Author Topic: Bringing back the Saturn V  (Read 69709 times)

Offline spectre9

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #120 on: 08/02/2013 10:01 am »
I'm so over thinking about payloads in terms of "to LEO"

LEO is nowhere.

Without depots and refueling getting large payloads BEO isn't possible. No commercial launcher existing (Delta IV Heavy) or planned (Falcon Heavy) will be able to push anything near 20 tons to Luna, Mars or an EML point.

If NASA wants to be anti-depot a HLLV is the only way to go.

Who cares if there is no large LEO payload, the payload is LH2. Just need to get over that.

Offline Lobo

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #121 on: 08/02/2013 05:29 pm »
That could be a 6.5m CCB with a single F-1B on it, which could launch with a single core, 3-core, 4-core, 5-core, or 7-core configuration.

Yea, that's about the only way I see this concept as scalable without total redesigns. It's the concept used in Nova 9L:

http://astronautix.com/lvs/nova9l.htm

Some challenges are:

-How do you scale upper stages to match each first stage cluster configuration?

-Aerodynamic differences of various configurations up to MaxQ

-Making mobile launch platform, tower, flame trench, etc. able to accommodate all of these various configurations.

-Does one engine out mean LOM; do you cross-feed in case of engine out?

-In case of Nova 9L you have 4 stages. Stage 2 also uses 4 of these F-1 cores. This F-1 must be air startable.

Yup, that's always the challenge of a modular system.  An upper stage size for a single stick, or maybe up to a tri-core will be too small for the heavier configurations.  An upper stage sized for a 5 or 7 core heavy would be too big for the smaller configurations.

But, there's lots of ways to approach it.  And studies could be done to find the best path forward.  I'm not sure which would be the best, but here's some I would evaluate.

1)  Assume a 5-core would be the heaviest configuration.  That should be in excess of the S-1C with F-1B's, even if it's heavier.  Crossfeed the central core of a tri-core or 5-core, so that the central F-1B burns for longer and does part of the interim ascent, that way the upper stage doesn't need to do as much heavy lifting.  On a single stick, it would need to do that heavy lifting, sort of like how the S-IVB did the heavy lifting on the Saturn 1B, but only the latter part of the ascent on the Saturn V.  This would be a compromise upper stage, but I'd figure there was a sweet spot of a stage that could be the 2nd stage of a single stick, and the 2.5 stage of a 3 or 5 core with later staging.

2)  Have two upper stages which share common components and systems.  one could even be just a stretched version of the other.  Like ACES-41 and ACES-71.  One for the smaller configurations, one for the larger.  And if you went this route, you could forego crossfeeding, and have all the booster cores stage together, then have the large upper stage be the 2nd stage, and have the smaller upper stage be the 3rd stage/EDS.  A little like the Saturn V actually, except the top stage could fly on one or three of the booster CCB's, rather than needing the largest booster cluster like INT-20 did.  And the two upper stages would be two versions of the same stage, rather than two completely different stages like Saturn V.  You gotta figure the smaller configurations will be flying much more often than the largest, so design for those first, and then design the ability to be able to make the larger configurations when you would occastionally need them.

3)  Use new staged combustion kerolox engines on the first stage, and get more ascent out of them.  In this way it looks like AVP2-Heavy and AVP3a could use the same 5m upper stage.

http://i40.tinypic.com/2rzsao7.jpg

That might be one of the best ways to go.

4)  A concept Steve Pietrobon had.  Cluster your boosters, but also cluster your upper stages.  So imagine that AVP2-heavy, or AVP3a, but on top of each booster core is an upper stage.  Those upper stage are strapped on too.  You don't have to crossfeed them, because the upper stage engine should be capable of multiple restarts.  So you could light all of the upper stages together.  Then shut the center one down while burning all of the outboard stages empty.  Jettison them, and then relight the central upper stage CCB as the EDS.  It's outside of the box for sure, but I've been unable to see why it couldn't work. 
If you didn't mind a little more complex staging, the boosters could crossfeed into the central core.  After the outboard boosters are jettsoned, the central core burns for longer.  Then after it's jettisoned.  THe outter upper stages are lit and burn, and then they are jettisoned and the the central upper stage CCB does the EDS burn.  Could potentially get pretty good performance.
Or more simply, stage all 1st stage CCB at the same time like a single large stage.  With staged combustion engines, that'd probably work because you could still burn that stage for 250sec like Atlas V.  Lower performing gas generators like the F-1's migth not be as optimum to try to burn for that long.
This isn't without it's challenges.  But I don't know why you couldn't mate upper stages at the MPS's just like the booster CCB's are. And in this way, you get by with just a single booster CCB, and a single upper stage CCB. 

