Convair Nexus Reusable SSTO Rocket: Proposed Saturn V Replacement
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- Опубликовано: 26 апр 2020
- Early 1960's recoverable launch vehicle concept proposed by Krafft Ehricke at General Dynamics.At the time the largest conventionally-powered launch vehicle ever conceived, it was designed to deliver 900 metric tons to low earth orbit.
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In a world where the RCS is F1 engines
Me: WTF
Ace King m1 two times bigger, hyrdolox engines
For RCS you need hypergolic fuel.
@@kerbodynamicx472 for fast reactions but you could use it... just bring a lot of te-teb lol
Kerbodynamic X no look at starship
@@Aceb_k Not sure if F-1s could even survive being pulsed every few seconds. Would be easier to just have them firing constantly, being gimballed for control.
That parachute has to be extremely large!
It is economy version.
Not to mention impossibly thin and strong!
Also, consider the attach point of the parachute - inside the engine main bell? :)
@@jeechun Spike. Combustion chambers are placed around the truncated cooled spike, which can easily have a small protected canister for a parachute.
Yeah, that's the only criticism I have. Even if there was a pararchute that could reliably do the job there would still be more than one for the sake of redundancy.
Its like Convair heard of the N1 and then did coke for a week.
This was the 60’s, they always did coke
@Valentine that sounds like a very kerbal thing to do
@Holden Bosket that would use nukes
@@charadremur333 Actually, if you look at the illustrations, it uses Convair NEXUS to lift itself a few dozens kms upwards, before starting the pulse engine, to minimize the atmospheric pollution.
@Holden Bosket this is what convair would have lofted an Orion battleship on. What's not shown in this video is the serious retro thrusters that kick in on stage separation, designed to both deorbit the first stage and get it a safe distance from the second stage
Only one parachute... must be massive, and massively reliable.
wtf
Hidden in the engine... must be reliable...
Must be reliable...
Must be reliable...
Must be reliable...
"It's not an SSTO, I saw it stage in the video!!"
You fool, that wasn't the second stage... *_THAT WAS THE PAYLOAD_*
The first stage clearly didn't deorbit, so it's not a SSTO
@@swordblaster2596 it just wasn't shown in the video but the first stage was intended to put the craft in orbit
@@paolo8339 That doesn't mater xD It's still not an SSTO by all specifications i could find on this thing ._.
@@swordblaster2596 bruh...it is ssto even it didnt reused...
You know it damn well this thing is way to big to be a payload of an SSTO. Can't break the law of the rocket equation.
Aerojet - "So we designed the Sea Dragon to launch from the ocean. That way, it can avoid causing damage to any surrounding towns."
Convair - "Lol, we launched it from an island!"
Except they were planning on launching from a barge. Not an island. There wouldn't be suitable infrastructure, esp on an island like what's shown. It does make it look pretty though. And I think they worked out a 20 mile exclusion zone for the acoustics, so that island would be fairly well trashed
There didn't used to be an island there, that's just the pile of soot left behind by the engines
refresh page and see what I sent
Virgin orbit: but we launch rockets from planes in air, is so safely!
Project orion - litteraly we filled ours with nukes XD
Wow! Nice rocket plume, very detailed models, great shading and animation
First stage looks like if seadragon and N1 had a child
There's a lot of comments here, spouting off all sorts of things. I did quite a chunk of research into the Convair Nexus while I was making the KSP mod for the Nexus. It's one of the post-Nova designs. So bigger again, and intended to do things like resupply moon bases, travel to Mars, etc.
Is it an SSTO? Yes, for the rated payloads. There were two main sizes studied (ignoring the super Nexus and a few other variants). At 900metric tonnes, this would be the larger. The design goals were 1,000,000 pounds to orbit or double that. So, the first stage does all the lifting and circularizing, making it an SSTO. That's all those 4 letters mean, single stage to orbit. Not single stage, never stages, or fully reusable without retrofit, or any of that.
Was it re-usable? Partly. The intention was to use the retro rockets in the 1st stage separation event to de-orbit the 1st stage as well. Only a tiny bit of thrust is needed really, but they had ulterior motives for having a significant retro thrust for that first stage. Once it began re-entry, the large size and mostly empty volume would make it a lot easier to slow down than a small heavy capsule, the flaps (between 4 and 12 of them) would act like the grid fins on an F9 to keep it pointed nose first. As a few people have mentioned, the mass is in the back, so it *wants* to flip around. So it was critical those flaps kept on top of their job, as once it flipped, there'd be no flipping it back.
