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Author
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Topic: World's Most Powerful Rocket?
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Blackarrow
Member Posts: 3160
From: Belfast, United Kingdom
Registered: Feb 2002
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posted 05-23-2006 05:50 PM
  
It has often been said of the Saturn 5 that "...we shall never see its like again..." but it seems that we just might. Based on a NASA press release of 18th May, I have calculated that the launch thrust of the planned heavy-lift cargo rocket (the rocket to orbit the new lunar lander) will be around 9.85 MILLION pounds (compared with around 7.7 million pounds for the later Saturn 5 vehicles). The 5 RS-68 first-stage engines will each develop 650,000 pounds of thrust, with each of two Shuttle-derived SRBs producing around 3.3 million pounds of thrust. However, I have read in "Rocket and Space Corporation Energia" from Apogee Books (page 71) that the Soviet-era N-1 launch vehicle produced 153 tons of thrust from each of the 30 first-stage engines, a total of 4,590 tons, or 10,281,600 pounds of thust at lift-off. (If that was meant to be metric tonnes, the figure would only reduce to around 10.1 million pounds.) I'm not sure what the total launch thrust of Energia was, but I don't think it exceeded the N-1. So, what is/will be the world's most powerful rocket? By the way, absolutely no apology for using pounds rather than kilos or Newtons (whatever they are). P.S. Would it be safe to watch a launch of the new vehicle from the KSC press-site, around 3.5 miles from Pad 39A (I assume the rocket would use Pad 39)? |
Ben
Member Posts: 1896
From: Cape Canaveral, FL
Registered: May 2000
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posted 05-23-2006 08:26 PM
For thrust, the N-1 was. The CALV is likely to surpass it, especially if they go with the RS-68 as they say they will now.As far as rockets that worked, the Saturn V was, and hopefully the CALV will again surpass it. | |
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