Why Can't we Remake the Rocketdyne F1 Engine?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ต.ค. 2024
- When NASA was looking for a very large engine for the SLS boosters some of its engineers looked at resurrecting the Rocketdyne F-1 engines but what they found out might well surprise some people and just goes to show how things have moved on since the 1960's.
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Presented by
Paul Shillito
Written and Researched by
Paul Shillito
Footage and images
NASA, Rocketdyne
Dynetics
Music by
Mike Mullen BMI
www.positrosmic.com
with James Zota Baker on guitar
www.jameszotabaker.com
![ILLSLICK - THE KING'S LANDING [Freestyle]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/feIJJnNkTfk/mqdefault.jpg)
Understanding it was basically all hand built makes it even more beautiful when it lifts off.
A superior product made by superior minds that did NOT depend on computers.
@@amauryll ahh a boomer with a superiority complex , and u laughably drop out the details from the video that state "more efficient and just as powerful, while using only 40 parts compared to the old one that needed 5600 " the new design is superior to the old boomer shit , the future is now old man
@Jim Nickles im not american and I even know that the government decides if thats gonna happen , and they gave to job to these scientist in the first place ....
When engineers actually worked and got down and dirty in a job not just pencil pushers doing paper work or typing on a computer. Now days its 95 percent paperwork or computer logging and 5 percent hands on work .
I mean touchscreen tablets and smartphones and desktop computers didn't exist in 1969 Soooo there wasn't much choice but to build with hands, slide rulers, protractors, pencils and paper...
The difference between knowing a recipe and knowing how to cook....
That is why, in a kitchen, the recipe is only 20% of the task and PROCEDURE is 85% of what it takes to be a successful cook.
@@stevehofmann9525 Same in most trades; knowing what to do and knowing how to do it are two very different skill sets.
Well put.
@@stevehofmann9525 Especially when you want 105% of cake!
@T Aickin Engineers of cause to strive to make sure all the measurements and materials are correct, but they are only human.
I worked at Rocketdyne as a journeyman machinist, and did a lot of work on the F1, J2, & Aerospike engines. One day I was struck with the enormity of what we were doing. Rather than being just another worker drone punching the clock - I REALLY worked hard to make every part as perfect as possible and truly enjoyed every minute that I worked on these pieces of history. The F1 was, and is, a magnificent piece of equipment. A memory that I cherish to this day is when I walked into one of the large buildings - turned a corner and there before me were 21 F1 engines fully assembled, ready for shipment to Kennedy Space Center. Without a doubt, one of the most amazing sites I have ever seen. All I can say today is Go SpaceX - I still get chills watching a launch. Thank you for this video.
It's no different today. I happen to be working on small satellite control systems. We do it because we love it.
Chuck Henderson, that's awesome, I too as a tradesman take pride in the work we do, not quite as historically ground breaking as what you did, but I get where you're saying.
Nanny state now, health and safety wouldn't allow you to do that job. Very sad but at least you got to do it. Must have been some sight 😱
And they all worked flawlessly... PRIDE in CRAFTSMANSHIP!
your whole life has been a waste and a lie those trinkets you "worked" on NEVER went to space they are sitting at the bottom of the ocean right now 😂😂 EARTH IS FLAT AND STATIONARY NASA LIES
I was at the Kennedy Space Center in the 1990's and looked over an F1 on static display. If the impeccable workmanship wasn't impressive enough, the fact that being placed outside in all the weather over the decades, the engine showed no signs of corrosion. A testament to the quality of the alloys used in its construction.
Pretty impressive, seeing as it gets pummeled by salt air & sea spray on a daily basis. Gotta love human ingenuity & workmanship.
All the evidence you need for the Apollo claims huh
Yep I’m sure they never do any maintenance on it to keep it looking good.
When my dad applied for a job at NASA I got to stand inside the f1 there in cape Canaveral. I was 12? And joked it was big enough that I could use it as a teepee, WITH central heating!
I'm engineer at a swiss machine-tool manufacturer. We face the very same issue while producing spare-parts for old machines. Drawings don't tell you everything.
Don't tell the conspiracy theorists that. They think that once you make something, you should have no problem reproducing it at the drop of a hat forever.
exactly , and it's the same in the automotive world, we couldn't make a 50s cadillac eldorado today for ex, the bodywork would need very skilled metal crafters... no machine can do it
dastsunpolo You couldn't build the same car today in production. Robots *might* be able to fit panels if they had enough samples to train themselves using AI. It would likely be very model-specific. I enjoy watching some automobile restoration shows because of the craftsmanship involved. Many times, when working on cars without matching numbers, they will incorporate modern parts to improve reliability, safety and reduce costs. Other times I see them creating nightmares for anyone who might work on the car in the future.
