Liberty Rocket and LEGO rocketry.

[fredinno]

I know Liberty is dead, but during the time of its development, there were those who criticized it for using LEGO rocketry (aka 2 stages from 2 completely different rocket families being merged together to make a new rocket.)

Here: http://cosmoquest.org/forum/showthread.php?132323-This-rocket-won-t-die&

I don't know what the problem really is. Doing so would mean the rocket would be cheaper to develop, and has been proven to work (though never on the scale of Liberty), such as with the use of the Centaur (originally developed for Atlas) on Titan IIIE, Castor 2 (originally developed for the Scout rocket) as the booster for Delta 0100, 1000, and 2000, the use of the Altair stage (originally developed for the Scout rocket) for the 2nd stage for the Delta C, and more recently, Minotaur (a rocket made largely of spare Minuteman and Peacekeeper ICBM stages).

Hell, it works in KSP:sticktongue: (ok, that's a bad argument, admittedly, but still.)

Is it just me, or am I missing something?

[Motokid600]

A manned 2015 flight? Seems over confident. More power to them if they can get it to work. For a second I thought that was a dragon on top of that liberty rocket. But it's actually a whole new capsule. I just don't see how they could get a new capsule out of concept in one year.

[fredinno]

A manned 2015 flight? Seems over confident. More power to them if they can get it to work. For a second I thought that was a dragon on top of that liberty rocket. But it's actually a whole new capsule. I just don't see how they could get a new capsule out of concept in one year.

They don't. They didn't get NASA funding for CCDev, and canned it.

[Motokid600]

Oh I'm sorry I missed the point of this thread. Can this "Lego" approach to rockets work? Of course it can work. Anything can. I imagine getting each piece to fit and operate with each other would be tough.

But an Ariane stacked on top of an expended shuttle srb? Sounds very close to the Ares concept and afaik the Ares did not not have the required power and that was even with a smaller upper stage I believe.

Edited July 29, 2015 by Motokid600

[Kibble]

The main issue is that - unlike Centaur - Ariane's ÉPC isn't an upper stage. Vulcain would have to have extensive, expensive modifications to start mid-air, among other complex problems.

[MinimumSky5]

Another issue is that they would basically have to redesign the Vulcain engine to be vacuum optimised, and alter the upper stage tankage to handle the high G forces a solid booster of that size would create, not to mention the horrible aerodynamics that rocket would have. The LEGO idea can work, as you rightly pointed out, but that example is one that was rightly canned.

[Dkmdlb]

Wow. That is one ugly rocket. Lego rocketry is a cool idea, but that specific implementation seems horrible.

[fredinno]

But would it be more difficult than Ares? (Making an entirely new upper stage.)

Honestly, I'm not defending Liberty. I think it's design is sound (only one Shuttle SRB failure ever), though they probably would have undergone significant modifications to the Ariane core upper stage- it was too heavy by itself to run on a 5-seg, so they had to stetch it, for example.

Though it was probably better for the rocket to never actually get built- the HLV market is getting quite crowded today!

I think LEGO rocketry is a pretty good idea too when trying to reduce DEV costs.

Either way, now that ATK merged wih Orbital, next time CCDev comes along, they probably will stap on boosters to the Antares, and make a spacecraft for CCDev. Probably a far better and easier idea, anyways.

[xenomorph555]

North Koreans have mastered this with the Paektusan.

Nodong+Scud+random Chinese artillery rocket=10/10 BEST SLV!

In all seriousness though I guess LEGO stacking could be a good way of building cheap SLV's, assuming you have spare parts.

[RAINCRAFTER]

Aww, I wish this took flight. It means 'Murica! manned rockets for our missions instead of Soviet tech.

[Pipcard]

KSP isn't like real life. Mixing-and-matching rocket stages isn't as simple as dragging parts and clicking them together. A stage might not be able to handle the different loads during flight.

But sometimes, it can work. For example, the Japanese Epsilon rocket is a combination of the H-IIA SRB-A and Mu-V upper stages.

[xenomorph555]

Aww, I wish this took flight. It means 'Murica! manned rockets for our missions instead of Soviet tech.

Still would have required a new capsule, so the earliest would have been 2017 just like the others. But look at what you have now, the F9 and Dragon, much better then this disturbing firework.

[fredinno]

The capsule made for it would have pretty much been a LEO desiged-Orion made by LockMart. Maybe the capsule would have been made slightly faster than the others, who knows?

[Nibb31]

Aww, I wish this took flight. It means 'Murica! manned rockets for our missions instead of Soviet tech.

No, it meant French tech instead of 'Meruca!'.

[xenomorph555]

The capsule made for it would have pretty much been a LEO desiged-Orion made by LockMart. Maybe the capsule would have been made slightly faster than the others, who knows?

So basically just the CST-100 again.

[Nibb31]

So basically just the CST-100 again.

CST-100 is Boeing. And it's a freaking manned spacecraft, not "just" a CST-100.

[cantab]

Yeah...to be honest, launching people on top of a rocket you cannot put out has never seemed like the greatest idea.

[xenomorph555]

CST-100 is Boeing. And it's a freaking manned spacecraft, not "just" a CST-100.

While it is made by Boeing it doesn't change the fact it's basically a LEO-Orion, although a bit smaller.

[fredinno]

The LockMart Liberty Orion made CST-100 look completely original. http://www.spacelaunchreport.com/liberty4.jpg

[FishInferno]

I think that LEGO rocketry can work in the short term, but if you want a good launcher, better to invest in creating a new system.

[Robotengineer]

The Liberty Rocket got canned right? I can''t find anything saying it did though.

[FishInferno]

The Liberty Rocket got canned right? I can''t find anything saying it did though.

I don't think it ever officially got cancelled; they still pitch the concept every so often, but it won;t really go anywhere due to lack of funds.

[Kryten]

The Liberty Rocket got canned right? I can''t find anything saying it did though.

ATK just quietly stopped talking about it sometime after it lost.

[DerekL1963]

Yeah...to be honest, launching people on top of a rocket you cannot put out has never seemed like the greatest idea.

*Sigh*. Everything thinks that since you can shut down liquids, you have to shut down solids. Nothing could be further from the truth.

You don't have to shut them down - you just have to be producing zero (or very small positive) net thrust. The technology for doing so (venting the case) is old and well proven. (It was first deployed in the 1950's.)

Now that brings up the obvious question, "why didn't they try this with the Shuttle?". The answer to that is, "the ET was a huge problem". See, during first stage flight the SRB's were essentially dragging the ET behind them. When thrust was terminated, the changing loads would tear the ET apart tossing the Orbiter in the airstream where it would be torn apart by aerodynamic forces. (This is essentially what happened to Challenger.) For the same reason, they couldn't simply blow the attachments and let the SRB's go on their own merry way. The answer to this was a solid fueled escape rocket to power the Shuttle clear - but the escape rocket required was too big and too heavy, even if it was subsequently used (after ET jettison) as a "third stage". (First stage being SRB+SSME, second stage being SSME's only.)

A capsule doesn't suffer these problems. It's lighter, and rather than being "beside" the booster it's on top of the booster and leaving it behind as the booster slows down and the escape rocket accelerates the capsule which further reduces the size of the escape rocket required.

[Nibb31]

While it is made by Boeing it doesn't change the fact it's basically a LEO-Orion, although a bit smaller.

The only thing CST-100 has in common with Orion is the shape. They are completely different vehicles, with different systems, different mission profiles, designed and built by different companies.

An Airbus A350 is also the same shape as a Boeing 707 even though they have nothing in common. All that means is that the shape is optimal for those engineering requirements.

Edited August 1, 2015 by Nibb31