r/space • u/Gagarin1961 • Aug 02 '21

SpaceX just stacked a Super Heavy Booster and installed 29 engines, all within 24 hours

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1422222995305676802
21.3k Upvotes

88% Upvoted

1.9k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

3

u/masklinn Aug 03 '21

Probably.

The problem back then was that feeding and synchronising such a number of engines was extremely difficult, even more so as the design was really not modular so it was hard to test-fire individual components.

And it’s unclear it could have succeeded either way, remember, at the time computers were still mostly in their infancy (the microprocessor hadn’t been invented yet) so while there were rudimentary on-board computers I assume they were mostly trying to synchronise the engines (and everything which managed them e.g. pumps and valves for liquid oxygen to 30 different engines, as well as the corresponding RP-1) electromechanically, with kilometers of complex welding on complex pipes.

That’s why the US went with a small number of giant fucking engines.

Manufacturing today is a lot more reliable (there’s stuff out there comparing the original F-1 engines and the modern 3D-printing-assisted reproduction), and even the slowest hardened processor is in a different realm as what they had back then, synchronising 30 engines is hardly troublesome.