Preach brother I get old drawings and I mean literal drawings for parts to make and still have to hand finish everything to fit and work properly
I don't know about an Eldo, but you CAN build a 64 Mustang, 1969 Mustang and I think the early Camaros from scratch now. Every part you need is being reproduced. Oh, I recall an article where they built a 57 Chevy from aftermarket parts cheaper than restoring an old one. All it takes is demand.
I had designed and built the machine for making the 26" Volumetric Compensators used on this Engine and I was thrilled to see them this video...
Bill Maynard did nasa contact you later for tips on how to rebuild them?
Wow that's awesome! Great job man, I'm sure you must feel proud (deservedly!)
@@HydroSheep : Nobody wants to rebuild them.
Good job
Me too buddy me too
I think its the lack of tobacco products. In every old picture of NASA you would see someone smoking or an ashtray
Could be a connection there...hmmm.
Gold
THIS.
@@mdsuave13 I wonder why they're stressful. I'm not sure why honestly.
Could you tell us why you think they'd be stressed?
Yess, i love it.
Btw after taking a moment to read, a lot of the comments here are amazing and inspiring, coming from the people who worked with rockets and even the Saturn 5. Thanks for all you guys did and do, truly amazing stuff!
I lived 20 miles for the F-1 engine test stands in Huntsville, AL. A single engine test would rattle our windows 20 miles away.
do you have any recordings of that ?
Are you a pilot, and if so do you think you were inspired to become one because of your proximity to these engine tests?
Awesome, I can barely understand that kinda power. saw Apolo launches as a teenager on TV, I may well be wrong but today's rockets seem quite bland.
Reminds me of my ex-wife farting.
I said, HOW IS YOUR HEARING?!
I remember my Dad working on projects for the Mercury and the Gemini programs. He was involved in in radar and guidance systems for the Agena project which was the precursor to the moon landings. He had a shop at home where he would sometimes at night fabricate rough,many times with wood, copies of different parts for some of the engineers in his group so they actually see and hold some of the parts they were designing to allow them a way to brainstorm with others on ideas on placement positions and fit to other parts. I guess today he would be considered a 3D printer!
I grew up in Melbourne, about 30 miles south of the Cape. Those were interesting days beginning in the mid-50s. I had a paper route in 63 and 64 and delivered to some of the engineers and technicians that worked at the Cape. The astronaut's dietician told me he developed Tang which was BS. Charles Fishman's book, "One Giant Leap" mentions that at the height of the moon landings there were 250,000 people involved in some aspect across the country working for NASA to make it happen.
You got cad? No, his name is Chad, and he's good at carving 3d wood models.
Growing up in the 1970's, our neighbor across the street was a machinist. He used old world tools to make the prototypes that were then put on the NC lathes and mass produced.
@@Pebo62 375,000 plus people involved actually.
More likely you Dad would have used a high end commercial CAD/Modeler. That way he could have dispensed with the wood, rapidly iterated thru design options digitally then sent the finished prototype to team members for consideration.
We under appreciate how custom built the entire early NASA programs that led to Apollo missions were. The F1 engine, Hasselblad cameras, computers and the like were all hand built. True jewels of craftsmanship.
my buddy got hold of the blueprints of an F-1 engine and built one in his garage. Fitted it to his Chevy. We're still looking for him,
"Houston, I see something- wait is that a Unidentified Flying Chevy?"
Hope it wasn't a Vega.
...then I realised...
Good one 😂
hahaha
Lol
It gives me great pride in knowing that my family had taken part in making the F1 engines. My mother told me she was so happy watching Grandpa and his cousin attend school and be brought forth in front of everyone as working for "NASA" and showed diagrams and the engines they worked on.
I met one of these old timers, although he worked on a stealth bomber among other things, really cool dude. It really was a different era. We're certainly improving the precision on what we produce but I doubt we're improving the people making it.
He passed away last year, sad to see that generation disappearing.
I was raised by one. My father was a lead man on the F-1s in Canoga Park. He met with Werhner Von Braun with a design idea that was used.
He later bought a service station. You could have a rocket scientist work on your car. Although I don't recall him ever telling anyone about it.
