You simply can't grasp how big these rockets are until you see it up close. It's like a tall building blasting off into space. They're humongous.
I hope to one day see Starship up close in person as it takes off to space.
I also went down to Vanderberg AFB on a whim with a friend of mine to see a Falcon launch. That supersonic boom as the landing booster punched through the atmosphere, followed by smell of rocket exhaust in the cold dusk air is something I'll never forget.
There's a planetarium nearby with a cool history made from the dome of an oxygen tank. UAH has a special collections room dedicated to the Apollo program. There are some other rockets on the side of the interstate near the outskirts to let you know you're entering rocket city.
If you plan carefully, you can see everything in a day.
So there was no barrier between the vehicle and visitors. You could walk up and touch it, which I did. Then I walked to the engine end of the first stage and climbed up between two of the F1 engines. I was able to climb into the center F1 and stand up at the end of the expansion bell.
I didn't even come up to the center of the bell. It drove home the titanic size of the machine in a way that nothing else had.
I had to climb down when a moderately pissed-off guard saw me after a few minutes. It was a wonderful experience.
Not to mention the VAB..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_Assembly_Building
Pretty much everything about the place makes you feel real small ;)
You never know when you think/speak about tech progress. One day you can even fly on it.
They say we couldn't build another Saturn V if we tried. Apparently that old saw is true enough, at least for the original contractors.
I'd say the loss is more one of history than actual utility. The only way would have been to keep the Saturn V going during the whole time, and upgrade its technology as time went.
2. Many companies that help build those rockets have ceased to exists
3. Technology and tooling have changed substantially
4. Standards to deem a rocket flight worthy for human space flight have changed
This is actually a myth FYI. No records were ever lost, and you can go see all the original blueprints and relevant memos and technical reports in the archives at Marshall or DC if you want. It's all there.
Where the myth comes from, and the kernel of truth underlying it is that the Saturn V was a hand-crafted machine made by experts. NASA and their contractors did their damndest to record every aspect of its production, but undoubtably there is some things that slipped through the cracks and were never written down. Those were lost not because records were lost, but because the individual workers went on to other jobs, and have since retired.
EDIT: Also the tooling has been dismantled and recycled. The blueprints for the tooling exist and it all could be recreated, how sure are we that the specified tolerances matched the actual article? Uncertainty over this would probably invalidate all the testing that had been done.
In a bizarre twist, the new production facility and reverse-engineered production process yielded a version of Fogbank that was of a higher purity than it had been in the past, according to the article. The problem, however, was that for Fogbank to work as intended in existing warhead designs, that previous level of impurity was actually essential. NNSA had to revise the process to ensure the final product was just as impure.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/32867/fogbank-is-myste...
I dont think they slip through the cracks as much as people today have different skils. It's like trying to get. Bunch of Node-JS developers to get a mainframe-based system from the 80s working.
The equivalent rocket is the Starship, which clearly can be built.
Technologies like 3D printing, new alloys, better fuels, modern computers, etc... have made dramatic differences to the design and construction of these rockets.
Have a look at the circuitry used on the Saturn V: http://www.righto.com/2020/04/a-circuit-board-from-saturn-v-...
Especially the "instrument unit": http://static.righto.com/images/lvda/IU-labeled.jpg
It's huuuuuuge! The computer power of that entire thing could fit into a single chip these days. Trying to reproduce something like that 1:1 in the modern age would be just absurd.
Note that the Saturn V design isn't just cost-inefficient because technology has moved on. It wasn't cost effective back then either! The per-launch costs were over $1B in inflation adjusted dollars, putting it squarely into the same ballpark has the SLS, which is a monstrously expensive pork-barrel project designed primarily to burn money, not rocket fuel.
Not really, fundamentals doesn't change that much. Starship is not equivalent, it is entirely new, different category.
>better fuels, modern computers, etc... have made dramatic differences to the design and construction of these rockets.
Saturn V used RP1 and LH2 fuels, both are still widely used. Gas generator cycles are also used in modern engines. You can have smaller computers now but I don't think this would change costs significantly.
Really only thing that changed significantly are manufacturing processes, but that doesn't invalidate the entire design, that you cannot make 1:1 copy doesn't mean you cannot port it to modern manufacturing methods, like this proposal for F-1B: https://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/new-f-1b-rocket-engi...
The effiency improvements seem to be good enough to be worth the engineering challenges, especially for larger rockets.
LH2 is stupid dangerous to use, requires physically large rockets due to the low density, and as I mentioned, requires extensive leak detection to be integrated into the design.
Super-chilled methane as used by Starship is "just better".
You really should read through the Saturn V manuals and documentation. NASA put a lot of it up online. Technology has moved on from then.
At the time, cost was no object, so they used approaches that wouldn't be acceptable now. For example, the cooling of the engines used hand-brazed tubing, which is crazy expensive to manufacture and test to the required safety level.
Modern engines simply use CNC machining to cut channels into a solid wall, then a plate is brazed on top. Much simpler to manufacture, much cheaper, much safer.
But CNC machining didn't exist back in the Saturn V days! This is the point. We wouldn't "do it that way" any more, because we have tools that they didn't have. Conversely, they had workers readily available that had skills that are not in demand any more, which would cause a hiring bottleneck if the construction of the rocket was attempted today.
Designs don't exist in a vacuum, in some abstract space of "raw materials go directly into the finished product". Designs are made for the wider landscape of the industrial base and the available engineering skillset.
There is no practical way to take the Saturn V design as-is and manufacture it today. It's possible, just not practical, let alone cost-effective.
Falcon 9's Merlin engines use RP1 and are re-used.
There is a different between 'can' and 'optimal'.
We can't build an authentic Great Pyramid, 1950s supercar, or 1970's minicomputer, either. At least, not for anything resembling cost-effectiveness compared to the current way to do things.
Who are "they", and how can that opinion hold true when we are in fact building something comparable to it?
That doesn’t mean we can build a 100% copy, though. Apparently, some of the welding requires techniques that have been replaced by better methods, and welders who can replicate the original do not exist. I guess that’s solvable by using robots, but if, e.g., 3D printing or even glueing works better, and the goal would be to get a rocket that size again, why bother?
That would probably kill you. Better keep a safe distance of at least 20 miles.
They have nothing near the size of a Saturn V. NY HoS has:
Gemini-Titan II
Mercury-Atlas D Rocket
Mercury-Atlas D “Friendship 7” Replica Capsule
Mercury Capsule
Saturn V F-1 Engine
For perspective, the Saturn V is about 20 times the size of Titan II (by mass), and could almost deliver the whole Titan II into low Earth orbit (LEO).