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| Authored by: jesse on Tuesday, January 15 2013 @ 04:00 PM EST |
Using a different/newer fuel.
Yes, the materials are different as are the details (where most of the magic
is), but just a continuation of development.
As far as I know, NASA/JPL/ whoever never released why the X33/34 engines were
dropped. I know about the fuel tank issues.. but the aerospike engines were the
key new design.
You can actually see the only remaining engine at Stennis Space Center. An
impressively small engine for such a huge amount of thrust (about half the size
of the merlin engine).[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, January 15 2013 @ 08:09 PM EST |
And that's a huge part of the problem. A lot of the equipment in use is still
based on Fifties and Sixties designs, most if not all of which were upgrades
of German V2 technology from the Forties.
Until Musk, who is very well off bankrolled SpaceX there wasn't any real
competition to push innovation forward.
Of course this was fine as far as the legacy rocket engine builders were
concerned,
Wayne
http://madhatter.ca
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