I don't blame you. Those Titans were all but stick built for their payloads and were real pad-sitters. Delta IV looks to be another, however.

I loved Atlas III. You kept the balloon tank but got rid of the sustainer system and had the RD-180.

A powerful engine and lightweight tankage made for liftoffs like a scalded cat.

Aren't the Russian heavy lifting systems reliable and still in existence? How do they compare in terms of payload to the Saturn rockets? Why not just buy launchers from them. It would be cheaper than re-engineering the Saturn and rebuilding the infrastructure, and the Russians would love the business.

I told my wife yesterday that I was going to put her butt in orbit if she didn't quit moving my stuff around. That would be quite a payload there.

As far as I know, the largest thing the Russians have is the Proton rocket, which can put about 20 metric tons into orbit. The Soviet Union did some work on a big launcher (Energia) but I believe the program was cancelled when the USSR broke up.

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As far as largest dimension goes, if you count antennae, the RAE 2 lunar orbiting radio astronomy satellite was 1.5 km across.

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If size matters I know another candidate:

STS-75 (Columbia)
Mission Highlights: The highlight of the mission was the deployment of the Tethered Satellite to test the ability of such systems to produce electricity. On the fourth day of the flight, the TSS was deployed to a distance of almost 12 miles from the shuttle...

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The Energiya core has been discontinued, but the kerosene strap-ons (ZENIT) are still in production.

Each Zenit has a four nozzle engine (RD-170) that has more thrust than Saturn V's F-1. Boeing's Sea Launch uses ZENIT, and the half-strength, two nozzle RD-180 is used on Atlas III (balloon tanks) and V, but its heavier tankage takes away from its performance a bit.

www.k26.com/buran
www.buran.ru

The RD-180 was to figure in some wide-body Atlas designs, and in the Energiya replacement called ANGARA-100 as seen in:
www.russianspaceweb.com

Ariane -M seems interesting.

So those are three HLLV concepts right there--four with Magnum/Longfellow at:
www.nasaspaceflight.com

Some nice CEV links here:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...d=493&start=61


http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...d=493&start=71

This is all true. But the Zenit has only about 75% the lift performance of the Proton, thus I thought it moot to mention it.

Is Proton the largest Russian launch vehicle currently used? I think it is.

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So does it have merit to develop from there rather than starting over?

The most awe-inspiring sight in my entire life was watching the Apollo 11 liftoff from the Intercoastal waterway in our boat. We'd travelled about four hours (two by land, one by sea) to position ourselves about two miles away from the launch site. Even so, we could see the rocket poised on the pad before launch. It tool 11 seconds (telling!) for the sound of it's liftoff to reach us. Even then it was so loud we could hardly hear one another or the radio, and the boat, even the very water, shook with the incredible power of that event.

I've seen a shuttle launch since, and it's just not the same.

One of these days I hope mankind builds a rocket capable of launching 1,000,000 kg into orbit in a single launch.

That would really be something!

The Air Force and The NSA has been putting things in orbit secretly from the south pacific that only a few people in the intelligence community knows about. The engines are made of radio active coils and liquid hydrogen is fed on them which turns them into energy and steam. They had a test firing for the and NASA press about 11 years ago but noone seems to remember that.

It couldn't have been that impressive, everyone knows it was only a Saturn I in a posh frock...

I saw Apollo 17, the only Saturn V night launch. It's not something I'm ever likely to forget. After the lightshow and the visceral impact of the noise of the actual liftoff it was visible for a very long time, past staging and well into the second stage burn.

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Who told you that? I know about NERVA engines--but what is this I keep hearing about secret launches and such?

Oh well.

Here are some future big payloads, and some misc nice links:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...achmentid=1481


VSE shorts:
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...d=486&start=31
VSE Shorts cont. HLLV pic
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...d=486&start=71
Stick pix
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...id=414&start=1

Space Tug data
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...rt=21&posts=26
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...rt=11&posts=20

Comparison Chart of Manned Vehicles
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...id=709&start=1

Capsule chart on this page (scroll down)
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...d=493&start=81

ATV comparison chart at bottom
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...d=493&start=61

More CEV pics
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...d=493&start=71

Revised Comparison chart near bottom
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/for...rt=31&posts=32

At last--some support!
http://www.ras.org.uk/index.php?opti...d=847&Itemid=1

http://www.ras.org.uk/

Reviewed the very large payload rockets being developed and the Russians are supposed to be working on a 100 metric ton lift capacity rocket, as well as a 125 metric tonne booster. The energiya was supposed to lift about 75 tonnes, but was never fully developed. Truly large rocket boosters must be developed if really permanent space habitats are planned.

