Sea Dragon Rocket: Worlds Largest Reusable Rocket Concept
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 ก.ย. 2024
- Sea Dragon was a 1962 concept for a reusable, two-stage, sea-launched carrier rocket. The project never materialised as NASA's Future Projects Branch was shut down in 1965. It would have been the largest rocket ever built.
The only thing missing is the song Everybody Wants to Rule the World.
😂 yea! That's the only good part of this!
@@Voice_from_the_Void true
Someone has seen the for all mankind after credits scene lol
The sad thing is that this is more accurate than the 'For All Mankind' version. This correctly shows that most of the upper stage would be above water, rather than just the command/service module. Why couldn't they have done it right?
Song name pls
Some rockets used at-sea level engines, this one uses, in-sea engines
Oof
Lol
engine*
@@vulpritprooze bruh
Only CGI
"Ha, I touched the butt"
*_nemo was burnt to a crisp the same second_*
WHO ORDERED THE ONE EXTRA CRIPSY CLOWN FISH!?
Not only HE was burnt to a crisp, but the whole ocean around the sea dragon.
the pressure killed him way before that
jetboy X r/cursedcommnents
😂
This thing just showed up in the end of S01E10 of "For All Mankind". Very cool animation.
Yeah 😍😍😍😍
@LaughToMouth personally I wonder most about how one such a huge engine could work, and why there are the small side-engines in the middle of the rocket :). Baosic questions, basically :D.
snuffeldjuret side engines to get out of the sea
The bad thing about this video is that it ends.
@@snuffeldjuret those small(er) side engines are called Vernier thrusters, or something like that. They're used to steer the rocket (as you can see, this design lacks fins, flaps and wings of any kind, so in order to point to different directions it needs side engines. That, or thrust vectoring)
It seriously cannot be understated how gargantuan this concept rocket is. The thing could lob 550 tonnes into LEO. For 1962 that is just incredible. For comparison, the Saturn 5 can only lob up 140 tonnes to LEO.
It would be supported by a nuclear powered ship carrying RP-1. The liquid Nitrogen and Oxygen would be produced at the launchsite. - It is estimated that due to in situ fuel production and simplicity of being the textbook big dumb booster, that payload costs could be as little as $60.00 per kilogram. It ultimately proved way too large to be of any practical use - even to this day.
And yes, that is a single engine bell that dwarfs the mighty F-1 in terms of both size and thrust.
Ned In Yo' Head
Wikipedia: _"Its second stage would fit inside the first stage engine and nozzle of the Sea Dragon"_
Isn't that cheaper than a space elevator?
Gabriel francis
Most space elevator concepts put things at about $220/kg. For perspective, Skylon (if it's ever finished) promises to deliver $3,000/kg according to project guidelines and the BFR can probably do between $140/kg to $47/kg depending on the final design.
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator_economics
The benefit of a space elevator (if it were possible to build one which it is looking more and more like it isn't) isn't to bring cost per unit mass down but to bring heavy stuff up you couldn't practically fit on a rocket. The Sea Dragon is probably about as heavy a payload as you could build practically. The rocket equation is a game of diminishing returns. Eventually you reach a point where so much of your takeoff mass is rocket that it doesn't matter how much more rocket you build you're never going to increase the payload mass. For chemical rockets most sources I've seen cap it at 800t and to do that you need a stupidly big rockets with the best possible engines. After that point you can make the rocket as big as you like and you're only going to decrease the maximum payload. Space elevators allow you to put any amount of mass on a tether and haul it up. Even the most conservative serious concepts image "trains" going up these things with each car the size of a oil tanker.
If you want to bring cost per kg down then you either need more efficient rockets or an orbital ring. Not only are orbital rings actually possible to build but you're looking at $1.9/kg. It would literally be like catching a train at that point.
Source: jenda.hrach.eu/f2/Low%20cost%20design%20of%20an%20orbital%20ring%20-%202017-1.pdf
And 4 times cheaper than Saturn 5
I'm not sure effects on the local environment would be all that bad.
