Good luck landing or reusing the 1973 rocket. Not to mention the FH will cost what, 1% what the Saturn V did?
Tech progresses, just not in ways that are always immediately obvious.
2 Likes
+1 for attention to detail.
2 Likes
I actually got in trouble as a kid for sneaking downstairs in the middle of the night to watch an Endeavour launch on TV (in my parents’ defense, it was like 2 in the morning). Given that it was before we had access to the internet and launches weren’t announced by the local news, I’m honestly not sure how I even found out it was happening, but I did.
I got to see an early-morning Atlantis launch in person as a high school graduation present, which was absolutely incredible. I somehow managed to snag this shot on my brand new 1.6 megapixel camera, and it’s still one of the best photos I’ve ever taken:
14 Likes
I grew up in California. When I was 10, I happened to be outside playing in my grandma’s back yard when a space shuttle re-entered. I heard the two sonic booms (the front and back of the shuttle, apparently) and saw something wayyyy far away overhead zooming by. I found out later it was the space shuttle.
2 Likes
All that exuberance and not one police car nor light pole nor stop light destroyed. Well done Team Science.
2 Likes
Well, it’s really pretty hard to allocate the costs and recoveries, and also Falcon Heavy is not readily comparable to Saturn V; there are a lot of differences. Tech progresses, as you noted.
But if you want to rate 'em for raw power, the Saturn V is still king, and will not be eclipsed until SpaceX’s BFR* hits the launch pad. At that point it will probably also be fun to make some cost comparisons!
* BFR totally stands for Big Falcon Rocket, that’s exactly what it stands for, totally, not for anything else at all.
8 Likes
True. They did it two generations ago with slide rules and without advanced materials or manufacturing techniques.
I guess it will also be a Great Leap Forward when we progress to having 1973’s supersonic commercial jets or get fast trains in the US.
2 Likes
Great shot (in both senses).
I got to see a shuttle launch from the roof of the Contemporary Hotel in Disney World (it’s good to have connections) and while it was too small to see much and you couldn’t hear anything, you could still see a bright spot of flame and the whole exhaust trail, and it really showed the scale at which it which is was operating.
I got to see a Saturn V launch (Apollo 15) from about a half mile to the west of the VAB. My grandfather worked at the Cape and got us an on-base pass (it’s good to have connections) (also one of the SkyLab crew missions, S1B on a milkstool.) and we just pulled off along a road (mind the alligators) with a few thousand other people. You can only imagine.
Except you @Medievalist said you worked in the industry? So you don’t have to imagine, you know.
1 Like
Actually, there have been many, many tremendous advances in terms of materials and systems controls, and all that coupled with the burgeoning promise of better economics. For example, we could have always gone back to the Moon. The question now is how much more cheaply that could be done, and how the economics would allow us to do more space stuff.
1 Like
Thanks for pointing that out, I didn’t notice the parachute until you brought it up.
I don’t know what the rationale is for opening in when they did. I do know they use parachutes in some forms of high horse-powered drag racing, perhaps that’s the idea in this video?
It has less than half the payload capacity of the Saturn V 45 years later.
"Leaving aside minutiae like specific impulse and burn times, what does all this mean at the end of the day? It means that the Falcon Heavy can put a payload of 140,700 lb (63,800 kg) into low Earth orbit at an inclination of 28.5 degrees. It could also reach escape velocity to send 35,000 lb (16,000 kg) to the Moon.
Saturn V? Its low Earth orbit throw weight is over twice the Heavy’s at 310,000 lb (140,000 kg) with a 30° inclination. Getting to escape velocity, it can loft 107,100 lb (48,600 kg) into lunar orbit."
—strike that - less than a quarter of the capacity.
1 Like
That doesn’t mean it’s not a technological improvement over the Saturn V. Getting the cost-per-pound-in-orbit down is arguably the biggest barrier for any large scale space endeavor.
Anyway there are other rocket designs in the pipeline (including SpaceX’s BFR) designed to finally top the Saturn V’s record within the next few years.
1 Like
Thanks, Late Stage Capitalism!
Weŕe much better at rendezvous and docking than we were then. If we were mounting a lunar mission now, it would be nonsensical to do it with a single vehicle. We have a space station, we can have a crew transfer vehicle, a lander, a couple of tankers, and whatnot all assemble in space.
In fact, multi-vehicle Earth-orbit rendezvous was the working design at the start of the Apollo program, and the decision was made that lunar-orbit rendezvous, which came late to the party, had a better chance of pulling off the one-shot stunt in the minimal amount of time.
Musk was explaining at the press conference that we could go to the Moon in about four years with Falcon Heavy - but that BFR (Big (mother-)Falcon Rocket) would be flying by the time all the other hardware was available. In any case, his plans need fleets of vehicles anyway. It could be that something Falcon-Heavy-sized will be the workhorse LEO hauler, or it could be that economies of scale favor a heavier rocket; we’ll see.
4 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
