Vocal Voices

I saw this space.com article today.

It is all about the Wow changes they are making to the NASA rocket engine for Artemis, you know THE MOST POWERFUL ROCKET EVER TO FLY.

You got the shouting from the rooftop right?

However if you are a geek you will already know the technical specs of the RS25.
You will also know the specs of the SpaceX raptor2.

So being a bit less geeky, let's try some simple numbers

Raptor2 is almost half the size of RS25. It produces the same thrust.
The space launch system has 4 RS25.
Starship booster has 31 raptor2

OK, the sls has two solid rocket boosters, that make it more powerful right?

No SLS Is less than half the thrust of Starship.

Starship will do its first launch some time between now and July, potentially this month, it is getting close.

I did a bit of digging and Aerojet rocketdyne advertises in publications like Space.Com. SpaceX does not advertise at all. Just like Tesla cars.

It is at times like this that you wonder jus how much of what you read is bought and paid for and what the real truth is.

Of course if you are a geek you will click the links....

So, where are the inaccuracies?

SLS is "The most powerful rocket ever to fly" but, as the linked article says, its record might be short lived once Starship takes off successfully.

As for SpaceX and Tesla not advertising. They do not need to as they have ever so many superfans doing it for them; and they all tell us the whole truth, and nothing else, just facts? No spin, no exaggerations, as you just tried, eh?

It is the whole thing. Nothing about how these engines were designed at the end of the 1970's and are a hold over from the cold War space race. Nothing about how they were reusable on the shuttle but are now going to be thrown away every flight.

Nothing about how these engines are old technology. The holy grail is full flow staged combustion. The Russians tried but failed, the US tried but cancelled it. The reason Raptor is just slightly larger than 50% of the RS25, but produces the same thrust, is because of the aforementioned combustion technology.

Raptor will be recovered every flight and is certified for 20 flights until flight evidence proves it can fly longer, or less.

The whole article was about the prowess of Aerojet Rocketdyne and NASA and their incredibly powerful RS25 rocket engine.

I didn't want to go into a depth which turns most peoplet off so I kept it high level.

The article could have been entitled "NASA polishes a Turd" and it would have been essentially correct in all details.

You cannot even say the author might not have been aware of the differences because the information which was shared proves that the author must be aware.

The article is about NASA and the links do include information that the record might be short lived and also that the engines are recycled from the shuttle programme, which ran from 1981 - 2011. There is no omission anywhere as it is a NASA ARTICLE.

When I read about Starship, Falcon etc. at SpaxeX.com I do not get bombarded with NASA comparisons, only the relevant information.

Space.com also has articles on SpaceX missions / tests that do not mention NASA. Why should they, they are SpaceX articles? It actually has more SpaceX articles than for any space related content.

This was an article presenting the RS25 as being upgraded. It talks about 2m lbs thrust and how the engines run at 110% of designed thrust.

It talks about "the most powerful rocket to make it to orbit" . Knowing that it is certainly not the most powerful rocket built or launched, that crown, currently, still rests with the USSR. That is the target SpaceX is chasing. Not the pitifully poor effort of SLS.

There is only a very short lived time window for these kind of articles and I just find it Irritating that it is all aggrandised. What will it be next? "The most powerful rocket to have launched to the moon"?

Reality. SLS and the RS25 are a 20th century hold over. Nobody in the private space is chasing Sls or ULA rockets or even the ESA or chinese rockets. They are chasing the Falcon 9 and the Starship.

SpaceX has, so far in 2023, launched more rockets than United Launch Alliance launched in 2022, total. NASA will launch the next SLS in 2024 or later. By which time, barring multiple wickwick events, Starship will be launching multiple 100t launches to orbit per year.

Can you even understand a little bit why this kind of article makes me believe it is bought and paid for?

I didn't bore you all with the incredible reveals made by Tesla on their investor day. To say the Auto "anal"ysts missed everything is an understatement of the decade. To say we just had an event which fundamentally changed the future of vehicles, manufacturing and the lives of our descendents, would be a major understatement.

That only 10% of the people who saw it understood what it meant is just an indication of society today.

I didn't post it because it will take 10-15 years to realise and most people don't care about a horizon that far out. Had I posted it here you would have done your "musk/Tesla fan boy" bit and everyone else would have ignored it.

Your lives just changed, fundamentally, and you are blissfully unaware.

I shall exit now.

I am anything but blissfully unaware.

I have been fascinated by space flight, astronomy, cosmology and so on since Sputnik, Yuri and John Glenn. Dad bought me a Mercury rocket, a model, not a real one. It was spring launched and a parachute brought it down safely. I was hooked.

I am interested in the subject(s) not the "my ding-dong is bigger and better than your ding-dong" stuff.

I shall also exit.