The Saturn V and the future we lived in last year

[gerisullivan]

Look what happens when you turn engineers loose. This terrific article about both resurrecting and reverse-engineering the F-1 rocket engines that powered the Saturn V is from last April, so I'm well behind the times, but, hey, the thrill never ends.

This fills me with joy. It's the perfect counterpoint to seeing Saturn Vs on display at Kennedy Space Center 13 years ago and my sadness that their time was past. Kudos to Nick Case and Erin Betts, the two liquid engine system engineers at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. They spearheaded the effort to get an F-1 engine out of storage and into their workshop. Kudos as well to Tom Williams, their boss, and to everyone working on the project.

This is just the gas generator. One of the gas generators....

With a tip o'the link hat to dalesql.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It's sad and strange that this is lost technology that has to be recovered. Greek fire is one thing, but I remember this.

[dalesql.livejournal.com]

The thing that got me was that this gas generator generated all that energy. and the only thing that energy was used for was to run the fuel pumps for the actual rocket. The article mentions that when all five engines were operating to liftoff the rocket, that was about the same amount of energy per second as the entire UK electrical grid produces per second. Wow. Just freaking wow.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Yep. Exactly.