High powered sonar could be used to "chase off" any fish or whales that have decided to come check it out so they don't all die from the shock wave and RP1 engines typically burn so fuel rich that they produce CO as exhaust almost exclusively - which isn't a hazard in water being only slightly soluble. Sea launched rockets remain an attractive option for niche applications but that's primarily countries that need orbital infrastructure but don't already have a space program (Australia, Indonesia, etc.). They're not really used though primarily because if you have the capital to invest in the infrastructure needed to build sea launched rockets you might as well just build a normal launch site and conventional rocket since you can leach most of the engineering studies from publicly available ESA and NASA documents.
Building a sea dragon replica would be nifty but it's like building an aerospike engine. In theory it'd be revolutionary but in practice you have to re-invent the wheel and might as well just use a normal rocket like everyone else.
Fresh grilled fish anyone?
Fish fish fish fish fish
Can’t seem to find the clip but in a Happy Days episode Al comes into the scene and says, ‘More fish, plenty of fish.’
Chicken is better than fish
@@coolbear6441
L
Fish what fish all you served me was wet ash
Awesome liftoff - both as depicted underwater, and from the surface (the underwater flashes and the massive swell before the Sea Dragon exited the water)!
This has got to be my favorite never-built rocket design from the pre-Apollo/Apollo era. Launched from the sea, massive payload, and K.I.S.S. Thanks for bringing it to life!
When you download Procedural parts for the first time.
Or tweakScale
Lol
Yeah, more like TweakScale...however my first craft with tweakscale was minuscule, enough to fit in a kerbal‘s pocket. And then I build rockets large enough to fit VAB or SPH in the payload fairings...
This is a joke for other games besides #citiesskylines ? :D
When you download someone builds in SFS
The Sea Dragon is the rocket definition of Overkill
I've looked into some other designs recently and realized that Sea Dragon was a sounding rocket compared to some other vehicles. Look into the UR-700M and Nexus rockets for some really serious payload.
Honestly, the guy who designed the sea dragon had the right idea. About a lot of things.
It just wasn't possible to really get such a project going at the time.
@@rundownpear2601 I just looked it up and was disappointed at 151 tonnes but then realized I wasn't looking at the nuclear variant and omg 750 tonnes. WHAT THE WHAT.
@Carl Johan Not at time but generally.
Hard, innefficient, expensive, dangerous etc
There is no Overkill. There is only 'Go for engine start' and 'Circularisation burn complete'
With escape tower and half the rocket above water level, your animation is even more accurate than AppleTV+'s 👌
To be fair, I don't think they launch in For All Mankind was manned - though you are right about half above the water. Don't think it matters, at the end of the day, because what a cinematic shot that was
@Littbit yeah, the reveal of the rocket’s size was a nice touch just in case some of the audience hadn’t heard about the sea dragon
20ⁿ😮😮😮
I was waiting for someone to dare do the Sea Dragon. The NASA sketches looked over the top but this animation conveys that this monster could have been real. Great stuff!
th-cam.com/video/SRMDcC0QvFQ/w-d-xo.html watch this too
I don't think it could have been real sadly. An engine that big would have MASSIVE combustion chamber instability that even modern tech would struggle to fix (if it's even possible at all to fix in the first place).
Just look at Starship and how it is going for 30+ engines instead of 1 big engine, despite the raptor being the most advanced rocket engine ever built.
@@carljohan9265 Forget combustion instability, this thing would've had 10 times the thrust of the Saturn V and would have most DEFINITELY permanently damaged the hearing of the crew on board, and since this rocket would be made of the cheapest materials, you really think that the thrust of such a large engine wouldn't completely obliterate the ship?
@@Saturnares Yep, that's another problem, one that the SLS incidentally is most likely going to have (that thing will either RUD itself at launch or max Q).
But it won't matter if combustion chamber instability can't be solved, since that causes the engine to explode.
@@carljohan9265 I'm sure the SLS will be fine. They're testing the SRBs and they seem to be doing well, and also they're doing wind tunnel tests. Although the Block 1B will have about the same payload capacity to LEO as Starship, I don't understand why they don't just rebuild a Saturn V and replace the old parts with better ones. NASA should just make a modernized Saturn V and be done with SLS. What would you pick? 140,000 kg to LEO and 1 billion dollars to launch, or, 105,000 kg to LEO and 850 million dollars to launch?
