[AR] Re: APCP properties, was Re: Re: starship abort?

  • From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2023 13:34:19 -0400 (EDT)

On Thu, 27 Apr 2023, roxanna Mason wrote:

      I'm not sure exactly how the 260in solid project began, but
      ...the original idea might have been to use it as an S-I
      replacement.  (...many people questioned whether von Braun
      could make the S-I's 8-engine cluster work reliably, and
      wanted backup plans in case he couldn't.)

That's probably the reason...

I suspect that's also the reason why, when the military's big-engine project was transferred to NASA and became the F-1, its design thrust jumped from 1Mlb to 1.5Mlb. I've never seen that jump explained, but the latter number was about the S-I total thrust, and people may have thought, "well, if we're going to build something in that neighborhood, let's size it so it could be used for re-engining the S-I, in case the big cluster fails". There was mention of such a re-engined S-I in some of the ideas for later S-I-based Saturn configurations. (Then people started wanting more thrust, so maybe the F-1 would replace only the four inboard engines. Or maybe the re-engined S-I would have two F-1s. And so on, until the final S-IC had no actual resemblance to the S-I at all...)

Henry

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