We've improved the precision but we haven't improved the people making it. That sir is profound and goes into my book of notable quotes.
In the past it was a duty of state to improve its people, nowadays it is sole responsibility of parents to improve and educate their child, and even worse the education system resists a lot if one deviates from being "average"
Of course we cannot improve the people. Probably the engineers working on the F1 was about as smart as the engineers working on the pyramids of Egypt.
The advance of human race is based on improving the tools and processes.
Humans are pretty much unchanged since about 70000 years ago. We can still form the same amount of friends and social circles and our mechanical and mental capabilities are pretty much the same. Overall the averages in the physical and mental department have increased due to better health, but the best humans in ancient times were very similar to the best "modern" humans. This is the main limiting factor today and why gene editing is seen as such a problem as the "level" playing field suddenly becomes not so level anymore.
One of those engineers would had been my dad. He has left us, but his memory of his achievements live on in the program. He to me was the most interesting man I ever met. After his death so many other people said the same.
Sympathy
God bless him.
One of the engineers I talked to said it was a sham.
@@copperbeckville1853 Just one. figures.
@@copperbeckville1853 What was a sham?
Remember these guys were still in WWII production mode; many came from that era, it had only been 10-12 years. They brought with them the skill, the drive, and confidence.
SteverRob there just aren't people like that around anymore
SteverRob you are right, the war really changed people in a way that is much different than the people today. Also with the Cold War and the space race they had that drive to compete and win.
Michael Mace there are still a few of us with the "do it and get it done " attitude still around! And I've raised 4 boys with the same embedded work ethic! Not easy given the modern version of the public education system.
Shoog Don. In fact SteverRob is spot on, the technology of the Apollo Saturn program was very much out of the WWII generation as the team leaders and management within the program had cut their teeth in aero engineering during the war. The technology was of the mid 1950's to boot, this was because of Kennedy's deadline. They couldn't develop anything really new as they didn't have the time to test it, therefore, technology that was mature and well understood was selected in the construction of Saturn and the Apollo spacecraft. The F-1 was not originally designed for Von Braun as it was an Air Force project (and he was Army!!!).
SteverRob
1941-1960 was nineteen years. WWII ended in 1945, and 1945-1960 was fifteen years. Given that the F1 was not launch ready until what, 1967-'68, 22-23 years after the end of the war, I'll bet there were many young people working on the project that were born during the war, and certainly were not in "war production" mode.
The real reason they got it done the way they did, was because they had no choice. I'd bet good money that most of the old-timers, if given access to modern technology, would've latched on hard with both hands.
Just my two-cents worth.
Paul: to me, one of the stunning capabilities of the old F1’s was the steerability of them. To be able to tilt and control those things to gimbal the rocket is almost beyond belief!
Cheers to you and your excellent channel. 💛🙏🏼
I'm sure they could re-learn these skills, it's not rocket science.
Badumm...tsss XD
Yes they can make it again but they have to sacrifice a lot of equipment and rockets to get where they were in the 60s
I feel you've missed the joke here Victor.
@@mojondro Re-read the first comment.
Matthew Reid looks like he missed the point! Unless he meant that scientists were not technicians? Or he was talking about some kind of ritual. Guess we'll never know.... Or will we???
My father was an engineer for Rocketdyne. I remember the stories of going to the shop floor to communicate with the welders, machinists and assemblers to explain what they really needed done. Years after my father passed we found a box full of notes and drawings and communications to the people on the floor in regards to the F1...
That could be handy.
Keep it safe,it will be worth it.
Sell them to NASA for big money! :)
Definitely look into takling to nasa, or sell it to space x lol
@@josephgreene630 NASA and sx undoubtedly has technology superior to the F1.
Reminds me of what I did at my first job out of university. We had to re-implement a system that used loads of custom made parts on new off-the-shelf hardware, which meant we had to do a total reverse engineering. The source code was intact, but there wasn't any documentation and the engineer who wrote almost all of it, on his own, had died a few years prior. My first job there was deciphering the main operational logic function containing a several thousand line long mess of if-then-else statements.
Only way to make any sense of it was just to create a massive flow chart and a few "sub charts" to keep it from becoming too big to get comprehend. Thankfully my boss really liked it and when the company went belly up a little more than a year after I joined he gave me a good reference for my next job (had a signed contract after less than a month of looking).
@akjohnny The 22 upvotes would suggest that people found my story to be an interesting read.
