MY how things DON'T change.....except for the fuel.
I used to earn my living engineering the RL-10 hydrogen engines. Won my first engineering cost reduction award at Pratt & Whitney for my work on this series.
Space X looks like the same fuel and oxidizer turbo fuel pumps, same fuel cooled divergent engine bell and "Mae West" (convergent / divergent ) throat section. Even the same old design fuel and oxidizer balance systems.
Everything old is somehow "new" again.
Germany tinkered around with methane / LOX engines back in the 1930s but abandoned them in favor of non-cryogenic hypergolic fuel systems.
RL-10A-4 Centaur stage for Atlas IIA, Atlas IIAS. First flight 1992.
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 09-01-2019).]
Speaking of the Raptor engine, here's some footage of the latest test flight.
And that's around 100 tons moving sideways! I can't speak for the historical "uniqueness" of the engine design, but (computer) control sure has come a long way!
Speaking of the Raptor engine, here's some footage of the latest test flight.
Here's what we did back in 1994 with RL-!0 engines in the DCX "Delta Clipper" project.
I was there and a part of the program.
Everything old seems to be somehow "new" again.
Young Space X engineers reinventing the wheel over and over again, and some people thinking that 25 - 30 - 40 year old technology is "amazing and new" and that Elon Musk is the reincarnation of Einstein or Edison...
...he isn't.
[This message has been edited by randye (edited 09-01-2019).]
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