5)  Similar to #4, but instead of strapping the 1st stage and 2nd stage CCB's together, you do a spider truss system similar to the S-1B.  Except instead of the S-1B's clustered tanks and single MPS, you'd be clustering CCB's each with it's own MPS.  The trust would carry the loads such that each CCB would not see such heavy loads like a traditional central core which carries the payload and upper stage.  In this way, each CCB is identical, and the truss distributes the load evenly.  So on a 5-core booster, each core carries 1/5 of the total load, even the central core.  There would be a similar (but smaller and lighter) setup on the upper stage CCB's.
So once you developed your single booster CCB, and single upper stage CCB, the adders are the truss adaptors for the various configurations (the truss adaptor for a tri-core would be different than for a 5-core, and that would be different than the one for a 7-core...if you actually wanted a configuration that heavy).
And you might need a couple of different interstage adaptors for the various configurations.  And then probably two PLF's, on for the single stock and tri-core (like the Delta-IV 5m PLF) and then a larger one for the 5 and 7 core variants.
So some challenges there, but the payoff after development is a truely common system.  And Chrysler did it with the S-1B in the early 60's, so I don't think it would be too challenging today. 
This could be done in phases too.  Start with the single core and tri-core heavy.  Then phase in the 5-core heavy, and then later if there was actually a need, the 7-core super heavy. 
As the 1st stage will be all intereconnected with the truss adaptor, it will stage as a single unit, so this concept would benefit from staged combustion engines with longer burn times like Atlas Phase 2.  Or it could be done with Delta IV cores, and 5m DCSS upper stages. (To save even the development of the CCB and upper stage...although ACES would probably be better than DCSS given it's uniform diameter).


Yea, the launch pads would have some challenges too.  But, if launching from KSC, that means you can have multiple ML's for whatever configuration you have.  You can design on ML like LC-37, which can launch single stick or tri-core.  Then have a different one which can launch a 5 core, and then another for a 7-core.  If a single ML can be made to launch both a 5 and 7 core, then cool.  If not, two ML's. 
So, in total, probably 4 ML's, two which can launch either single sticks or tri-core's as those will be the most common NASA would launch.  Then one 5-core, and one for 7-core.  That's only one extra ML than Saturn V and STS had. 
As long as the CCB's weren't wider than about 6.5m, any of the configurations should fit out the VAB doors and accross the flame deflector on the pads. 

And, in that same vein, if you wanted to use Delta IV CCB's and ACES stages, you could actually go large on the booster.  YOu don't need an odd-number like 5 or 7 core.  You could do an 8-core booster with a pattern like the S-1B's engines.  Or a 9-core booster with a central core in that same pattern.  Not saying you'd want to or need to, just that since the truss would distribute the forces over each core evenly, you aren't constrained by having to make a central core really strong.  Although an 8 or 9 core booster may or may not be too wide for the VAB doors. 

I actually like that a lot, as it would actually be using existing EELV CCB's, which already have single stick and 3-stick version flying.  That eliminates a huge amount of development right there.  The truss adaptors, interstage adaptors, and PLF's are the main items of NASA development then.
Same could be done for Atlas V actually this way.  A single large PLF would sit over all of the clustered upper stages, so you could make that as wide as you want.  The diameter of the CCB's themselves is no longer a constraint in PLF size.
This would be as opposed to the Nova 9L, which appears to directly cluster the tanks, and have a single MPS like the S-1B.
Like the chart below, but with a clusterd upper stage on top which would be the same diameter.
The PLF doesn't have to be the diameter of the whole cluster.  It can neck down to the desired diameter from the cluster diameter.

Maybe I'll start a separate thread on this...  :-)
« Last Edit: 08/02/2013 05:44 pm by Lobo »

Offline JasonAW3

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #122 on: 08/02/2013 06:48 pm »
The M-1 Engine!?!

     Holy...!

     Did they ever light that monster off?

     If I saw it right, that thing was a pump fed beast.

     And people say that a pressure fed Sea Dragon was impossible...


Jason
My God!  It's full of universes!