@tommy aronson Industrial control systems as a business is very heavy on trade secrets protected by strong non-disclosure agreements so open sourcing it wasn't exactly an option.
So while our code was very much closed, we did use a lot of open source stuff like running it all on Linux, using Boost for a whole lot of tasks and QT for GUI, saving us a lot of work. Also FYI the business is still around so you clearly have no idea what you're talking about.
@@jellomaster5629 lmao
A massive chuck of IF/THEN statements is a sign of a programmer who hasn't learned all the features of a language.
@tommy aronson The old code still had to be analyzed and rewritten.
I was amazed at the sheer scale of the rockets on the Saturn V at the Kennedy Space Centre and was in awe of the courage it would take to sit on the top of one of these things. This video gives me even more respect for the engineers who actually made this machine actually work.
My father was a really good engineer, but I didn't know a lot about his work. After he passed away I found a letter from NASA in his effects thanking him for his help in choosing the materials for the Saturn V combustion chamber.
Now I realize he was a very special person.
Just watching that picture of the man next to that F1, if you can you REALLY need to head to mission control in Houston to see them for yourself, amazing, Ive been into space tech most of my life and the shear size of those things is shocking.
One of the reasons for trying this shorter video format apart from being quicker to make, so i can get more videos done is that on quite a few stories there is a distinct lack of appropriate footage. This particular subject is one of them, I was going to do a longer more detailed video but when checking there was very little on the subject in a visual format, so i thought that it would be a good tryout to see how it goes for other subjects that are equally lacking in the image front and so you dont see me for minutes at a time on camera :-)
awesome....(makes sense shorter length)
awesome ....more more more ! pretty please.
Personally, I come to your channel for the information, not necessarily the pretty pictures in the background. Relevant footage is always a plus, but i'd hate to think you feel like you cant take a deeper dive on a subject just because of a lack of footage. Maybe consider settling on some kind of ambient background stock footage that at least has an appropriate theme and do your monologue in front of that? Very interesting video btw, would love to hear your opinion about the Viking missions and other Venus related stuff.
A mixture of the two formats would be good. Longer videos when the subject permits but shorter vids when as you say the footage is lacking
I appreciate getting out more videos faster, I wish there was a way to have your cake (longer videos) and eat it too (get them out quicker). Still, this video was quite nice.
I enjoy the shorter videos when the subject matter fits. I still however enjoy your longer videos. I just usually have to wait til I get home to watch. But the subject matter I think should dictate the length of the videos.
I aim for the moon but keep hitting London
-Werner von Braun
Right up until he actually did hit the moon.
@@shelbyseelbach9568 you mean right up till he actually hit Londen once
@@catnium No, I meant right up till he actually hit the moon, just like I said. Why would your think I meant something I didn't say?
Lol
Das ist ein Volltreffer!
Can I say it, can I? Can I?!
"Don't make 'em like the used to."
You was so eager to say it yous forgots the y.
@@lrodriguez9315 What about your spelling then?! xD
But we can, we just have to muster up the gumption, and do it. Man will go to space when he gets there will he speak Chinese or good old Mid West English?
@Steve Terry
Good One
Or you can just say they didn’t make them movie magic anyone
Love the new format. Quick. Simple. Idea presented is solid and well taken.
As for old and handcrafted-skills lost-well-it is not surprising. However, the 40-part new version vs the 5600 complex version is still stunning. Nevertheless-it is amazing to me how smart our fathers and grandfathers are and were. We do not give them the appropriate credit and kudos and generally think far too highly of ourselves compared to them!
They basically were building race cars for space. Hand made one offs. I make custom knives, we do this all the time. The process changes as we move forward because we constantly are learning to refine it.
The design of the F1 engine did not need refinement. It was a simple, easily constructed design. Today's so called "engineers" cannot think. Their computers do all the thinking for them. One does not need a computer to whittle a piece of wood into a thing of beauty. One did not need computers to repeatedly travel to and from the moon. HUMAN thought and action was the foremost "operating system." I sell knives in Pueblo, Colorado. Thanks for your work.
@@richardclay it's not that they cant think, it's just not worth the time and money to train new welders and to recreate something that worked when you can just make something that works just as well for cheaper with modern tools.
2020-
NASA Engineer: Let's just Leeroy Jenkins this and make a hippie engine. My cousin is a welder and a guy I drink beer with is an out of work machinist.
NASA Admin: What?