In the last moment, forward facing solid motors would fire to dramatically slow decent AND to churn the water. Testing showed that would greatly reduce the impact forces, especially through the middle of the craft. The heat shield was 1/10th inch thick titanium (non ablative) over a lot of polystyrene. The polystyrene would act as a crush-able sacrificial crumple zone. So, that would need rebuilding, but was designed to be relatively cheap and easy to build.
So, does that count as reusable? Partly. There doesn't seem to be any discussion about refurb costings for a giant aerospike, partly because no-one had built such a thing, let alone studied repeated re-use.
The engine. there were two main engine types discussed in the Nexus project. The single giant aerospike is the archetypal Nexus engine. The development costs were seen as being lower, as each of the combustion chambers around the nozzle is smaller than one huge rocket, but arranged around the nozzle, act as one huge engine. Many things get trickier as you scale up your rockets, and this avoids a lot of that. Complexity and reliability may very well have killed this deader than an N1 though.
The other engine studied was an expansion deflection nozzle. A similar concept to an aerospike, an altitude compensating nozzle, but a bit like an aerospike with a fat bell nozzle around it. Again, pumps and combustion chambers would be smaller units to make development easier, and joined together in the single large engine. With the E-D engine, they couldn't come up with a better idea than ablative cooling though, so the mass of the engine would have been immense.
Second stages: What's shown here looks like the 110foot diameter tank, made from joined wedges. it's all liquid H2. And it feeds in this case 2 nuclear thermal propulsion engines. Usually the Nexus is paired with open cycle gas core rockets, which are very efficient, very powerful (TWR happily over 1) but toxic, radioactive, and have never been shown to function beyond some partial system mock-ups. As people have pointed out, fissionable uranium, fission byproducts, fluorine compounds, and all the radiation comes out the back. In deep space, that's not a big issue. But getting that second stage fully into orbit before engaging those things is the sort of thing you want so as not to be called to testify before a UN trial.
Which brings me to the "other" second stage. The other purpose of the Nexus was to provide a lifting system to get Project Orion craft out of the atmosphere. Up to the 86foot diameter Orion craft could be loaded up on a Nexus and lofted above the atmosphere. Note, not orbited. The nexus for this could (maybe) be recovered, but it wouldn't be getting to orbit, Orion craft are heavy. And that was the other reason for the big retro rockets of stage separation. To get the hell out of dodge before the Orion needs to kick start.
I think most people are commenting on the animation, not the real world performance. The rendering in the video shows the staging is happening in the atmosphere (blue sky, camera wobble, no de-orbit burn, no heat shield) so I'm guessing that's the source of the comments.
you fond so much more than I could. All i found was the wiki article. My god the things we could have been doing, given the funding and materials..
Where did you find all that? Can you link me an article for it? I'm really interested
Exceptional !!! Now,please,do the Liberty ship. Nuclear lightbulb SSTO,with Vex of 30.000 m/s and 1000 metric tonne to LEO capability. Thank you !
Seconding this, Nuclear propulsion for the win
Every time I see a video like this I just want to emulate it in KSP
I knew someone would ask. Here's one I prepared earlier forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/118828-convair-nexus-super-heavy-historical-launch-vehicle/
Nasa: "We created this concept. Which is essentially an even bigger version of Saturn V, which is called the Nova."
Krafft: "Not GOOD ENOUGH! We need to go to true extremes!"
Amazing attention to detail. Liked the booster landing in the ocean, firing up landing rockets......and the amount of time it took the sound to reach us - considering the distance. Like I said, amazing attention to detail.
Hazegrayart never fails to disappoint! Well done 👏
Friendly reminder that this is an SSTO. The first stage still got to orbit on a single stage. Since it was in orbit when it seperated, it is still an SSTO
It wasn't in orbit. It was near insertion altitude but not inserted. That's why the second stage immediately started the insertion burn.
Presumably it could do a "barely once-around" to get back to the launch site.
I hope they have this in For All Mankind S2, such an incredible rocket
No :(
@@Alexander-kk5gj very sadge
Alot of people are mentioning the production quality for the visuals, but WOW that sound is very well done too. Very nice work!
you make some of the best rocket animations on youtube, they look really professional
Amazing animation 😍.
But just 1 question how is that a SSTO if the launch stage is being dropped in the sea, it might be reusable but by definition single stage to orbit (SSTO) has ro reach orbit by using just 1 stage without using external tanks or engines.
I believe the first stage got it to orbit. Then it came back.
That is exactly what happened, first stage got it to orbit
No 1st stage falls back to sea.