Offline RyanC

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #123 on: 08/02/2013 07:09 pm »
Only booster junkies in the sense that that allows scalability.  One of the problems with the Saturn V was that if you weren't doing a Lunar mission, or launching a Skylab sized payload to LEO, there really wasn't much way to scale it back feasibly for less than huge payloads. 

Saturn INT-20 disagrees with you. No huge complicated S-II stage; and being capable of removing F-1 engines from the S-IC-INT-20 as needed to scale thrust to the payload needed means that you can essentially produce it on the same production line as the full up S-IC-SAT-V, lowering operational costs.

F-1A would have been simplified compared to F-1, allowing for cheaper operational costs; q.v.:

(F1A vs F1)

21 vs 39 Stage Connections/Engine Interconnections
24 vs 37 Servicing Connections
8 vs 129 Instruments for acceptance testing
6 vs 34 Instruments for flight status
6 vs 16 propulsion redlines
3 vs 7 Ground Test Restrictions
2 vs 15 Monitored Countdown Events (aka launch interlocks)

It would have been able to be calibrated before launch to thrust levels between 1.35 and 1.8 million pounds of thrust, and the F-1A would have been capable of throttling up to 300 klbf below the thrust setting, unlike F-1 which had no throttle capability.

As for J-2S, the S stood for "simplified"; and there was a lot of work on reducing the operational costs of the engine -- e.g. the stuff that had to be monitored or required GSE while on the pad versus baseline J-2.

Offline spacenut

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #124 on: 08/02/2013 07:27 pm »
I also think a modular approach should be or could have been used.  A single 5m or so first stage using a single F1A.  Then tri core for a heavy version.  Then maybe 5 cores with say 3 upper stage cores all lighting at the same time.  Should get around  100 tons to LEO.  With this modular approach for various heavier loads, combine with a fuel depot in LEO, then one at L1 or L2 for Mars or for a large reusable lunar lander. 

For what we spent on the space station, we could have instead built a LEO fuel depot and a lunar depot.  We would be mining the moon by now. 

I also think maybe the plug nozzel engine for upper stages should have been developed so upper stages could be retrieved using the plug engine as a heat shield.  The first stages could either be flyback or parachute back for reuse. 

Modular, reusable, scalable from 25-100 tons to LEO.  That way the system gets used, not once or twice a year, but multiple times.  Human launches could be on new engines and rockets, then they could be reused for satelite launches until worn out. 

Using Saturn technology to bring back the F1 is a start, then the J2 plug nozzel for a second or third stage. 

Maybe ULA will build the Atlas V phase II using a single F1A engine as a start. 

Offline Lobo

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #125 on: 08/02/2013 08:22 pm »
Saturn INT-20 disagrees with you. No huge complicated S-II stage; and being capable of removing F-1 engines from the S-IC-INT-20 as needed to scale thrust to the payload needed means that you can essentially produce it on the same production line as the full up S-IC-SAT-V, lowering operational costs.

F-1A would have been simplified compared to F-1, allowing for cheaper operational costs; q.v.:

(F1A vs F1)

21 vs 39 Stage Connections/Engine Interconnections
24 vs 37 Servicing Connections
8 vs 129 Instruments for acceptance testing
6 vs 34 Instruments for flight status
6 vs 16 propulsion redlines
3 vs 7 Ground Test Restrictions
2 vs 15 Monitored Countdown Events (aka launch interlocks)

It would have been able to be calibrated before launch to thrust levels between 1.35 and 1.8 million pounds of thrust, and the F-1A would have been capable of throttling up to 300 klbf below the thrust setting, unlike F-1 which had no throttle capability.

As for J-2S, the S stood for "simplified"; and there was a lot of work on reducing the operational costs of the engine -- e.g. the stuff that had to be monitored or required GSE while on the pad versus baseline J-2.

Well, yes and no. 

INT-20 was a concept using hardware that existed at that time.  And even the lightest two engine version with partial propellant loads wouldn't have been a cheap vehicle, and it's capacity would have been in excess of Titan IV.  And I think it would have been relatively expensive for anything smaller than that.
But, if your starting point was 1970, and you had the Saturn V's production lines sitting there on standby waiting to find out if they'll every make another Saturn V or be scrapped for STS, then I like INT-20 a lot.
Today, we have a sustainer-core design already in development, and EELV's already flying.  So to scrap SLS for a monolithic, and then develop an INT-20 like version isn't exactly the most efficient way to have scalability.  I think it'd be better to start with what you have -today- and work out from there, just as INT-20 did back in the Apollo era.