NASA Engineer: Let's CAD the hell out of this and run a bunch of simulations to make sure it works. We need this to be built with modern tools and have a repeatable/scalable production line with excellent quality control.
NASA Admin: That's what I thought you said.
1960-
NASA Admin: We needed that Engine 4 days ago. Do what you need to get this done.
NASA Engineer: Ok.
@@richardclay okay richard, go help out nasa and rebuild that F1 engine then. lets see you do it bud.
In 1967 I crafted hydraulic control valves for F-86 Sabres of the Argentinian Air Force using WWII precision machine tools. I was the only employee supervised by a retired Caterpiller master machinist who was supervised by a hobby factory owner who had built Norden bomb sights during WWII. I used air gauges and a high pressure hydraulic test stand to tune each multiport valve to rated, chatter free output. I should have bought the shop, but the job was just a means to get a college diploma before I got drafted. The guys I worked for were named Orville and Wilbur after the Wright brothers. I did not think clearly because of the pressure of being drafted.
Skilled Builders and Tradesmen are a Dying Breed, unfortunate but true ..... :-(
I actually think this is true and untrue at the same time. True in the sense that with shifting production to new countries the old guard hasn't exactly reinforced the next generation of machinists and engineers. Untrue in the sense that the new guard is learning fast and Chinese quality has advanced rapidly. People used to call Japanese products cheap crap and now the likes Honda, Suzuki, Nissan, Kawasaki etc... stand out for their quality. Heck I have had several $$$$ German disappointments of late. The same will be true of Chinese brands in the same (or close enough) timeframe. That is unless we decide to shift manufacturing to Africa in ten years and re-start again!
@Philip Martin
Partially true... it has to be an extremely skilled and specialized welder.
On the other hand, a highly skilled software developer (often without a degree, like myself) can easily have over $300,000 salary.
Meanwhile I make $35k as a software dev... send halp
absolutely not.
they dis and get replaced by the next generation.... your car and your house are fine, dont they? guess what, in fifty years, thell get even better.
how do you explain that?
L Parker globalist?
I use to live in Simi Valley, rocketdyne was up in the hills a few miles away. They use to always test their engines & shake the whole town. It was pretty cool. You hear the rumbling start, all the windows would shake, and a big plume if white smoke going up into the sky. Never actually saw a test. But heard n felt a lot of them. They stoped doing those tests and I miss them.
I lived in San Jose Calif. and i remember the first time i heard them test one of the solid booster rockets. The windows, and house started to shake and the noise was loud and i could see a big white plum of smoke rise over the hills to the east of us. At the time we had no idea what it was until they showed it on the news later that evening. It was the most amazing thing i ever heard. Those rocket boosters were very powerful and loud and we were about 20 miles away from where they were testing it.
Part of my life growing up in the 60’s in the San Fernando Valley (where Rocketdyne was) was hearing the F1 engines being tested in the Rocketdyne Santa Susanna Field Lab in the hills between the SFV and Simi Valley.
The noise was incredibly loud as would be expected from a rocket engine with 1.6M pounds of thrust.
My dad worked at Rocketdyne as an Industrial Engineer. He worked there 29 years, starting his employment in 1955 and retiring in 1984. He passed away in 2017 at 91 years of age.
My family lived in Winnetka (we called it Canoga Park back then), probably about 2 1/2 to 3 miles from the Rocketdyne facility as the crow flies. My brother and I attended Los Angeles City public schools and my mom taught English in a LAUSD middle school.
Many of the men in the neighborhood I grew up in worked for Rocketdyne. It was a huge employer back in the ‘50’s and 60’s. The pay and benefits were really good and my family lived a very comfortable middle class lifestyle.
The pressure on the Rocketdyne employees was pretty intense as they worked to meet the schedule that President Kennedy set to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth by the end of the ‘60’s. My dad had to frequently work overtime and came home pretty tired and worn out most days.
My dad never attended my school graduation ceremonies because it was very difficult to get time off for events like that. It didn’t bother me because that was the case for many of the dads who worked at Rocketdyne.
Working in aerospace back when my dad did was the in-place to work during the space race, kind of like Silicon Valley is today. While my dad was very proud to be a part of the space program, the constant stress really got to him at times. While he wasn’t an alcoholic he probably drank more than he should have to cope with the stress.
The main Rocketdyne facility where the F1 engines were built is no longer there. It was torn down about 12 years ago and is still a large vacant lot today. There have been various plans for the former Rocketdyne site such as mixed use retail and residential but nothing has happened yet.