The ever so spectacular, and monstrously massive classic Seadragon, it may be called a "big dumb booster" but it would have been a spectacle for sure and perhaps it would have been pushing us much further out than we are now
It wouldn't Because entire USA would go bankrupt
@@ImieNazwiskoOK These were designed to be less expensive than the Saturn Vs of the space race era, and multiple times more efficient. They’ve mostly only been proposed as cargo vehicles, not for manned launches, and the cheap materials it uses, alongside its semi-reusable factors, would’ve made it the cheapest way to get a massive payload into orbit. Nowadays we have the Starship, rendering this a little useless, but still super fuckin cool.
@@Zacharysharkhazard -hull is heavy
-making engines for this=hardest thing ever (turbo pump would need turbo pumps with turbo pumps)
-What would be launched anyway?
@@banger2998 But why not launch it in parts?
I think it might have SOME sense in times when docking and orbital assembly was crazy and very hard thing (which is why idea of having separate lander and capsule which would need to dock was rejected at first), but right now not that much.
Can you do the Energia II concept or Nasa Nova?
Campbell Mays Energia II was a evolution of the Soviet Energia. Energia II was 100% reusable becuse it launch like a rocket and land like an airplane but no like the shuttle each one of the boosters have wings for land, but was only a concept
Campbell Mays th-cam.com/video/xN6ikr6s3tY/w-d-xo.html That is a video
@@campbellmays9900 Uragan (aka Energia 2), it's like the Buran-Energia but it's a rocket instead of a shuttle
djm
@@guillecalahorra9546 q
ok lets crowd fund this and get elon to build it for fun
Cleetus Joe Triggered guy can’t take a joke
@@Hollowhalf17 That was not a joke.
Cleetus Joe I’m sure it wasn’t
@@Hollowhalf17 What?
What SpaceX does is cool but it's sad that all the credit goes to musk while the company's achievements are the result of the work of thousands of people during the last century (scientists, technicians, engineers, programmers, taxpayers from all around the world)
I missed this when it was published but I’ve loved the Sea Dragon concept ever since I first heard about it. To see it rendered like this just made me unspeakably happy. I’d give 1000 Likes if I could. I had no idea the staging worked like that. Amazing!
Saturn V : I'm a biggest rocket ever..!!!
Sea Dragon : Hold my [I dunno]
Channel Mati Saturn V: At least I don't kill or deafen fish!
Liquid oxygen
Hold my nozzle.
Hold my nukes
Sea Dragon: Hold my brewery.
Gravity - no one can defeat me
Rocket - hold my payload
The second nozzle is very impressive !
*BIG* boi
😍😍😍😍
I Mean that is not good at all
@@Xtars why not?
@@wyattchaplain275 because it gonna melt because it was an steel. Not an titanium
The first stage rocket nozzle being tucked into the second stage nozzle is quite brilliant - and it flares out wider to be vacuumed optimized. Was this part of the original plan or just some brilliant creative license?
Kyle Cooksey I, too, wish to know this. This is something I’d not heard about in previous descriptions of the Sea Dragon.
Folks, it was the RP1 tank (sphere) that was inside the interstage (that also became a nozzle).
Slight creative license, but given limited details in original proposal, as accurate as I could hope for.. drawings show the interstage supports are above the expandable nozzle segments, and describe 4 1/4 circle segments, not 8 in the expandable nozzle shown unless I misread the over 500 pages in the two proposals on the wiki page. The 1st stages conical tank remains pressurized to allow it to collide with the ocean at up 600 ft/sec and be undamaged ! Robert Truax was a true genius !
It was designed to have a variable exhaust cone on the Second Stage. It was a two stages to Orbit design.
This video is fantastic! It really brings the concept to life Bob Truax would be proud!
2:45 "And Houston, Sea Dragon 1, we have successful condom deployment."
I died reading this comment lol
condom for the rocket
Feak
Even a rocket needs protection
Lol 🤣🤣
I’m sure this has been pointed out but you have the first stage coming back without the LOX tank / cone. That rounded dome is the RP-1 tank, buried inside the first stage and which was designed to share a common bulkhead with the LOX tank.
Could anyone else hear “everybody’s wants to rule the world” watching this?
