In 1963, Convair floated the idea of a Saturn V first stage modified to be in like with their “Nexus” thinking. It was to be a fully recoverable, very squat stage, with little apart from the F-1 engines in common with the standard S-IC stage… and even the F-1’s were uprated.
The cylindrical propellant tanks were done away with; the LOX tank was formed by a roughly conical, round-ended tank on the centerline, while the kerosene tank was repaced by a series of intersecting spherical tanks forming a torus wrapped around the LOX tank. Flaps were added to the conical sides of the stage to control re-entry and descent. The F-1 engines were to be uprated by 20%.
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(At least)) Two upper stages were envisioned… a modified S-II stage of increased diameter (50 rather than 33 feet) and reduced length, and a 56-foot-diameter nuclear stage equipped with a single 3,000,000 pound-thrust gas-core nuclear thermal rocket engine. Baseline mission for the nuclear version was to lob 920,000 pounds of payload onto a 40,000 ft/sec parabolic (Earth escape) orbit. Different mission velocities could be achieved by lengthening or shortening the nuclear stage hydrogen tank.
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3 Responses to “REALLY Modified Saturn V”
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Woooh
how many study of NEXUS are there ?!
and yes i like those posts
wanted to buy them in form of PDF or eAPR form
Well the nice thing about the Nexus-style stages is they can be adapted to all sorts of upper stages and payloads. The technology, especially for first stages of two-stage launchers, isn’t particularly complicated either, and water recovery makes transportation of the recovered stages relatively simple (until you get back to port of course). I think GD thought the basic concept was pretty flexible and the economics compelling. Of course, if you are only launching a few Saturn Vs before tanking the whole program, ideas for improved S-ICs simply weren’t worth considering.
It would be interesting to see if a Nexus-style launcher might fit the bill for the Charlie Bolden Heavy Lifter. Assuming J-2X continues and something comes of the 1 million+ RP engine program, there might be enough piece parts in place to make it work. LC 39 is probably available too. 🙁
That 3M lb thrust gas core thing looks fanciful though. Gas-core rockets are immensely complicated and heavy (for example they have to be spun up, requiring a rotation mechanism and some creativity with propellant lines). I’d think it a fair bet that even if the space program hadn’t been smothered at the end of the Apollo era, there’s a good chance we might not have useful operational GCRs today.
If you look at the post-Saturn summary report, you’ll see a depiction of a Nexus and upper stage with two (2) 6M lb thrust gas core engines. Go big or go home, I always say.
> If you look at the post-Saturn summary report, you’ll see a depiction of a Nexus and upper stage with two (2) 6M lb thrust gas core engines.
Oh right, Scott’s got it covered. Duh.
http://up-ship.com/blog/blog/?p=700