But...even then, how do you go BLEO again?  INT-20 only gets you to LEO.  So you'd need to keep that big, expensive, complex, S-II production line available if you want any BLEO capacity.
In the modular system above, you only need to make two small to medium stages, and then cluster them as necessary.  And you can have both LEO and BLEO capabilities with that.  And could use existing CCB's to do that.

PS:  But, back in 1970, with the benefit of hindsight, I fully think it would have been better to keep at least some Apollo hardware and have used that to support space station's and LEO operations for the next few decades rather than STS.  I think some objectivism and realism back then would have led everyone to that conclusion, but the luer of cheaper reusability seemed to be contagious.  :-)


Offline Lobo

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #126 on: 08/04/2013 06:37 am »


Do we need that many stone obelisks in space annually? It's not like NASA could afford anything else. Other option would be to attempt to build a pyramid in LEO but that would require substantial on-orbit assembly and that seems to be out of fashion now.

Seriously, what payload could NASA afford to build annually that weighs 100+t wet?


That's the main merit of a modular system that can be launched in smaller configurations.  Do the heavy payloads come along often enough to justify a stand alone heavy lifter?  I don't think so  So while a dedicated HLV is the most mass efficient, it's not necessarily the most flexible or cost effective.
« Last Edit: 08/04/2013 05:45 pm by Lobo »

Offline spectre9

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #127 on: 08/04/2013 09:25 am »
The payload is mostly fuel though.

It's time to stop being afraid of heavy lift for price or payload concerns.

New footage of metal being bent for SLS has me swinging back in favor but only just. Still don't like the steel boosters but I'm not ATK does either so they might go the way of the dinosaur soon enough  :D

Just gotta keep the liquid boosters in play long enough for ATK to offer a good price on continued supply of the dark knights.

I'm heading off topic but this thread has just about run it's coarse anyway. I'm open to a little bit of vs SLS argument.  :)

Offline sdsds

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #128 on: 08/04/2013 10:55 am »
A single 5m or so first stage using a single F1A.  Then tri core for a heavy version.  Then maybe 5 cores with say 3 upper stage cores all lighting at the same time.

See, this post deserves the "thumbs up," if the forum software supported that.

But here's the rub, and it applies to Saturn V redux too.

There's only one customer. NASA. And NASA has already "bought" a different solution (SSME-based; SRB-augmented). NASA can't afford both. Ergo, we can't have a kerolox liquid-only first stage solution. End of story.
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Offline R7

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #129 on: 08/04/2013 12:35 pm »
But here's the rub, and it applies to Saturn V redux too.

There's only one customer. NASA. And NASA has already "bought" a different solution (SSME-based; SRB-augmented). NASA can't afford both. Ergo, we can't have a kerolox liquid-only first stage solution. End of story.

The cluster might have only NASA as customer but individual "Atlas VI" cores would have others. That should be an incentive for private sector to take part in R&D costs and try to keep them low. Then NASA could concentrate it's resources on payloads such as landers.

NASA "bought" Ares V, the Stick, Orion and Altair. Then "unbought" everything but Orion and "bought" SLS. It could "unbuy" the SLS, "buy" Atlas-cluster and then "rebuy" Altair for actually doing something else than chasing small rocks in deep space for the next two decades. La la land dream, I know...but hopefully there's some alternate universe where this happens  :-\
AD·ASTRA·ASTRORVM·GRATIA

Offline Lobo

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #130 on: 08/05/2013 06:30 pm »
But here's the rub, and it applies to Saturn V redux too.

There's only one customer. NASA. And NASA has already "bought" a different solution (SSME-based; SRB-augmented). NASA can't afford both. Ergo, we can't have a kerolox liquid-only first stage solution. End of story.

The cluster might have only NASA as customer but individual "Atlas VI" cores would have others. That should be an incentive for private sector to take part in R&D costs and try to keep them low. Then NASA could concentrate it's resources on payloads such as landers.

NASA "bought" Ares V, the Stick, Orion and Altair. Then "unbought" everything but Orion and "bought" SLS. It could "unbuy" the SLS, "buy" Atlas-cluster and then "rebuy" Altair for actually doing something else than chasing small rocks in deep space for the next two decades. La la land dream, I know...but hopefully there's some alternate universe where this happens  :-\

If only Ares V and Ares 1 could have been "unbought" and NASA could get a refund.  ;-)

But I agree with your sentament. 

