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In particular, all Saturn V engines were completely hand-built and the process was not documented. A lot of very fine craftsmanship went into that that we can't

In particular, all Saturn V engines were completely hand-built and the process was not documented. A lot of very fine craftsmanship went into that that we can't replicate today.

renewiltord 5y ago
Seems like that situation where the first engineer builds an inscrutably clever codebase. Lots of fine craftsmanship indeed.
akiselev 5y ago
Nitpick: we can replicate it, it's not like we've technologically regressed. We're just not willing to spend the money - at it's peak NASA's budget was ~4.5% of federal spending when the Saturn V was designed (it's now only 0.5%).
- KineticLensman 5y ago
  > Nitpick: we can replicate it, it's not like we've technologically regressed. Saturn's materials and computer technology are more than 50 years old. Not only would we have to want to recreate this historic technology, we would have to recreate the knowledge, skills and competencies of the experienced craftsmen that used it, across the massive supply chain, as well as the tooling required.
- foobiekr 5y ago
  Actually, you’d be surprised how many techniques have been lost. They’re just not relevant, for example the actual practice of riveting battleship hulls is gone, but that changes suddenly when you want to replicate the past.
- garmaine 5y ago
  That’s because federal spending has increased across the board. NASA’s funding isn’t that much different now than then.
  - adventured 5y ago
    NASA's spending was near $5 billion in the mid 1960s. [1] That's equal to $42 billion today per the BLS. NASA's fiscal 2021 budget is $23.2 billion. So while you're correct that Federal spending has increased as a share of the economy (declining NASA's share of spending even faster), NASA's funding is realistically down by at least half now vs then when you adjust for inflation. That BLS figure is also the questionable official conservative take. Gold was $35 / ounce back then, it's around $1,800 now (51 fold increase). The average new car was near $3,000 in the mid 1960s, it's now $41,000. Oil was $3 / barrel in the mid 1960s, it's in the $70s now. [1] https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012/vol4/ch1.htm https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012/vol4/ch1.htm - NASA's spending fell to $3 billion by 1974. Inflation adjusted that would be $17.5 billion today, so at least they're ahead of that.
    - garmaine 5y ago
      So adjusted for inflation, NASA's budget is merely half what it was in the peak of the 1960's, whereas the statistic quoted makes it sound like it is 1/10th. Cherry-picking a peak date is a bit dubious though. If you average over the duration of the Apollo program, you get a number much closer to today. So most, maybe even all of the difference in budgetary size is due to increase in size of the rest of the federal budget.
      - bumby 5y ago
        To be fair, the GP comment said “at its peak”. They weren’t cherry picking, just following the initial thread. But your point about relative % of GDP may not be the best measure
- lmilcin 5y ago
  No, we can't replicate it because there is simply not enough description. For example, there aren't even specs for parts. The entire thing would have to be re-designed from scratch with modern manufacturing process in mind. And for things like F1 engine the available manufacturing methods have a lot of influence on the design, so the result will be basically a different engine than F1.
  - treeman79 5y ago
    My dad was in the airline industry. Engineers kept lots of secret techniques to prevent them from being replaced. One had to due with adding strings to some foam mixture to get it to set correctly. Not documented anywhere. When cheap labor was brought in they couldn’t reproduce the work. So old people had to be hired back at a lot more
  - skissane 5y ago
    Rocketdyne proposed an updated F-1, the F-1B, as part of the SLS Advanced Booster Competition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1#F-1B_booster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1#F-1B_booster https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50339.0 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50339.0 Obviously it is not exactly the same as the F-1, it is rebuilt using modern parts and manufacturing techniques. But the F-1B aimed to have at least as good performance as the F-1. It appears the proposal was not successful in convincing NASA to adopt it for an SLS liquid rocket booster, and NASA is currently planning on sticking with solids even into SLS Block 2. (And Block 2 SLS is probably never going to fly.) But Rocketdyne owns the IP to F1B and could resurrect it again in the future if there was a demand for such an engine. They were working on it within the last 10 years so unlikely that much knowledge has been lost. This serves as a counterexample to the often repeated claim that we can't rebuild the F-1 because we've forgotten how. Rocketdyne and NASA had enough institutional knowledge to design a modern successor.
- influx 5y ago
  Do you have a source on that? There was an industry I was adjacent to, losing all their skilled metal workers to retirement, and there was no next generation who were skilled enough to do the machining. They were literally filming them working in the hope they could at least train someone down the road.
Someone 5y ago
We can’t make them the way they used to make them, but likely could do at least as good fairly easily _if_ sufficient funds were made available. I’m basing that on https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/2/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the..., which tells me we now know quite well how these engines (or rather: the particular one they looked at) were constructed. I also get the impression we could create those parts using other means such as 3D printing.
- lmilcin 5y ago
  Nobody says we can't build an engine like F1. We just can't build F1, because we don't know how the original ones were built. Machines like that are designed with the manufacturing process in mind. An engine designed to be manufactured with today's manufacturing processes will look different than an engine designed to be manufactured manually by ultra-skilled metalworkers and welders.

