Aerojet-General Sea Dragon

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Holy moly, just come across Sea Dragon, that's just awesome. I know this isn't a post that moves anything along but what a monster.
 
I am surprised Russia didn't look at this--space Rubles go to Russian shipyards--not Kazakhs
 
sferrin said:
I've heard of things as simple as Magpul magazines being ITAR restricted- when anybody can walk into a gun shop anywhere in the US and buy them right off the shelf no questions asked.
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ITAR: International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

And magazines are an integral part of any firearm that uses them. As in, the guns DO NOT WORK WITHOUT THEM.

EVERYTHING firearms falls under ITAR.



OliverSedlacek said:
Interesting point, big dumb boosters fit with their ethos.
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I suspect it's insufficiently mathematically elegant.
 
injecting a bit of humor here, this is what happens when you hire a bunch of ex-Nazi scientists to run your missile program...

1016239.jpg


:rolleyes:

Bonus points: Identify all the rockets in the background...
 
T. A. Gardner said:
injecting a bit of humor here, this is what happens when you hire a bunch of ex-Nazi scientists to run your missile program...

1016239.jpg


:rolleyes:

Bonus points: Identify all the rockets in the background...
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He only ran the Army's program until 1960 and NASA's from 1960 to 1970. He had nothing to do with the Air Force or Navy's. And two of the rockets in the background, he had nothing to do with*.

Juno II, Mercury-Redstone, Mercury-Atlas*, Gemini-Titan*, Saturn I Block I, Saturn I Block II, Saturn IB, Saturn V
 
The Atlas had balloon tank (and it's Centaurs) that Von Braun didn't care for. That and Titans I consider USAF, the rest Army :)

Atlas V structurally is closer to Titan.

Truax was a Navy man, so the idea of using maranging steel and shipyards is understandable.
 
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publiusr said:
I am surprised Russia didn't look at this--space Rubles go to Russian shipyards--not Kazakhs
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Their large pump-fed engines were too good to even begin considering liquid pressure-fed boosters.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
It could be stuff related to making things watertight, or any of a myriad of other small items.
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they didn't really have to be watertight. the ejection gases kept the water away. There is no linkage between SLBM and Seadragon.
 
Without mentioning the financial risk of such a project, the concept is so audacious that it calls into question any technical certainty in the face of engineers' delirium where genius meets madness, as was the case long before with the Oion project which encountered skepticism from managers or also the Aldebaran concept, set in the 60s, like Sea Dragon.
 
publiusr said:
The Atlas had balloon tank (and it's Centaurs) that Von Braun didn't care for. That and Titans I consider USAF, the rest Army :)
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The USAF also had Titan II, Thor, Minuteman, Navaho, etc
publiusr said:
Truax was a Navy man, so the idea of using maranging steel and shipyards is understandable.
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Hardly. He wasn't a true navy ma. He only had two years of sea duty. For most of his career, he dealt with rockets.
 
publiusr said:
I am surprised Russia didn't look at this--space Rubles go to Russian shipyards--not Kazakhs
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Same problem as the US, never going to be enough payload to orbit to need that kind of capacity. And as Truax kept saying the design really does not scale down well.

Byeman said:
The USAF also had Titan II, Thor, Minuteman, Navaho, etc
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Yes but the line up is NASA launch vehicles so only the Titan II gets to play :)
Most of them are manned vehicles but IIRC there should be a "Thor" further to the left next to that "Juno/Jupiter" LV.

Byeman said:
Hardly. He wasn't a true navy ma. He only had two years of sea duty. For most of his career, he dealt with rockets.
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Uhm yes, as part of his job in the Navy, to help develop missiles and methods among other things.

Randy
 
Submarine construction yards would be perfect.

Sea Dragon is actually a simpler build. Heavy, but simple.