Many of the kids I grew up with had fathers who were Engineers and Scientists at Rocketdyne and were really smart themselves. I had to study pretty hard in order to keep up with these kids which was a good thing. Also with my mom being a teacher if my grades slipped there were definitely negative consequences for me.
Interesting that is people skills that are the missing link. Same seems to apply in other areas of life , I dabble in car restoration and finding people with the old skills to fix engines and panel beat is getting harder and harder and you basically need to teach yourself
Absolutely. I was in an Advance Auto parts store Saturday. I needed Plastigauge to check a set of rods and mains before my final assembly process on an engine. Three out of four people working there had never heard of it.
Youre spot on right - I own a motorsports based company and we can not get ‘real’ engineers and designers , people who can solve things in the real world are becoming rare and its because computers do it all for them
@Dave Goldspink , Yeah it sure is a dying trade. I completed my Mechanical apprenticeship almost 30 years ago. I was talking to a friend that was working for a tech college the other day and he said that they don't even teach current students about distributors and points anymore. I know they are not used in modern cars but if you know how they work you know how a ignition system works. Crazy.
Paul, where you from?
Indeed, Paul, indeed!
One example that also pops to my mind is the pyramids example. A monument built with huge blocks of stone, and in some cases (interior hallways), incredibly well polished stonework.
We can honestly say no one on earth has the skills to recreate the same work, with the same conditions and tools. We could obviously replicate it, but allways with the use of dedicated machinery and nowadays engineering solutions...
Funny, I still have all my “Will books” from all the aircraft I worked on in Navy... all the tricks to back door the software and adjust things to make them perfect. I also worked with some Apollo era engineers that had so much knowledge, Endless stories of how things worked and the pride they had for the moon landings. Passing on your knowledge was always my greatest gift. I miss solving the impossible issues..... Fun to watch the Spacex guys barnstorming a rocket on the beach.... no fear of failure, just keep pushing ahead.
When the first Saturn 5 rocket was launched from Cape Kennedy I was standing on top of a hangar about a mile away. BIG mistake. No one was prepared for the colossal rocket that was launched on that day. I was lucky the hangar didn't collapse. The subsequent fall-back zone for Saturn 5 launches was raised to 3 miles and the cape was absolutely out of bounds for gawkers of any stripe. The development cycle for the F-1 engine was done at a Rocketdyne facility up on top of the Santa Susanna mountains to the North of the San Fernando Valley. That development facility no longer exists and it would be extremely difficult to recreate it or even a semblance of what that place was and what it did. The container they had to keep the fuel for that engine was a giant metal ball easily 100 ft or more across. I would think it would be impossible to get a permit to even have something like that in this day and age. If that ball had ever exploded it would have taken the top of that mountain off and would have seriously impacted large chunks of greater LA. The Saturn 5 rocket was a monster never seen before or since. Good times were had by all.
The F1 is powered by a kerosene and liquid oxygen fuel mix. That ball would likely just have contained kerosene. It wouldn't explode, much like how diesel fuel is somewhat difficult to ignite.
Well, aerospace in So Cal today isn't even close to what it was post WWII up until the 1990's, it was the economic driver that created So Cal post WWII. Santa Susanna Field Lab is one of many facilities that no longer exist and manufacturing moved out long ago with all the job shops and venders who catered to aerospace gone too. Most of the formerly remote areas are now surrounded by urban sprawl including SSFL. That was all in a different time and different era.
Such interesting facts. Thanks.
@@tardonator not Hydrozene?
I hiked up to that facility in 2003.
You can overlook the old test bed.
Rocketdyne in the valley has an F1 on a grass circle at the entrance.
I had the privilege of working at Rocketdyne in the 1980’s while the SSME program was underway. Everyday I walked by the F1 engine on display outside the main entrance. A marvel to behold. Huge! Standing next to the flame bucket made you feel pretty small and to think there were 5 of those babies going off at once!
Surely China could copy them and sell them as originals for $199.99
China says hand me the blueprints and hold my beer
Will be made cheaper and not last long enough to make it to orbit.
@@PapaWheelie1 lol blue prints, China says send a .jpg and hold my beer
Remember China has sent astronauts to the moon
@@spaceflight1019 That's easy, there are also many Germans in China now.
Rocketdyne engineer: “I’m just gonna write everything down in a bunch of comp books and stuff them into my closet, it’s not like they’re gonna need these in 60 years.”