In particular, all Saturn V engines were completely hand-built and the process was not documented. A lot of very fine craftsmanship went into that that we can't replicate today.

renewiltord 5y ago

Seems like that situation where the first engineer builds an inscrutably clever codebase. Lots of fine craftsmanship indeed.

akiselev 5y ago

Nitpick: we can replicate it, it's not like we've technologically regressed. We're just not willing to spend the money - at it's peak NASA's budget was ~4.5% of federal spending when the Saturn V was designed (it's now only 0.5%).

KineticLensman 5y ago
> Nitpick: we can replicate it, it's not like we've technologically regressed. Saturn's materials and computer technology are more than 50 years old. Not only would we have to want to recreate this historic technology, we would have to recreate the knowledge, skills and competencies of the experienced craftsmen that used it, across the massive supply chain, as well as the tooling required.
foobiekr 5y ago
Actually, you’d be surprised how many techniques have been lost. They’re just not relevant, for example the actual practice of riveting battleship hulls is gone, but that changes suddenly when you want to replicate the past.
garmaine 5y ago
That’s because federal spending has increased across the board. NASA’s funding isn’t that much different now than then.
- adventured 5y ago
  NASA's spending was near $5 billion in the mid 1960s. [1] That's equal to $42 billion today per the BLS. NASA's fiscal 2021 budget is $23.2 billion. So while you're correct that Federal spending has increased as a share of the economy (declining NASA's share of spending even faster), NASA's funding is realistically down by at least half now vs then when you adjust for inflation. That BLS figure is also the questionable official conservative take. Gold was $35 / ounce back then, it's around $1,800 now (51 fold increase). The average new car was near $3,000 in the mid 1960s, it's now $41,000. Oil was $3 / barrel in the mid 1960s, it's in the $70s now. [1] https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012/vol4/ch1.htm https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4012/vol4/ch1.htm - NASA's spending fell to $3 billion by 1974. Inflation adjusted that would be $17.5 billion today, so at least they're ahead of that.
  - garmaine 5y ago
    So adjusted for inflation, NASA's budget is merely half what it was in the peak of the 1960's, whereas the statistic quoted makes it sound like it is 1/10th. Cherry-picking a peak date is a bit dubious though. If you average over the duration of the Apollo program, you get a number much closer to today. So most, maybe even all of the difference in budgetary size is due to increase in size of the rest of the federal budget.
    - bumby 5y ago
      To be fair, the GP comment said “at its peak”. They weren’t cherry picking, just following the initial thread. But your point about relative % of GDP may not be the best measure
lmilcin 5y ago
No, we can't replicate it because there is simply not enough description. For example, there aren't even specs for parts. The entire thing would have to be re-designed from scratch with modern manufacturing process in mind. And for things like F1 engine the available manufacturing methods have a lot of influence on the design, so the result will be basically a different engine than F1.
- treeman79 5y ago
  My dad was in the airline industry. Engineers kept lots of secret techniques to prevent them from being replaced. One had to due with adding strings to some foam mixture to get it to set correctly. Not documented anywhere. When cheap labor was brought in they couldn’t reproduce the work. So old people had to be hired back at a lot more
- skissane 5y ago
  Rocketdyne proposed an updated F-1, the F-1B, as part of the SLS Advanced Booster Competition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1#F-1B_booster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1#F-1B_booster https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50339.0 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=50339.0 Obviously it is not exactly the same as the F-1, it is rebuilt using modern parts and manufacturing techniques. But the F-1B aimed to have at least as good performance as the F-1. It appears the proposal was not successful in convincing NASA to adopt it for an SLS liquid rocket booster, and NASA is currently planning on sticking with solids even into SLS Block 2. (And Block 2 SLS is probably never going to fly.) But Rocketdyne owns the IP to F1B and could resurrect it again in the future if there was a demand for such an engine. They were working on it within the last 10 years so unlikely that much knowledge has been lost. This serves as a counterexample to the often repeated claim that we can't rebuild the F-1 because we've forgotten how. Rocketdyne and NASA had enough institutional knowledge to design a modern successor.
influx 5y ago
Do you have a source on that? There was an industry I was adjacent to, losing all their skilled metal workers to retirement, and there was no next generation who were skilled enough to do the machining. They were literally filming them working in the hope they could at least train someone down the road.

Someone 5y ago

We can’t make them the way they used to make them, but likely could do at least as good fairly easily _if_ sufficient funds were made available. I’m basing that on https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/2/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the..., which tells me we now know quite well how these engines (or rather: the particular one they looked at) were constructed. I also get the impression we could create those parts using other means such as 3D printing.

lmilcin 5y ago
Nobody says we can't build an engine like F1. We just can't build F1, because we don't know how the original ones were built. Machines like that are designed with the manufacturing process in mind. An engine designed to be manufactured with today's manufacturing processes will look different than an engine designed to be manufactured manually by ultra-skilled metalworkers and welders.