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Didn't Elon Musk say that NASA had plan to buy rockets from the 70's or 80's from the Soviets to fly some missions in the 2000's? That is, not the DESIGNs from
by chubot 8y ago
Didn't Elon Musk say that NASA had plan to buy rockets from the 70's or 80's from the Soviets to fly some missions in the 2000's?
That is, not the DESIGNs from the 70's or 80's, but the actual rockets themselves!
I don't know much about space flight but I found that to be fascinating.
- huffmsa 8y agoThat was actually his plan in the early days of SpaceX. But the missiles were too expensive, so they started from scratch. But a lot of commercial launchers are incremental improvements on old designs. The Delta family is based on the Thor ICBM. Soyuz was first launched in 1966, and it's the only way to get humans to the ISS at the moment.
- godzillabrennus 8y agohttps://www.inverse.com/article/34976-spacex-ceo-elon-musk-tried-to-buy-icbm-rockets-from-russia https://www.inverse.com/article/34976-spacex-ceo-elon-musk-t...
- tigeba 8y agoOrbital Sciences Antares rocket uses previously mothballed Russian NK-33 engines. These were originally manufactured for the Russian version of the Apollo program but never flown. These are 70's vintage engines that get refurbished and launched. Also notable they are closed cycle engines, which was seen as somewhat impossible to achieve at the time. SpaceX newest engine uses the same concept, probably inspired by these engines. Documentary about this on Netflix https://www.netflix.com/title/80119093 https://www.netflix.com/title/80119093 I think the documentary makes some great points about how limitations drive creative solutions.