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From: francis@cs.ua.oz.au (Francis Vaughan)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: Re : SSME's (again...) + F-1s
Message-ID: <1951@sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au>
Date: 30 Nov 90 12:44:30 GMT
References: <5973@crash.cts.com>
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This discussion about redesign of parts of the SSMEs makes me
rather curious about a few things. So far we have seen a new engine
controller, new turbo pumps, and a new main combustion chamber.
I strikes me probably rather naively, that we are seeing a
large part of the effort needed to redesign any engine.
How different in effort has the upgrading of the SSME
been compared to that almost holy grail of discussion, the
retooling for an F-1 engine?

It just seems that, if one was to start with the premise that
an F-1 mark 2 was the target very similar ideas and engineering
would be used. We know all of the BASIC design of the F-1.
I.E. we know exactly what dimensions all of the parts are, and
in particular, how to fit togther subassembies. Surely there exists
broad engineering specifications for the F-1 even if the blueprints
and tooling is lost. Things like pressures, flowrates, enough to
understand how a subassembly should work if not enough to duplicate
the subassembly.

Just imagine that instead of building a new set of turbopumps for 
the SSME we had the same design brief for the F-1? I suspect that it 
would be a similar task. There is no necessity to understand
incredibly detailed and arcne knowledge about how the rest of
the engine was fabricated, just more global knowledge about
how the engine works and how the subsystems fit. Same goes
for the combustion chamber, engine controller, and the remainder.

Remember we have a proven overall design. We know that the F-1
worked. In principle the old F-1 plus new turbopumps would fly,
same after a new cumbustion chamber etc. Suddenly we have a new
improved MANUFACTURABLE F-1.

What is left? Naively again it seems that what is left is:
plumbimg, bell, startup bits, and vectoring bits. These I can't
help feeling are not as scary as building the turbopumps.

I can't help feeling that the effort expended on upgrades to
the SSME would have got us half way to an F-1 Mk II.

If such an engine were produced it could replace the SRBs on the
shuttle, with the money for the advanced SRB going into the design
of the rest of the new booster. It could also have been used as the 
basis of a new big unmanned rocket that people keep clamoring for.

Its not that I am advacating the this is what we should do, rather
lament that it might have been. The money has already been spent.
Probably not enough pork in the right barrels anyway.


I will admit that I have a soft spot for the F-1 (I still have a
set of big photos I took at KSC of one on my wall). It is an
awsome bit of engineering. Its not that its big, rather that
when one looks closely at it it just seems to small. All that
force directed through such a relatively small structure. 

(I have said before that a kerosene/LOX engine would still look
fantastic when launched too :-)

					Francis Vaughan.


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