rbk@hpctdls.HP.COM (Richard Katz) (03/08/89)
In article <240aa600@ralf> Ralf.Brown@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU writes: >... After several years of study, it will now take five years to make ********** >an operational system of mostly-existing components. The Saturn V was >designed and built from scratch in rather less than five years--*without* >years of study. I remember reading a couple of years ago that it would take over 10 years to redevelop the Saturn V - I think this was an AW&ST article. Anyways, you can't engineer things today nearly as fast as in the 60's as a result of NASA's beaurocracy (yeah, I can't spell). rich katz hewlett packard p o box 7050 colorado springs, co 80933-7050 email: rbk@hpctdlb.hp.com
carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu (03/09/89)
I'm still missing something - why not start cranking out Saturn V's
again? Would it be as difficult as building a new launcher? I was surprised
when I found out that the Saturn lifts about 40% *more* than Energiya (sp?)
(140 tonne vs. 100 tonne) to LEO. Are the designs for the Saturn available
to space companies?
Alan M. Carroll "And then you say,
carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu We have the Moon, so now the Stars..." - YES
CS Grad / U of Ill @ Urbana ...{ucbvax,pur-ee,convex}!s.cs.uiuc.edu!carrollmvp@v7fs1.UUCP (Mike Van Pelt) (03/11/89)
In article <218100011@s.cs.uiuc.edu> carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu writes: > I'm still missing something - why not start cranking out Saturn V's >again? Would it be as difficult as building a new launcher? I was surprised >when I found out that the Saturn lifts about 40% *more* than Energiya (sp?) >(140 tonne vs. 100 tonne) to LEO. Are the designs for the Saturn available >to space companies? The plans for the Saturn V are incomplete; much of it was been tossed out in the garbage years ago. The tooling was broken up and sold as scrap. All that's left is a couple of the Saturn V's themselves, one of which is rusting away on the lawn outside the visitors center at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. There are also a few of the F-1 engines in storage somewhere, but to build more it would be necessary to start from scratch. And today's NASA is not the NASA of the 60's. The people who built the Saturn V are dead, retired, or about to retire, and the paper-pushing bureacrats are in charge. These are the people who say that it would be impossible to put a man on the moon again in less than 10 years, even though it only took us 8 years from a standing start 20 years ago. Did you read the news item about how NASA is trying to put all the expertise of the retiring engineers into an expert system so things can keep going after they've left? That gives me cold chills ... Very strongly reminds me of one of the 'racial memory playback' scenes in _Planet of the Apes_. (The book, not the movie.) -- Mike Van Pelt Video 7 ...ames!vsi1!v7fs1!mvp "... Local prohibitions cannot block advances in military and commercial technology.... Democratic movements for local restraint can only restrain the world's democracies, not the world as a whole." -- K. Eric Drexler
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (03/12/89)
In article <218100011@s.cs.uiuc.edu> carroll@s.cs.uiuc.edu writes: > I'm still missing something - why not start cranking out Saturn V's >again? Would it be as difficult as building a new launcher? ... No, but it's not orders of magnitude easier, either. A substantial amount of the engineering would have to be re-done, especially the development and testing of the engines. The Boeing/Hughes "Jarvis" study very badly wanted to use Saturn V engines rather than Shuttle engines, but eventually had to give up on the idea. "When we dropped it, it broke." Don't forget that all the launch facilities have been rebuilt for the Shuttle, too. >... Are the designs for the Saturn available to space companies? I imagine so. What's lacking is the capital to do anything about it. It would cost a lot, and there are no guaranteed customers. -- Welcome to Mars! Your | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology passport and visa, comrade? | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu