[AR] Re: SpaceX F9 Launch/Update -- Live Link
- From: David McMIllan <skyefire@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 27 Dec 2015 23:29:14 -0500
On 12/27/2015 1:13 PM, David Weinshenker wrote:
Or put another way, once you have an incoming launch vehicle
requirement, it may be too late - especially in the context
of the compressed budget and schedule expectations which seem
to be the "modern" fashion - to initiate an applicable engine
development project. (Note that the F-1 work began well before
anything resembling the Saturn/Apollo launch configuration, as
such, had been explicitly specified - but it was foreseen that
lunar missions might be proposed, and it could be anticipated
that these would require large launch vehicles and new high-
thrust engines.)
Yeah. The "Space Rocket History" podcast (quite worth a listen,
IMO) goes into quite a bit of detail on this subject during one "arc".
I was amazed to hear just how early the first dev contracts for (what
became) the F-1 and the Saturn were signed -- several months *before*
JFK's "we choose to go to the moon" speech. The entire time that Mercury
was trying to get off the ground, the critical elements of the
Saturn/Apollo stack were already being worked on concurrently, and
absorbing the lessons learned from Mercury and Gemini as they went. So
by the time of the first Saturn 5 launch, the vehicle and its engines
had been in design and development for roughly 7 years (or more,
depending on where you draw the exact starting point).
Of course, these days, getting the same amount of work done via the
Congress/NASA/cost-plus contract route would probably take 20 years,
with the program cancelled, renamed, and re-stared at least 3 times
along the way....
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