@@anupriye5109 I was wondering the same thing, and I think I understand it. Here is my guess(no facts behind this but the best I can come up with): The large dropped piece is not technically a stage. It is an external fuel tank. It doesn't have thrusters(except for the outer ones). What we see as the main engine is actually coming out of the stage we see get to space and passing through the external fuel tank.
@@anupriye5109 And I just noticed that you mentioned external fuel tanks... Idk man. Definitely not an SSTO unless the fuel tank doesn't count.
Too bad Nixon cut NASA's funding imagine where we'd be today if they went ahead with projects like this.
Read the NASA Trilogy by Stephen Baxter
This wouldn't work. There's a reason no projects like this went anywhere beyond a concept phase. And that reason is called Rocket Equation.
@Alpha Centauri You realise the gas core "upper stage" was meant to be put into orbit, fully fuelled and untouched, by the "first stage" ssto?
@Alpha Centauri Gas core engines have 6000S of ISP, 20 times that of Kerolox rockets. But the TWR was lower... I suppose you’re referring to Solid core NTR?
NASA stage OMG!
Amazing animation! Would be cool to see Crew Dragon.
ruclips.net/video/sZlzYzyREAI/видео.html :)
Excellent work once again. It is fascinating to read about rocket proposals but difficult to visualize. Your videos make it easy.
This one is extraordinarily high quality. Wonderful! You should do the Chrysler SERV concept also.
And Boeing LEO SSTO.
@@caav56 x37?
@@buffaloc20 Nope. A gigantic rocket, which'd require an artificial lake several kilometers in diameter for safe blastoff and designed to deliver parts of powersats (that is, orbital solar powerplants, which beam the electricity down to Earth by microwaves) to orbit. It'd land by combined hoverslam/splashdown in another artificial lake, because it's just that huge.
Each video is better than the last
>SSTO
>Staging happens
Are you trying to cheat me again?
The "second stage" is an interplanetary ship with open-cycle gas-core nuclear thermal rocket engines, boosted to the orbit (so ecologists won't whine) by the first stage, which then deorbits and goes for the splashdown.
@@caav56 so 'ecologists' won't whine? Open cycle NTR's make physicists whimper ;)
@@randycampbell6307 I know. But ecologists are more numerous.
Several Stages To Orbit
@@caav56 Yah the second stage is the payload the gas core NTR engines can only be fired in space so it needs to already be in a stable orbit.
What I would like to see is Big Gemini, it was supposed to carry up to 12 astronauts into space and the stage attached to it was a living and work area for the crew accessible through a hatch in the rear of the Capsule.
These are beautifully outstanding "What should have been!" videos. Magnificent work!
You know your rocket is overkill when your vernier engines are the size of a house
My god, your animations are not only perfect, but exhilarating.
Wait a minute... Is it me, or you decided to launch from Saba island?
2:59 That's a dinky little recovery ship!
This thing must have a huge O-Ring...
It might be the size of a garden hose
Ha ha you said O ring ha ha ha
Oh no...
One extra mad thing about the Nexus - it uses a pair of open cycle gas core nuclear thermal rocket motors on it’s second stage, which means that it would be releasing a small amount of fissioning uranium in it’s exhaust.
A bit more than a "small" amount which is why open cycle NTR's aren't really proposed much as retaining the fissile material turns out to be really, really damn hard :)
@@randycampbell6307 Dat ISP, though. But yeah, the price tag, due to the fuel loss, is huge.
@@randycampbell6307 well, that and vortex stability. The fuel loss is low enough, outside an atmosphere you care about, but the open cycle relies on a vortex to hold the critical core, and tests show it becomes unstable with more than tiny accelerations. Which defeats the purpose of it as an engine.
Thanks for the video. It's cool to see spacecraft that never made it off the drawing board actually fly.
Very nice atmospheric ripple/refraction effects during the ascent. Also the "hey, big freaking rocket passing by" sound before second stage ignition.
Once again fantastic! Could you possibly do a launch of some 1960s Space Shuttle Concepts that included winged carrier booster. Would be great to see and I'm sure you would do justice to those concepts. Thank You! Once again, Marvelous realism.
Grumman H33! It’s so cool!
North-American/Rockwell B9U/NAR-161 please! It could do most of the things the regular Shuttle did, and be fully reusable.
Thank you, too many people haven’t heard of this, the true biggest rocket ever designed in America only challenged by the Russian UR-700m and UR-900
*Sad sea dragon noises*
@@harry979 *Even sadder Boeing LEO SSTO noises*
What a beast that would have been! So cool. Great video.
