And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Tuesday, January 17, 2017
The SpaceX rocket is much bigger than I thought
You can get an idea of the size when people are walking right next to it. For some reason, I imagined it about the size of a large telephone pole.
In contrast, here is Werner Von Braun next to the motors for the gigantic Saturn V
The Falcon 9 is 230 feet tall (both stages together) and 12 feet diameter (the payload faring is over 17 feet in diameter and can hold a full sized school bus.)
Capable of 50k lbs LEO, 18k lbs GTO, and 8.8k lbs to MARS!!!
Falcon Heavy is 3 Falcon9 cores hooked together. 30k lbs to Mars, over 6k lbs to PLUTO!!!!!!
NASA might have had something comparable ready in the next 5 years if the soon to be not-president hadn't killed the Constellation program (a series of rockets with common parts designed for a relatively (for NASA) fast production and launch.)
Interestingly, both the Saturn V and the Falcon 9 use Kerosene and liquid O2. The Merlin engine on the Falcon 9 has a specific impulse only slightly better than the mighty F1 engine on the Saturn V.
I was also of the opinion that it was much smaller than it is. Nice seeing it in context
ReplyDeleteThe Falcon 9 is 230 feet tall (both stages together) and 12 feet diameter (the payload faring is over 17 feet in diameter and can hold a full sized school bus.)
ReplyDeleteCapable of 50k lbs LEO, 18k lbs GTO, and 8.8k lbs to MARS!!!
Falcon Heavy is 3 Falcon9 cores hooked together. 30k lbs to Mars, over 6k lbs to PLUTO!!!!!!
NASA might have had something comparable ready in the next 5 years if the soon to be not-president hadn't killed the Constellation program (a series of rockets with common parts designed for a relatively (for NASA) fast production and launch.)
They are big rockets, capable of delivering
Interestingly, both the Saturn V and the Falcon 9 use Kerosene and liquid O2. The Merlin engine on the Falcon 9 has a specific impulse only slightly better than the mighty F1 engine on the Saturn V.
ReplyDelete