That is very true. Energia put up 90-100 tons, but could lift more:
www.k26.com/buran
www.buran.ru

The replacement for UR-500 Proton is this vehicle below (which will be exported in part to Korea):
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/angara.html
An Energiya class Angara is here
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/angara100.html

For the time being, an upgraded R-7 is what is most likely, placing it in the Zenit Ariane 4 range. Still too small even for circumlunar missions:

http://www.russianspaceweb.com/soyuz3_lv.html

Kliper: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/spacetravel-05zzzy.html
http://www.russianspaceweb.com/kliper.html

Ariane 5 ECA Lofts Record Payload into Orbit
http://www.universetoday.com/am/publ....html?17112005
I wonder if they'll be building that Ariane-M for the Mars sample return mission ?

Bingo! I'm glad someone here realizes how much more powerful Saturn V was than the space shuttle.

Even if they did have to throw it away every launch...

Still, in constant dollars it's proven to be far cheaper than the Space Shuttle!

Uh, ok. So, uh, why don't we bring it back with a few, low-cost improvements?

Uh? Ahem... Uh...

I heard on National Public Radio about them test firing a nuke engine and they had to make a press release.

I will have to dig around for that program. It was at least 12 years ago.

Oh, go...

Yo. I was there. You weren't.

Don't EVER get on this board and tell someone what they experienced, particularly when they were a child, "couldn't have been that impressive."

What a ridiculously thick-headed pompous ***!

Where do you people come from, anyway? Does the Grinch work overtime so that you drip acid of deceit trying to steal incredible memories from children?

Are you that self-abasing that you have to resort to derisive comments about the experiences of other people in order to bolster your pathetically low sense of self esteem?

If I'm wrong, please clue me in, as I'm wide open for an intelligent response. I'm not, however, open for unintelligent responses, nor am I in the mood for over-active moderators who're willing to force everyone to toe the line from one side but who turn a blind eye to the other.

Look both ways before you leap.

Obviously you did not read his comments on how impressive the Apollo 17 launch was.

Jon

genebujold, a lot of people in the UK believe that Americans simply do not understand the British sense of irony. I suspect that your response to gwiz's post will do little to dispell that myth.

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There are two ways to view this:

(1) Useful, functional payload to LEO, e.g, a satellite
(2) Largest total mass to LEO, whether actual functional payload or not

The Saturn V wins either way.

The largest total mass to LEO for Saturn V was the above, roughly 311,176 lbs or 141,148 kg.

The heaviest comparable mass for the Shuttle, inc'l the orbiter itself, plus payload is about 260,000 lbs, possibly on STS-41, of which about 48,800 lbs was functional payload. There is some debate about which STS mission heaviest and how to calculate that, but the above figures are roughly correct: http://groups.google.com/group/sci.s...bbeeaee011d1c7

So the Saturn V wins the above by about 311,176 lbs vs 260,000 lbs for the Shuttle.

In terms of delivering a functional payload, the Saturn V is vastly more capable.

According the the offical Boeing/NASA Saturn V reference, it could deliver 280,000 lbs to a 115 statute-mile orbit, or send about 100,000 lbs to the moon. But not all of that is truly functional, so maybe the Skylab payload (about 220,000 lbs) is the best figure.

http://24.73.239.154:8081/moonshot/S...troduction.pdf

The Saturn V could send about TWICE the payload to the moon as the Shuttle can deliver to LEO, and lift to LEO about 4.5x the functional payload of the shuttle.