We know from hydroelectric generation that you can handle a lot of liquids quickly
 
RanulfC said:
Yes but the line up is NASA launch vehicles so only the Titan II gets to play :)
Most of them are manned vehicles but IIRC there should be a "Thor" further to the left next to that "Juno/Jupiter" LV.
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Atlas and Titan II were USAF vehicles. USAF managed and operated.
And he had nothing to do with Thor
 
publiusr said:
The Atlas had balloon tank (and it's Centaurs) that Von Braun didn't care for. That and Titans I consider USAF, the rest Army :)

Atlas V structurally is closer to Titan.

Truax was a Navy man, so the idea of using maranging steel and shipyards is understandable.
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Because you threw in Atlas V and Truax, I did not realize you were talking about the photo post. Quote post you are referring to and don't assume people understand your line of thinking.
 
publiusr said:
New video
View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tCnEM0E4WBE&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fforum.nasaspaceflight.com%2F&feature=emb_imp_woyt
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The biggest not gonna work on the Sea Dragon is the use of pressurized fuel and oxidizer tanks to push the fuel into the engine. That wasn't going to work. The historical problems with such a system is why everybody went to turbopumps to pull the fuel and oxidizer at a constant rate from their tanks and push it at a constant rate into the engine.

I'm also skeptical that such a large engine as the first stage could have been built given available materials in terms of heat and pressure that would be exerted on it. If it was going to melt the concrete and steel launch tower in what amounts to seconds of exposure from a land launch, then there's a good chance it's going to melt the nozzle and engine too.

I'd think in a sea launch that heat would be problematic too. The seawater around the engine exhaust turns to superheated steam. That could be an issue here, a serious one.
 
Wouldn't it have been easier to build a launch pad with a huge pond and launch the missile from that than have to tow it out to sea, deal with wave motion, salt water, water pressure against the missile's body ( 3 to 4 times atmospheric at the bottom end), and a plethora of other issues just to get the thing into launch position?
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Wouldn't it have been easier to build a launch pad with a huge pond and launch the missile from that than
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Not really given the thing's size and mass.

Some points of interest,

orbitaltoday.com

Sea Launch: Is the Sea Dragon rocket real? - Orbital Today

The Sea Dragon rocket is the largest space launch vehicle ever designed. Why was the project abandoned, and was the idea of a sea launch eventually realized?
orbitaltoday.com orbitaltoday.com
To make the rocket manufacture as cheap as possible, Truax planned to build its body not from aluminum but from 8 mm steel sheets, which ultimately made the production no more difficult than building a submarine. Thanks to this, the carrier could be assembled at shipyards and then towed to the launch site directly on the water. The shipbuilding company Todd Shipyards was ready to take on the construction.
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When this thing was proposed in early 1960s our much loved Cape Canaveral launch complex had not yet been built.
And there is that thing about sound waves ...

www.spaceflighthistories.com

Sea Dragon: The Largest Rocket Ever Conceived

The mighty Sea Dragon was the largest rocket ever designed, but was its existence even possible?
www.spaceflighthistories.com www.spaceflighthistories.com
The water would suppress the sound of the engine as well as take away the need of a new launch complex and support structures. Such a large rocket would not be able to launch from Cape Canaveral, as Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center would later be built to support Saturn V launches.
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There was some interest at NASA and Todd Shipyards but the project never made it past the conceptual stage. Todd Shipyards concluded that construction on such a vehicle was within their capabilities and their 8 millimeter thick maraging steel, a type of steel that possesses superior strength and toughness. NASA sent the designs to TRW, an aerospace corporation, for review and it fully confirmed Aerojet's expected costs and engineering for Sea Dragon. Aerojet was considering purchasing Sudden Ranch, a stretch of coastline between Santa Barbara and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, as a launch site for their rocket. This was the only site on the continental United States that could launch directly into polar orbit without flying over populated areas.
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Byeman said:
Atlas and Titan II were USAF vehicles. USAF managed and operated.
And he had nothing to do with Thor
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Agreed but the picture is of NASA launch vehicles not the ones VB personally worked on :)

randy
 
southwestforests said:
When this thing was proposed in early 1960s our much loved Cape Canaveral launch complex had not yet been built.
And there is that thing about sound waves ...
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Cape Canaveral first launch was in 1950. By 1960, as shown in the attached diagram, was already up to pad 34.
 