However, I think perhaps if NASA were to "unbuy" SLS right now, I think perhaps rather than scrapping all of that work, rework it into an AJAX core.  Yea, it'd move the point back a few years as the AJAX core is different than the SLS core.  But I think the new tooling equipment going into MAF would be perfectly applicable to an AJAX core.  I think it's mainly a good chunk of the labor that's been expended to bring SLS to the recent successful PDR that'd be lost.  But I wouldn't think all of it.  After all, although they are cores of different designs, they are both still 8.4m wide hyrdolox cores using RS-25's on the MPS.  It wouldn't be throwing -all- of the design work away as would say switching to a kerolox monolithic (like the genesis of this thread) would be. 

The Atlas CCB's are -already- designed to be be strap on boosters as I understand.  Their SRB mounts would be what would be used in a 3-core heavy Atlas if one had ever flown.  I don't think the CCB itself would be different (maybe I'm mistaken in that...I'm sure Jim will correct me if I am.  :-)   )

And while this would delay the launch of the 70mt HLV past 2017 most likely, Orion could fly on an Atlas/ACES-55x to LEO.  I don't know that missing the 2017 launch date is any major problem anywa, if the first crewed SLS flight will -really- be in 2021 (ack!).
I think there could be an uncrewed AJAX test flight prior to 2021, and still a crewed flight in 2021.
Or go back to EOR and make Atlas/ACES-55x the CLV, so AJAX itself doesn't need to be man-rated.
And of course the ACES development means you already have the AJAX upper stage in the stretched ACES stage.  No J2X upper stage or DUUS development needed. Although the MB-60 could be used for ACES.

However, if this were February 2010, where CxP had just been cancelled, I think most of the work up to that point had been for Ares 1, not Ares V, so if Ares 1 is being scrapped -anyway-, I don't think much labor and development was lost with the cancellation of Ares V.  And then NASA contracts ULA to develop a clustered Atlas V or Delta IV core, with ACES upper stage (which will be clustered too as a HLV upper stage).  And all of the 8.4m potential work would just be quietly retired.
I would have eliminated or scaled back commercial crew and cargo, and tasked a cargo Orion to be doing that work on Atlas 552 or Atlas-ACES 55x ASAP.  Cargo first to get that service going, and then Crew by 2015.  The clustered variants wouldn't really get under heavy development until that had been established.

Delta IV would probably be the better to cluster, due to it's greater diameter.  Atlas could be the man-rated crew launcher though, and the clustered variants of Delta IV could remain non manrated cargo launchers.  Both EELV's could be utilized in that way and thus give each a more unique function and capability, rather than being more redundant and overlapping.  (although, you could still man-rate Delta IV, launch Orion on a D4H, and still slate Atlas for potential retirement at some point and commonize fully on Delta IV)
Everything and would have a common ACES upper stage. 

Again...in alternate universes.  ;-)


« Last Edit: 08/05/2013 06:36 pm by Lobo »

Offline Davinator

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #131 on: 08/07/2013 04:02 pm »
Wrong kind of rocket for what NASA is looking at now.

Offline Archibald

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Re: Bringing back the Saturn V
« Reply #132 on: 08/07/2013 06:35 pm »
Can't help thinking that current SLS has something Saturn V (and shuttle-derived over three decades) lacked: political support, and a strong one with that - the Shelby, Nelson and others.
At first glance its a good thing  - except that NASA budget has fallen so low that there's no money for payload to go under the shroud...

Saturn V must be spinning in its grave.

EDIT

With the SLS politically "secure" (save the shuttle jobs) I even think it might be time to dust off Mars Direct. The impossible cancellation of SLS might help secure a manned mission to Mars !
Politics forced NASA to build a huge rocket it can't afford flying nor putting payloads under the shroud. Right.
It happens that Mars Direct may provide a unique payload to the SLS - the Earth Return Vehicles ! no more development.
Crap, perhaps they should cancel Orion (which as a LEO suffers against commercial crew, and  currently has no BEO mission) and fund development of an ERV instead.
That, and Mars direct don't need that much SLS, a couple of HLVs would do the job.
We all know that past 2017 NASA budget won't allow for more than a pair of SLS every two years or so - but hey, Mars direct doesn't need more than two HLVs. :D

Oh, brother Zubrin, where are you thou ?
« Last Edit: 08/08/2013 10:24 am by Archibald »
Han shot first and Gwynne Shotwell !

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