Thats a wonderful peice of animation / film . thanks for the share of it .
I love your Videos! All of them!!
I love every single one of your videos! They are so cinematicly cool and epic! Can you do some fleet launch videos, like a dozens of starships launching in formation within seconds and refuel, regnite in LEO aiming for the Moon. And of cos other rockets version as well, really agressive mass launch like Earth is about to explode.
That would be epic! Certainly gives Super Orion vibes
For some reason I thought you might be able to animate a shockwave going across the ocean when the main booster ignited. But I don't know anything about physics. Thank you for the great video/animation, I really enjoyed your videos.👍🏻
Indeed, the shockwave should be much more than when battleship shoots all it's guns. Otherwise it looks unnatural.
What shockwave????? I'm like 99.9% sure that there is no shockwave when a rocket launches. I mean it would be a cool effect but entirely unrealistic. A shockwave on the launchpad would be exceedingly damaging to the rocket and surrounding area
@@bumpyinfinity9680 There is actually an engine (not made yet) which generates shockwaves, but not this and others.
The launch pad might have a sound suppression system similar to the space shuttle pad, otherwise the shockwave would obliterate anything standing on the island
Reaching space trough brute force
thats always been the method
@@froschreiniger2639
Orion project would take that to another level... Of radiation too
the renders keep getting better and better! Really good job! the only thing is that in space, if realistic exposure the stars wouldn't be visible. Other than that its really good!
Actually the technicality of SSTO is that the vehicle is not the payload. The first stage which separated and returned to splashdown is a booster. An SSTO is capable of taking off and accomplishing a full orbit before returning to Earth but to further the distinction the main vehicle for the mission IS the launching vehicle and also IS NOT the payload. To further clarify the space shuttle would have been an SSTO if it hadn't needed the SRB's to launch.
Always good to see another concept. Unfortunately this one is fraught with technical challenges that need to be addressed.
Very cool animations. Love it!
Amazing animation!
So I did a bit of searching, one crazy thing about the Nexus is that it wasn't even the largest design Convair came up with. There was another variant called the "Super Nexus" that had 4 additional side engines and a 120 ft. diameter body. And it was designed to carry *_TWICE_* the payload of the original Nexus (over 1,800 metric tons)!!
I couldn't find any detailed models of it online, but I did find a chart that roughly compares it's shape and size to other super-heavy launch vehicles (It's the big green one to the right of the Sea Dragon): up-ship.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/2019-02-09a.jpg
So...a combination of Aerospike and traditional bell nozzle engines? Hmmm🤔
Amazing as always.
This it just me or are those rockets looking kinda
T H I C C
My dude you earned a sub!!
that was cool. pls make a video about the spacex dragon XL
Of all the crazy designs that never flew, the Nexus is my favourite.
Designers: How large do you want it to be?
Convair: Yes
Really nice job! Maybe you could try a full stack OTRAG after this?
Nicely done.
And guys: Look up "gas core reactor rocket" on wikipedia and get ready to pass out. This is where the nuclear fuel is a gas like Uranium Tetra-Fluoride, and this nuclear-fissile gas (!) is "cooled" my mixing in little radiation-absorbing particles (like carbon black maybe?) and hydrogen gas, and it all squirts out the back as a zillion-mile-and-hour stellar-hot jet of radioactive death. I'm amazed and humbled that anyone even thinks of this stuff.
I think this is an open cycle design, but closed cycles -nuclear lightbulbs- only suffer from radiation exposure and not material leftover. And, at least for me, this gas core stage gets used far from the ground.
Cool as always.
It would be nice if you included pointers to some of the source material you used for these amazing animations, and/or added some technical data in the description.
Thanks for the idea!
Thanks for vídeo!
Pov: The N1 just got declassified and you're bored in KSP.
The 4K is much apreciated
I've read a number of comments on whether its really an SSTO or not. I can really agree with both opposing viewpoints and usually when that happens to me its because all of us including me are missing something. I think in this case what we are missing is how exactly do you define a stage? On some vehicles including most of the commonly known ones its simple and obvious. But on some of the weirder concepts it gets a little harder to define. Sometimes the first stage is a plane. Personally I've always thought ssto meant what it means in scifi. Start on the surface,go to orbit, look the same as you did when u launched. Basically like a landed space shuttle taking back off from the runway and flying directly back to orbit. Clearly the first stage of this thing couldn't fly itself to orbit with out at least having the faring. I get what some are saying that the whole thing makes orbit and then seperates, 1st stage retro's and is recovered. Personally I don't think the term ssto is going to mean very much if we have to create a chart to determine if something is one. Seriously freaking love these video's, would love to see more of this. Up close on single vehicles doing multiple burns, landings, stuff like that. Awesome work!