Great work, please keep the video's coming. This gives insight on how these rockets would have worked (for example the deployed secondstage nozzle)
My grandfather tried to create a rocket engine all his life (he was an engineer and chemist), when he was close to creating a functional engine he unfortunately died of old age, Now I'm trying to continue his project.
Everyone on that ship would have had there ears annihilated from the rocket being that close
So would maritime life in the radious of I don't know....1k km ? SIngle F-1 - which is a sneeze's worth compared to ...THIS - could blow out windows some 10 miles away....
@@piotrd.4850 thats why it launches on a remote part of the sea with little to no life
thats why it launches from the sea, the water dampens the shockwaves
The sea dragon feature's on the last episode For All Mankind on apple, it's awsome.
I'd love to see a follow up to this! Imagine payload delivery and re-entry.
Sea dragon was all advantages
-Massive payload to LEO
-Reusable
-Cooks enough fish at launch to feed the whole launch team.
Opposite:
-expensive (entire USA bankrupt)
-hardest design possible
-dangerous
-inefficient
-unstable
I always wondered if the acoustic pressure waves of igniting a rocket that powerful underwater would not have just destroyed the integrity of the rocket's structure. (or deafened every fish and sonar operator in the ocean)
Dampening the sound was the whole point of putting it in the water in the first place, it could not be launched from land at all. The ecological impact probably would be disastrous too. Although there are certain spots out in the open ocean with very little life, perhaps those could be used for launching. One of the benefits of this design is it can be towed from the shipyard to any launch site on the ocean.
Who knows if this would have worked. They had a hard enough time dealing with combustion instability in the massive 12-foot (3.65m) bell-nozzle diameter F-1 engine. What hell would they have gone through trying to make that 75-foot (23m) nozzle diameter motor work?
So crazy, even Musk and Bezos wouldn't try it.
Careful, Elon just might
@@UNSCPILOT sshhhhh... I'm trying reverse-psychology. I really want them to try 😅
@@TheNefastor Do, or do not, there is no try.
Or in other words, let's poke him directly and see what he says, maybe they can scale it down a slight and use it as a booster for that upscaled V2 of the Starship he mentioned.
Maybe call them Starcruiser and Megaheavy
Actually, there's a company working on a scaled down version.
Замечательная симуляция, словно там побывал!
Great visualization - they should have used this in "For All Mankind"
They did : th-cam.com/video/SRMDcC0QvFQ/w-d-xo.html
Saturn V: I'm the biggest rocket
Sea Dragon: Hold my drawings and concepts
I can just imagine a fish that is on fire underwater because the engine was that explosive
Great art visualization. Great demo of what the Seadragon would have looked like
Best Video on Seadragon, congratulation ! ! !
This is not the biggest rocket concept, not a rocket concept. But the biggest Griller Concept ever in the world.
1:32 weird cloud if overhead
how so?
That is an illusion I'm pretty sure. ( in real life I think it would be )
@@ChessieSystem2101 oh, he meant the ray-tracing artifact from the screen panning up?
Fun fact (or maybe not so fun): This rocket was specifically designed to launch in water because if launched on land it would destroy any launchpad ever made and it would destroy everything around it, maybe even itself.
And if it exploded, it would have an explosion comparable to that of a nuclear weapon.
Luckily it wouldn't be an actual radioactive explosion.
Me when I want a space station in ksp but Im to lazy to do it in more than one mission
Damn. All that thrust and it can't get beyond the clouds.
Wow...truly amazing work, again!!
When you love space... but hate fish more.
Pls do more BFR related videos again
@@starshot5172 What made you think that he thought it was BFR?
@@starshot5172 pretty sure he doesn't think this was the BFR 🙄
@@ALI3NPROFESS0R I'm reading back all the comments from 2 years ago, and I really cringe at how salty and how much of a know-all I tried to be. I think I changed because I noticed it :)
SpaceX watching the engine recovery: 🥱
elon musk approves this
I keep forgetting how ridiculous that second stage was. Thanks for these animations; had to come back to this one after seeing the recent "weird staging" video.
So cool
So the first one is land, second one is space, and the now is water. yea it's very good idea! :)
Cool idea, but wouldn't it be extremely harmful to local underwater life?
They're not going to launch it in natural habitats, they launch these things in areas that lack local wildlife
"So long, and thanks for all the fish!"
