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I'm an Elon fan, but his comment about the old Russian engines his competitors are using deserves some scrutiny. He's talking about the NK-33 which has a thrust
by tjmc 14y ago
I'm an Elon fan, but his comment about the old Russian engines his competitors are using deserves some scrutiny. He's talking about the NK-33 which has a thrust to weight ratio of 137. That's better than any current SpaceX engines though the Merlin 1D under development is apparently aiming for a ratio of 150.
As for the engines being in a warehouse in Siberia since the 60s - that part is basically true. There was an Equinox (UK) documentary called "the engines that came in from the cold" about it. When the cold war was over the Americans finally found out about these engines that were left over from the space race, 20 years old (at the time) and better than anything they'd developed since. Now they're over 40 years old and still the most efficient!
So credit where it's due eh Elon? The NK-33 was and still is a masterpiece.
- mbell 14y ago> The NK-33 was and still is a masterpiece. Its a bit aggressive to label this engine a masterpiece when it has never actually launched successfully. I don't even think there has been an attempted launch with the NK-33, just ground tests for the N-1F rocket which was cancelled. Interesting note - the second attempted launch of the N-1 rocket, which used the original version of the NK-33 (NK-15) resulted in the largest non-nuclear explosion of all time. There is more to an engine than power to weight ratio, such as actually successfully putting a rocket in space.
- mkl 14y agoHere is more on the N-1 and the explosion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)#Launch_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N1_(rocket)#Launch_history