[AR] Saturns (was Re: APCP properties...)
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 28 Apr 2023 19:04:52 -0400 (EDT)
On Fri, 28 Apr 2023, Jim Davis wrote:
Yes, the S-I (first stage of the Saturn I) was originally the Juno V, a
quick-and-dirty ground demo project -- hence existing engines fed by a
bundle of existing tanks --
More accurately, existing engines fed by a bundle of new tanks that
could be made with existing tooling.
For the original single-article ground demo, it really *was* existing
tanks -- cobbled together from ABMA's inventory, incompletes, rejects,
etc. from the Redstone and Jupiter programs [ref: Stages To Saturn,
Bilstein, NASA SP-4206, p. 30].
And more or less the same story for the demo's engines, in fact: they
were somewhat modified from the earlier Jupiter engines, but the parts
came mostly from scrounging in storerooms at ABMA and Rocketdyne for
relevant stuff left over from Jupiter and related programs. (Even so, the
engine modifications alone cost half the total budget of the original
project.)
When this shoestring effort started looking like it would really produce a
workable design, *then* ARPA started extending the contract to cover
flight tests, and throwing in more money for new production, mostly on
existing tooling.
Henry
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