How about launching it on the Dead Sea?
@@basrengangetch.2042 Well, it's called the Dead Sea but it will be actually dead once we launch this beast there...
@@thinkaboutit4715 any living organism over there?
This thing could carry the entire ISS into orbit
Awesome!!
2:33 well that's a weird engine
Dreams of what if, or what might be.
Or, could be?
There is a private company working to bring the sea dragon back, after proving the concept with a smaller version.
BUILD THIS SEA DRAGON ROCKET NOW ! ! !
Perfect!
but I was waiting for the retro footage you did on N1
I can’t imagine the amount of pressure needed to create a cavity big enough to be able to ignite the engine underwater.
2:50 thats the biggest condom i've ever seen...
no laugh, cringe
Excellent video.
First: Sea Dragon was a cargo only vehicle.
Second: Yes, the first stage would have been recoverable and reusable.
This animation is very nice, but it is not really accurate.
I was a member of a group that about 8 years ago revamped the Sea Dragon concept, and scaled it down to a 100 ton to LEO cargo vehicle. The single 90 million pound thrust engine was replaced by an aerospike engine with 72 combustion chambers, for a total of 36 million pounds of thrust.
You can go to www.nasaspaceflight.com and do a search of "Hercules project", to find information on our project.
Gregory Sakala is the projecr still going? or just being postponed?
Bitch
Gregory Sakala
5 times the thrust of a BFR yet it delivers 50 tons less payload? No wonder the project never became a reality.
This guy is a liar.
@@jstrotha0975No you ae
I find it funny how the design drawings had an Apollo CSM at the top of the dragon. Could you imagine spending months in an Apollo capsule for a Mars mission?
I tweeted Elon Mask this video
Did you say ,hi elon nice mask? XD
*M A S K*
Mask
Elon *musk**
You Sir, deserve my highest respect, your 3D rocket stuff is do amazing
I think that concept whould never work xD
Look at that tank of the first stage... thats nothing for that engine
This rocket is like the big bully to the Saturn V lmao
Now we need a Sea Dragon launch of an Orion mission to Mars.
As a Boeing mechanic who helps build rockets and space ships and satellites. Im just curious why is it underwater and what benefits does this give it? If its a cleaner energy thing, sorry im not too familar with different rocket engines than the current ones we use. Please fill me in. Thank you
The reason why the sea dragon rocket was deigned to be launched from the ocean instead of on land is simply because if the sea dragon rocket was launched from land the sea dragon rocket would completely destroy the launch pad rendering the launch pad useless due to how much force the sea dragon rocket would have on the launch pad.
You need to remember that if the sea dragon rocket was ever built it would have been the biggest and the most powerful rocket ever built by humans the Saturn 5 rocket that took American 🇺🇸 astronauts to the moon in 1969 would pale in comparison to the sea dragon rocket… the sea dragon rocket would also be capable of carrying large payloads into space something no other rocket was able to achieve.
The reason why the sea dragon rocket was deigned to be launched from the ocean instead of on land is simply because if the sea dragon rocket was launched from land the sea dragon rocket would completely destroy the launch pad rendering the launch pad useless due to how much force the sea dragon rocket would have on the launch pad.
You need to remember that if the sea dragon rocket was ever built it would have been the biggest and the most powerful rocket ever built by humans the Saturn 5 rocket that took American 🇺🇸 astronauts to the moon in 1969 would pale in comparison to the sea dragon rocket… the sea dragon rocket would also be capable of carrying large payloads into space something no other rocket was able to achieve.
Incerdible. Thx.
That was amazing but the aftermath is, tones of Hurricanes, Tornados and Storms. Plus killing so many Marine Lives. This has to be the work of a SINNERS.
Probably my favorite video of yours so far. Love your content, and I can’t wait to see more from you
I was waiting for this one. Absolutely amazing work.
I have designed a rocket that produces 26.1 billion pounds of thrust. My design was trashed because the rocket would cause earth quakes and tsunamis on a global scale when launched. The exhaust from the main nacelles would have been 13 miles long as it went up into the atmosphere at speeds of over 34 million miles an hour.
This is really Massive!!!
So many awesome concepts! Ocean Squeeze! What an idea - the deeper the launch the greater the thrust. I think....