The Soviet N-1 booster (their Saturn V equivalent) had a projected LEO payload of about 95 tonnes, or 209,000 lbs. Unfortunately all three test launches blew up and it was never operationally developed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-1

The basic Shuttle technology in a cargo variant (Shuttle-C) could theoretically deliver 77,000 kg or 169,000 lbs to LEO:

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/shuttlec.htm

Resurrecting the Saturn V isn't necessary. If needed, current expendable launchers can be developed to deliver Saturn V-class payloads. A Delta IV Super Heavy has been discussed,with an LEO payload of 91,000 kg (200,000 lbs):

http://www.boeing.com/defense-space/...th_options.pdf
http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/nexa100t.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_IV_rocket

I've several close British friends. I shared this thread with one of them, and she said, "There's British humor, British irony, and indecency. The British are never indecent. The response I read to yours was indecent."

Actually, it was your response to gwiz
"Don't EVER get on this board and tell someone what they experienced, particularly when they were a child, "couldn't have been that impressive."

What a ridiculously thick-headed pompous ***!

Where do you people come from, anyway? Does the Grinch work overtime so that you drip acid of deceit trying to steal incredible memories from children?

Are you that self-abasing that you have to resort to derisive comments about the experiences of other people in order to bolster your pathetically low sense of self esteem?

If I'm wrong, please clue me in, as I'm wide open for an intelligent response. I'm not, however, open for unintelligent responses, nor am I in the mood for over-active moderators who're willing to force everyone to toe the line from one side but who turn a blind eye to the other."

which was indecent, over the top, and wrong. In case you missed it, gwiz also witmessed an Apollo launch. he wrote:

"I saw Apollo 17, the only Saturn V night launch. It's not something I'm ever likely to forget. After the lightshow and the visceral impact of the noise of the actual liftoff it was visible for a very long time, past staging and well into the second stage burn."

You owe him an apology.

Jon

genebujold, you've been warned repeatedly by the forum staff about abiding by the civility and decorum guidelines we've established. Your ill-tempered outbursts are completely unacceptable on this forum. As a result, you'll have to find somewhere else to participate. Your membership here has been revoked.

I like Shuttle derived better--you have true engine out--and a new pad for Delta IV would be as much of a must as a mod to the 39 series pads. Never have been a fan of Delta IV.

Not sure if anybody knows the engine out capability of the proposed Delta IV Super Heavy. However since it would use multiple parallel liquid fueled boosters (probably about 8), it seems likely it could tolerate at least one engine out -- would only be a small fraction of total thrust.

By contrast the current shuttle has limited engine out capability. Obviously the SRBs simply must work, but even single SSME failures can destroy the vehicle at certain points of the flight regime.

E.g, STS-51L (Challenger, 1985) had a single in-flight SSME failure at T+345 seconds at a velocity of 13,000 ft/sec. Despite that high energy, it came within about 15-20 sec of a risky transatlantic abort.

After the Challenger loss, abort options were improved somewhat. Before that, the shuttle had terrible abort capability. A 2-out SSME was fatal up to T+400 sec. If doing an RTLS abort, losing a 2nd SSME was pretty much fatal anytime.

On STS-93 (Chandra/Eileen Collins mission). An electrical short knocked the engine control computers in two engines. The backup controllers took over, but they came within one system of losing two engines on takeoff, which would be a loss of vehicle. The crew might have survived via bailout.

After Challenger the improved abort options will save the crew via bailout in some cases, but you still lose the vehicle.

A shuttle derived cargo lifter obviously has no crew hence no bailout, but you'd probably lose the vehicle in more cases than the current manned vehicle. E.g, even a single SSME failure up to about T+330 sec requires an RTLS abort, since it can't make it across the Atlantic.

A cargo shuttle wouldn't have RTLS capability since it's can't land. Therefore a single SSME failure would certainly mean loss of vehicle.

Lots of info about shuttle ascent aborts here:

http://www.theandyzone.com/launchzone/launchzone.htm

Can you crossfeed the fuel from one booster to another? If not, I don't see how you could have any engine out capability.

The proposed Delta IV Super Heavy would use crossfed liquid fuel boosters in a 3-2-3 configuration. Nobody knows the exact engine out capability since it's not fully designed, but it's plausible it could sustain at least one engine out in most of the flight regime and maybe two engines out at higher altitude/velocity.

The proposed Shuttle-C unmanned cargo shuttle would have had three SSMEs just like the current shuttle, so would have even more limited engine out capability than the current shuttle since it couldn't do an RTLS or TAL abort.