Re: Falcon 1 to Pad

From: ed kyle (edkyle99_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 10/20/04 

Date: 20 Oct 2004 09:47:15 -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?

Some additional thoughts on this. I think Musk and Beal must
have been influenced by the Big Dumb Rocket ideas reviewed,
for example, at:

"http://www.optipoint.com/far/far8.htm"

Both the SpaceX Merlin and Kestrel engines use the pintle
injector design pioneered for the simple, reliable lunar
module engines. TRW scaled the idea up during a late 1960's
in-house study that showed cheap, really powerful versions
of such engines were possible. Kestrel, especially, seems
to be based on LM engine ideas. Maybe some retired TRW,
STL, Aerojet, or Bell people are working for Musk?

 - Ed Kyle

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