Re: 1/288 scale Von Braun "Colliers" Ferry Rocket



John wrote:

WOW - Look at all those engines!!! . . Can sort of imagine the call:
"Ferry 6, Houston, you are 6-engines out press to MECO"

Take care . . .

Von Braun didn't really expect it to end up having that many engines; he just knew the public wasn't going to buy the idea of giant rocket engines at the time the Colliers articles were written, so went with "believable" engines generating around 500,000 pounds thrust each (about 1/3 of the thrust of the F-1 engine used on a Saturn 5).
The 28,000,000 pound total thrust of all the 51 first stage engines really get things heading uphill fast, as fully fueled the rocket weighs 14,000,000 pounds....so you are working with a 2-to-1 thrust ratio right from liftoff.
By the time he did the Mars expedition articles the Ferry Rocket had improved considerably in performance; the original 265 foot tall vehicle had been replaced with one of 180 foot length, weighing only 2,820,000 pounds and generating 5,620,000 pounds thrust at liftoff.
By comparison, the Saturn V weighed 6,699,000 pounds, the Saturn 1B 1,300,220 pounds, and the failed Soviet N-1 Moon rocket (which actually looked like von Braun's ferry rocket and had 30 engines in its first stage) 6,029,000 pounds.
There's a discussion of the background of the von Braun Ferry Rocket designs here: http://www.astronautix.com/lvfam/vonbraun.htm
And a nifty cutaway painting of one here: http://www.culttvman2.com/dnn/Portals/0/Gallery/news/fantastic%20plastic/fp-vaunbruan.jpg

Pat
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