Saturn Propulsion Systems

[Music] this is the greatest Force ever applied to move a vehicle this is the cluster of Rocket engines boosting the Saturn vehicle free of gravity straight up Saturn is the largest rocket ever produced by the United States not a military rocket Saturn was designed solely as a space vehicle it can carry multi-ton payloads into Earth orbit or to the moon and the scientific space exploration by Saturn Rockets will lead eventually to placing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth but all the missions planned for Saturn hinge on one essential element of space rocketry power power built into a propulsion system a propulsion system capable of enormous concentrated reliable amounts of rocket power for the level of propulsion power fixes how far we can go or how much we can do in space in Saturn the propulsion system has enough muscle to carry science into deep space this initial version of Saturn embodies the multi-stage concept the propulsion system is integrated into vehicle design and function throughout the separate stages each stage successively thrusts the Saturn to Greater height and velocity the payload riding at the top of the vehicle is finally released in space at the point calcul ated to perform its planned Mission here and here are the individual rocket engines grouped in clusters tied together to function as a single unit but perhaps before we get deeper into Engine Systems we might reexamine some of the fundamentals of rocketry rocket propulsion and Rocket engines engines we're surrounded by them Auto engines boat engines aircraft engines this is an engine used by the rri brothers in one of their first airplanes like most of the engines we know and its highly developed successors this is an internal combustion engine our Saturn rocket engines are entirely different species they work on a different principle the reaction principle rocketry and the Saturn engines of course owe a credit to Sir Isaac Newton in his third law of motion he stated for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction for example in shooting a gun the action of the rapidly expanding gases moving forward generates an equal force moving to the rear for every action there's an equal reaction in fact the action of the boy hitting the Earth causes a measurable reaction by the Earth mathematically estimated a reaction rate at about one trillionth of an inch in 56 years however the rocket engineer confines the reaction he contrives and gains a maximum controlled effect power like this if we fill a sphere with highly pressurized gases there can be no action and reaction the pressures are equal in all directions and the gas remains motionless but if a hole is cut in the sphere the pressurized gas rushes to escape thus we have an imbalance of pressure in the sphere in these two directions similarly if we fill a balloon with compressed air there is a greater pressure within the balloon then outside when we release the air within the balloon the column of air escaping sets up a momentum going in One Direction and the reaction in the other direction acting as pressure on the interior of the balloon propels our little rocket if we look at a representation of a rocket engine's thrust chamber we see the same principle app apped through combustion in the thrust chamber great amounts of energy are released hot expanding gas escapes through the nozzle throat because of the design of the nozzle the mass of escaping gas molecules is accelerated rapidly this kinetic energy bursting from the nozzle exit at supersonic speed generates an enormous force from the mass and acceleration of the gas flow is computed a basic measurement of Rocket Power thrust the reaction to this thrust is expressed in pressure against the top of the chamber here against the sides here and against the interior walls of the nozzle here forcing the thrust chamber and with it the entire body of the rocket upward oh and one other thing many people in the past thought that the rocket required a solid body of atmosphere to push against in order to move incorrect the thrust generated by the engine upwards must overcome the pressure of the atmosphere as the rocket gains altitude the atmospheric pressure is reduced and so you see not only does the rocket not have to push against Earth's atmosphere but the effect of atmospheric pressure is to reduce the Rocket's efficiency these first principles of rocket propulsion are simple that is compared to problems of turning principles into Hardware in the form of high thrust High reliability engines intensive development of rocket propulsion technology began only a very few years ago many areas of science contrib Ed to the development of Rocket engines such as this and all the existing frontiers of development and production knowledge had to be advanced in propellent chemistry to provide new higher energy safely handled propellant combinations new materials were needed new Metals Plastics Ceramics capable of withstanding new levels of stress shock and vibration and Heat fabrication techniques had to be devised and then improved continuously to manufacture and assemble the new components conceived by engine designers then the test programs when the hardware materialized component by component patterns of repetitive testing were developed to prove out the designs and structures to measure performance to build up reliability a cycle of test measurement evaluation and improvement over and over from this technical Evolution came a rocket propulsion industry and the Saturn propulsion system all rocket engines now used by Saturn have these characteristics all are liquid propellant engines tanks forming the rocket super structure carry propellants the engines are bipropellant that is they use a combination of a Fuel and an oxidizer the feed system is the heart of engine operation it delivers the propellants to the engine and consists of a centrifugal pump and a turbine to drive the pump a gas generator provides a hot gas jet to drive the turbine the fuel is rooted through the many tubes which stack together form the thrust chamber in this manner the fuel cools the chamber and protects it from the high combustion gas temperatures within oxidizer and fuel pump fed at high pressure through an injector meet finally in the thrust [Applause] chamber this controlled explosion is sustained evenly by constant propellent flow rates full duration of engine operation is about 2 minutes as we said Saturn achieves its great power by grouping or clustering individual engines in the booster stage eight H1 engines are mounted in a pattern of two squares nine propellant tanks are clustered vertically above the engines five contain the oxidizer liquid oxygen and four hold the fuel kerosene the propulsion system is also the means of directional control for Saturn the outer four booster engines upon a signal from the Rocket's control computer can shift thrust Direction and thus stabilize the vehicle against aerodynamic forces and adjust the vehicle's course upper stage engines are smaller producing 15,000 lb of thrust and designed for efficiency at high altitudes but these engines gain a high energy value by using liquid hydrogen as fuel hydrogen permits an energy increase increase of more than 50% over the more conventional kerosene used in booster engines however to use the hydrogen liquid oxygen combination Engineers have had to learn how to handle and apply hydrogen an extremely reactive element in its liquid state it is so cold it boils at 423 de below zero scheduled to join the Saturn family of Rocket engines later is the J2 also an upper stage hydrogen fueled engine rated at a 200,000 lb thrust level a new engine the M1 also a hydrogen engine will produce more than 1 million pounds of thrust and approaching an operational stage is the mammoth F1 engine the largest rocket engine under development in this country continuously Engineers of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration are developing the propulsion elements of the Saturn Vehicles here held fast in the static test stand at Marshall space flight Center Huntsville Alabama a booster section undergo full duration firing the eight engines speak with a unified sound of 1 and 1 12 million pounds of thrust each of the eight engines turns out three times as much propulsion as is the largest jet airliner each engine pump now pulling propellants from the tanks could drain a railroad tank car in 2 minutes and right now the total booster power is about 32 million horsepower if converted it would generate electricity for any three Western States including Texas all this has been said in trying to describe by comparison the power potential of Saturn the power potential of Saturn in only a few short years the power and effectiveness of flight propulsion devices has progressed from this engine to engines comprising the propulsion system of Saturn and that system makes it possible to multiply the capability of our first sat it by 1,000 times the power equation is inbalance rocket power is the key to Greater accomplishments in space Saturn propulsion systems will provide this [Music] power [Music]