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Byeman said:
Cape Canaveral first launch was in 1950. By 1960, as shown in the attached diagram, was already up to pad 34.
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A lot of the early stuff was related to SAM development like BOMARC and programs shifted from the Holloman Missile Development Test Center in New Mexico.

Pads 1 to 4 were all related to this.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
A lot of the early stuff was related to SAM development like BOMARC and programs shifted from the Holloman Missile Development Test Center in New Mexico.

Pads 1 to 4 were all related to this.
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Most of the "early stuff" was cruise missiles.
BOMARC was the only SAM tested at the Cape and it was at Pad 4. Pad 3 was for Bumper. Others were Redstone, X-17, Polaris FTV, Matador. Lark was use to gain experience on missile testing.
Pads 1 & 2 were for Snark and Matador.
 
Byeman said:
Most of the "early stuff" was cruise missiles.
BOMARC was the only SAM tested at the Cape and it was at Pad 4. Pad 3 was for Bumper. Others were Redstone, X-17, Polaris FTV, Matador. Lark was use to gain experience on missile testing.
Pads 1 & 2 were for Snark and Matador.
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Lark was actually by that time CTV-N-9 and 10 and used for development of missile guidance systems, particularly flight controls. Launches were done from pad 3.

But most came from Holloman which was then shutdown as a missile development center.
 
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There are huge vertical sinkholes (blue holes as they are called at sea) that might be filled with water for a launch.

Tunnel a lateral hole at the base to a flood gate for a reverse deluge.

As Sea Dragon rises, the water has a second escape path.
 
Byeman said:
Cape Canaveral first launch was in 1950. By 1960, as shown in the attached diagram, was already up to pad 34.
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The big infrastructure stuff for launching Saturn 5 rockets is what I meant, as the quoted material notes.

A very, very, loose approximation, and very 'ballpark-ish' figure, go over to your shelf of rocket models, take three of the Saturn 5, tape them together in a cluster, and that'll give a general sense of the size and mass of this Sea Dragon thing, its bulk would be a whole lot easier to handle in the water than on land.

The civil engineering to handle something that big on land would be expensive to the Nth degree.
 
What's exactly the story for why Sea Dragon became so popular as a concept?
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Lark was actually by that time CTV-N-9 and 10 and used for development of missile guidance systems, particularly flight controls. Launches were done from pad 3.

But most came from Holloman which was then shutdown as a missile development center.
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"Most"? No.
Bumper, Lark, Matador, Snark, BOMARC, RVA-10, Redstone, X-17, Navaho, Vanguard, Thor, Jupiter, Polaris, Atlas
 
TheKutKu said:
What's exactly the story for why Sea Dragon became so popular as a concept?
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Probably because it was really big and really expensive. Engineers love the former and bureaucrats and managers love the latter...
 
TheKutKu said:
What's exactly the story for why Sea Dragon became so popular as a concept?
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Huge payloads to orbit for a (supposed, depends on what math you use) cheaper price which would allow all our biggest space dreams to come true :) (If you've seen FAM that little 'bump' on the nose of the Seadragon? Ya, that's an entire Apollo capsule and full size support module. It's that big)

The main 'draw' of Seadragon is not in fact anything to do with Seadragon itself but the space background and infrastructure that needing such a large launch vehicle would imply. It's part of the "draw" for Starship currently, if you have a vehicle that can carry large payloads into orbit that would stand to reason you need big payloads to go to orbit. Wasn't true when Seadragon was pitched, (note it wasn't pitched when the "Solar Power Satellite" idea was pitched because it was frankly too much for that) and arguably is not true now but it's a popular "go to" idea to support large payload launch vehicles.

If we're really going to put large payloads into orbit we'd just use a "NEXUS" booster to yeet an Orion-Drive vehicle into orbit :)

Randy
 
First launch from Cape Canaveral was Bumper 8 on July 24, 1950.
 

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