Re: Falcon 1 to Pad
From: ed kyle (edkyle99_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 10/20/04
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Date: 20 Oct 2004 09:17:18 -0700
quasarstrider@yahoo.com.br (quasarstrider) wrote in message news:<14a48ff9.0410140942.5ab90709@posting.google.com>...
>
> There is something I have wondered for a while... Glancing at old
> photos of Beal rocket engine tests, the nozzle looks eerily familiar
> to the one SpaceX uses in their first-stage engine Merlin. I know the
> first stage in Falcon 1 has a pump engine while Beal's rockets were
> exclusively pressure-fed (although the second stage in Falcon 1 is
> also pressure-fed) and the fuels aren't the same, but the feeling's
> still there.
> Then add the fact that SpaceX uses Beal's former testing facility
> in Texas to test Merlin. So, err, are some of the same people
> involved, or am I just seeing things that really aren't there?
I don't know if Musk got some of Beal's former employees.
I have noticed that Merlin shared a lot of features with the
NASA Fastrac engine that was developed during the late '90s
at MSFC (and had nothing to do with Beal).
See "http://www1.msfc.nasa.gov/NEWSROOM/background/facts/fastrac.html"
I haven't read about any NASA/SpaceX license agreements,
but I do recall that at least one subcontractor (Barber-
Nichols as I recall) built a turbopump used in both engines.
SpaceX seems to be borrowing good ideas from the past.
Inspiration for the Falcon I launch pad equipment, for
example, came from photos of the early Thor mobile
equipment.
- Ed Kyle
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