What? No....
It would actually mean less thrust, because the pressure difference between the combustion chamber and the surrounding water would be lower.
Really excellent simulation.
Built out of plain steel, in a shipyard, not a factory. Pressure-fed engines, so no complex turbopumps. Easily controlled with 60s level tech. In the modern era, we wouldn't even need a nuclear ship for support, just an LNG tanker. First stage fully reusable.
no rockets that come out from under water ignite their engines, they use other mechanism to jump above the water and ignite the engines in the air.
Because the stress in the nozzle igniting underwater could be very different, this would produce turbulence and vibrations that it can destroy part of the rocket.
Good points. The nozzle must start, submerged, at a pressure much higher than sea level. If optimized for that, it would be inefficient once above the water line. If not, then sea water and exhaust would tend to mix near the nozzle walls, causing cavitation and extreme vibration.
Have you looked into ways of launching Sea Dragon up into air?
@@avid0g not sure if I understand all the benefits of launching from sea, let me think:
1- Choosing latitude (although it would take a long time to reach destination and other issues could arise)
2- no need for launch site infrastructure and vertical mechanism (yeah, i see the benefits on those taking into account the scale, although dealing with corrosion or special covers to avoid that is not cheap, not for nothing offshore wind turbines had a LCOE 2 or 3 times more expensive with better wind than onshore wind turbines).
About how to solve that, not sure, maybe adding an extra nozzle inside the main nozzle to use under water that it would detach once it reach surface, but it will also have a lot of problems.
Would an aerospike engine work for the lower stage if it was launched underwater?
Any bi-propellant rocket will work underwater for the same reason they work in space, the oxidizer is stored inside the rocket. Any water that enters the rocket bell before ignition will just get blown back out once the fuel and oxidizer mix and ignite.
@@youtubeisapublisher6407 I know that it would ignite underwater, but how would the exhaust plume behave on an aerospike? Normal convergent-divergent nozzles limit the expansion of the exhaust gas using the inside surface of an engine bell.
An aerospike inverts the bell design so the outside air pressure keeps the exhaust plume against the outer surface of the spike (so the plume could expand as the rocket gets higher and stay at max efficiency)
Since water is much denser than air and can't be compressed like a gas, how would that affect the performance, efficiency, and safety of the engine? Would it flame out due to the pressure of the water? Would it prevent the exhaust from sticking to the aerospike (which would be a pretty spectacular CATO to watch). Would it make the engine perform even better than air?
Who knows?
@@iliketrains0pwned Oh I get what you're saying, that's interesting and I have no idea because I don't think it's ever actually been tested. Somebody should build a sounding rocket sized test engine and fire it into a pool with a good camera to see what happens.
In 1962 National Steel and Shipbuilding in San Diego said "Yes, we can build that." Then NASA said "Never mind, we don't want to do it anymore." But the paperwork and plans all still exist. Someone could do it if they wanted a 500 tonne to orbit rocket.
are there any photos of the paperwork and plans? id love to see them
This was and is better than SLS
Great video. Have not yet seen a depiction of a theoretical Sea Dragon flight profile anywhere on the internet. Nice work.
They have not launched that yet?
You seriously need more views, this is top quality work
That's the biggest rubber ducky in the universe!
Sea dragon was never planned to be reusable the main appeal idea of it was that it was a fat dumb cheap rocket that could be extremely powerful
At least we turned anything in the water into sushi!
Woooow! This video is A W E S O M E
Superb video and audio, you´re the master :)
A old idea with some awesome abilities but to bad we never built it but with todays technologies and stronger and lighter materials it could happen if you could ever get the money to fund it ! Great video by the way ! =) thanks
Absolutely incredible work
Interesting. I'm guessing there could only be about 8 million things that could go wrong.
That second stage engine bell is insane! Didn't realise it would've done that. Also the Vernier engines are not lit after takeoff. Were they just to get it out of the drink?
Man this look like more than real
Keep up the good work.
Fish be like. "Hmm, look at this plankton. Dele *Sea dragon launches.... OHHHHH FAWK!!!!!!...... DEAD."
Spectacular job. Well done !! Please keep on.
Anyone wanted to bath in hot water of Antarctic.
the second stage is so cool
one word: Insane!