: wow sounds like you have a cool job . " It is really too bad that the U.S. is no longer a space power." Dam sad i would say Lew :( , its a real shame that the Shuttle missions have come to an end . I am just trying to imagine what the atmosphere would have been like on launch day standing there as the count down starts ,,, then the noise as the engines rip into life :drool: Rob |
| 75Plus:
One of my nephews is the Project Manager for testing the rocket engine for the next generation heavy lift vehicle. He tells me that he can understand shutting down the STS program so the funds can be applied to the new vehicle. (We cannot fund both.) Now, however, he is concerned that the funding may be cut leaving the US Government out of the space arena. The link is to an article about this engine, http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nasas-new-upper-stage-rocket-engine-ready-for-testing-123740339.html Scroll down to Marcus A. Neely in this link for information on his duties. http://sfa.nasa.gov/STS135Honorees.cfm Joe |
| Lew_Merrick_PE:
Rob & Joe, Space work comes and goes. Except for idiotic orbital weapons systems, it has been "gone" for three decades now. I worked on three different iterations of PowerSat over the years. Solar energy strikes Earth at 1 kW/m². Move out of Earth's atmosphere, but not out of Earth's magnetosphere and that flux increases to 1.37 MW/m². Move outside of Earth's magnetosphere and that flux increases to (approximately) 15 MW/m². Which "well" should we be "digging." Instead, we spent more than 200 million tax dollars funding a study of a sodium-hydride generation system based on the moon what microwaves power back to Earth at a maximum power density (set by international law) at 235 W/m². We demonstrated using particle beams to send power from orbit to Earth as part of SkyLab. We were able to deliver 5 MW in a ø150 mm beam at 48% overall efficiency -- in 1976 (you can look this up in August-November 1977 issues of Aviation Week & Space Technology under the title Chair Heritage -- if you can find them). (The Wikipedia rendition of Chair Heritage appears to be the official cover story that was the denial issued by DoD in 1977.) The last time I was involved in microwave->electricity conversion it was about 40% efficient. That means that 235 W/m² of input equals 94 W/m² output. 5 MW/m² in a ø150 mm beam equals 282.9 MW/m² of power density. At 48% efficient, 282.9 MW/m² input equals 135.8 MW/m² output. I suspect (but do not know) that these values were "improved upon" through the SDI program research of the 1980's. And we are now using a "rebranded" Soviet/Russian Energia system to loft our payloads into orbit. It is hard not to interpret this as a complete abandonment of the place where the future will happen... |
| AdeV:
Lew - one of the increasing problems with low-Earth orbit is, as I understand it, the ever increasing amount of "space junk"; apparently, the recent Chinese satellite-killer experiment plus an accident where a live satellite crashed into a dead one, has increased the number of small particles beyond NASA's ability to track them all? It seems to me, the next thing we need to be inventing, is a big orbital broom to sweep up the cr*p before it becomes deadly... it'd be a bit stupid if we got to the point where launching anything into orbit was impossible... |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |
| Previous page |