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As much as I love the Space Shuttle, I wish the US had not went all in on Hydrogen Oxygen. The RS-25 are amazing engines, but we could have had operational full
by NikolaeVarius 6y ago
As much as I love the Space Shuttle, I wish the US had not went all in on Hydrogen Oxygen. The RS-25 are amazing engines, but we could have had operational full flow staged engines 20 years ago if we had gone down that route. Though probably not the landing part.
- avmich 6y agoInteresting that full flow LOX-LH2 engines could be easier to get, as oxygen and hydrogen can be ignited in a wide range of ratio. With LOX-kero you might have to have a two stage gas generator, when first you ignite components with a good ratio and then add a component to the already established combustion.
- elteto 6y ago> With LOX-kero Small nitpick: kerolox is much nicer sounding and what people know them as ;)
- jsjohnst 6y agoLH2 is way less dense than RP1 though, so you’d need a significantly larger fuel tank to carry the same amount of fuel. Hydrolox (LOX-LH2) is about 30% more power than Kerolox (LOX-RP1), but is about 3.5x less density. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_rocket_propellant#Bipropellants https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_rocket_propellant#Bip... Hydrolox - Ve: 3,816 d: 0.29 Kerolox - Ve: 2,941 d: 1.03 If you were wanting to optimize for high specific impulse, it seems LOX-LH2:Be or a fluorine based fuel is the way to go purely on the numbers (not accounting for cost or stability).
- blackrock 6y agoNASA should’ve kept producing the Saturn V. Over time, the production costs should’ve come down. The shuttle was a rather mediocre trade off, in terms of LEO payload capacity. Although granted, the shuttle landings were pretty cool.