Thank You 🙏✌️
Thanks. I had not heard of the NEXUS before...
Imagine launching an entire space station in once piece.
I know it may be a bit odd but with the way things are advancing I am wondering if you would take a shot at what you think Mr Musk might make next after Starship.
Is a parachute of this size really enough for such a heavy stage?
great animation
You should do a video of the direct ascent version of the Saturn 5
I was expecting something more informational but I’ll settle for this gorgeous animation
I heard using a bell-shaped nozzle engine wouldn't work for a SSTO since that engine can't be efficient both at low and high altitudes.
How is that issue addressed here?
By using an aerospike.
thats the most KSP rocket ive ever seen
Look at it this way.
If you took a space shuttle converted it into a *SSTO* that could carry a payload (satellite) that had an engine and fuel aboard the satellite would it still be an SSTO?
Since there would be staging (seperation of payload).
of course it would still be an SSTO
Props to you for this wonderful animation. Yet, I´m still curious to know how that nuclear plume is working to have these colors.
OPEN CYCLE nuclear thermal rocket.
Meaning all that plume is actually uranium gas
@@tackyinbention6248 Yes, true.
I recall that closed core designs would actually shine in the high UV spectrum and that they needed silica walls to contain the argon/uranium gas because of this.
I am not completely sure, but maybe the yellow glow is a bit too cold for a gas core design (?).
Dam boi, he thicc
Beautiful animation, but the manner in which you depict SSTO is obviously confusing people. It took me a minute to think about it, but at "staging" in this animation you're insinuating the craft is already in orbit? Is that correct? Just instead of a 10 minute burn you cut it down for time purposes. Only thing after that is not showing the first stage deorbit or reenter.
Nice! I would add shock waves to the water on launch to indicate the kind of power getting used.
Interesting idea - and the animation is fantastic. There are some problems with this design though. The engines in the landed stage would be the heaviest part, which means it would tend to try to turn over and re-enter engine first (not heat shield first). The same problem would arise while floating in water - you would need ballast in the thing to make sure it floats right side up, and salt water doesn't get into the engines. Also, as somebody said, the parachute would have to be enormous and incredibly strong - bigger and stronger than anything we have. It would need to be able to land 500 tonnes or something like that, from orbit. I don't think that is achievable with modern materials.
That thing has one monster aerospike engine. How is it possible to cool that spike.
a GIGANTIC aerospike... 😳
This is gonna be Bigger than the N1!!!
Absolutely Massively Explosive!
Max Q on that bell bottom is going to be crazy high
With the blockhouse and support staff deep inside that mountain.
Is that #tiefighter cockpit capping the payload? :D
This one is bigger than Sea Dragon?
Why not a single stage with detatchable external propellant tanks?
That'd be Douglas ROMBUS and derivatives.
I bet that first stage creaks a bit when it 'hits' the ocean as well as some air movement.
bro KSP lookin epic
The problem is corrosive sea water destroys everything. Still, amazing render!
The only thing it touches is ablative heat shield, which is going to be replaced anyway. There's a reason the rocket splashes down engine side up.
@@wayneharrison The deceleration is not that sudden, though. Shortly before the splashdown, the solid rockets, installed in the frontal section, fire, both slowing down the rocket and bubbling the water, making the impact much softer.
It's not an SSTO, it's a THICC (This Huge Inter-Continental Combustion?)
Amazing
That is cool. Not SSTO, but appears nearly fully reusable.
It is an SSTO
first stage gets to orbit on its own and then deorbits, the second stage is the payload
Where do you store the chute in the middle of the rocket engine??
Really cool, but why is there engine sound at the end. The spacecraft is pretty much in space, so no sound should be eared
Isn't SSTO a Single Stage rocket? This one clearly has 2 :/ fun to watch tho!
It uses only a single stage (the one, which splashes down) to get the entire stack to orbit. The payload (second stage) is interplanetary ship with open-cycle gas-core nuclear thermal rockets. Single Stage To (Low Earth) Orbit, Multiple Stages For The Entire Mission.
I would love to see you do an animation of the Nova.
My big brother right? I like him
What music do you use
So the chute is deployed via the same area as the thruster?
DID YOU SAY NUCLEAR GAS COR- oh wait, this is Convair we're talking about. Sticking nuclear power in things that fly is a normal Tuesday over there.
In that case, it's time to piss my spacesuit and say "Why don't you fix your little problem, and light this lightbulb".