NASA engineers 60 years later:
Sounds ridiculous
To be fair 60 years ago they thought we would have flying cars, living on the moon in a moonbases and have all sorts of wonders we are not even close to. So ofc it seemed pointless to store it if the technology will be so much better in the future. With flying cars and a moonbase they will surely not need ancient rockets that use fuel instead of antigravity beams and teleporters
Some programmers in the 1960s used only one digit to store the year. 1960 to 1969 was OK. But for 1970 they had to rewrite the code. On a very much larger scale we were hit with the Y2K problem. We modern people have somehow the tendency to be very shortsighted.
People are stupid.
Academia is garbage.
Sure, I know how to build this unique rocket engine that can get us to the Moon! But eh, in 20 to 30 years, we'll probably travel to our Moon colonies with super strong rocket, that will make my rocket look like sparkler. I doubt I need to pass anything on, or even write down anything, NASA will be super advanced in 20 or so years!
Where I work, many very large machines and systems are still in use, continuously operational since just after 1970. We face the same problems sometimes. The men that created them are dead, and the documentation is partial or incomplete. Great video!
It's not just mechanical systems: one of my first jobs, back in the 1970s, was on a project to replace the in-house-written business software for a company using an obsolete IBM 1401 computer. It seemed like a tedious, but not complicated job, at first: most of the software was written in 1401 assembly language, so its logic would need to be duplicated and rewritten in a modern computer language. But, when we started running the old and new systems in parallel, they produced different results.
It turned out that, because the process of compiling large programs was slow, people had taken to patching the compiled machine language card decks for minor fixes, without updating the source code, and no one knew who had done what, or when, over the course of several years.
We wound up having to buy a 1401 emulator software package for the new computer, and running the old object decks while we figured out what undocumented changes had been made.
@@earledward8766 In less then a year there should be 2 commercial carriers (SpaceX and Boeing) to carry astronauts in space. Test flight sscheduled, vehicles ready. I doubt they both will fail, it's pretty straight forward tech. SpaceX is flying the uncrewed one frequently. More coming. So I think that's nothing we should worry much about.
@@earledward8766 NASA is about to place an object into the orbit of an asteroid for the first time. NASA (with the help of the EU) just landed on Mars. Not to mention the countless satellites the US has launched this year including several that are for the specific use of US intelligence. When you say "we have no access to space anymore" what are you talking about. Please look at the upcoming launch schedule for NASA www.nasa.gov/launchschedule/
Millennials may not be able to duplicate the F1 rocket engine, but they can sure tell you if it was sexist, racist, or homophobic!
Well most work places dont have 25 billion dollars in funding and no much in profit margins and have access to the greatest minds and skilled tradesmen like NASA. They can spend a billion dollars on finding and getting a few people to reproduce or come up with something better they could. They just dont want to admit they didn't make it out of low earth orbit and to the moon.
I like this new "Short Video" Format... I just wish it were longer 🤣
I much prefer the redesign. The original F1 had only one qualified welder for the nozzle getting all the bits together with consistant heat distortion. Even the original design would have been modified a few times so that the shrinkage from his welds produced the correct final bell shape. On a meter long bit of thin tubing, a continuous weld might shink it's length 8mm with one welder but 7 or 9 with someone else, or just having an off day. All helium leak free without any flaw that might crack going from liquid O2 to glowing hot in seconds. The F1 was high-end industrial art with a very select group of artists, Roketdyne's old masters if you will. Preferable to have something much less artist dependent and Rocketdyne was working that problem even then.
Staring a fire with bunch of sticks gets harder once you've invented matches.
Awesome
well said
Great comparison. Using sticks and friction is a hard way to start a fire and requires a lot of skill. Matches are easy, work better, and require next to no skill.
@@chrismiddleton4733 Still, It's not rocket science.😁
@@_Daio_ speak for yourself. I'm so bad at it that it might as well be rocket science.
It's no surprise that the missing ingredient is skilled engineers. Anymore, you can tell that we rely too heavily on technology, instead of really immersing in all aspects of design and build. I'm an aviation mechanic, and it's quite obvious the difference a generation or two has made. Even the manuals for legacy design are of a much higher quality than newer resources. The thinking that went into writing maintenance documentation was so much more thorough and I appreciate the older stuff. We were better back in those days. All around.
Couldn’t agree more, I’m a carpenter for 25 years, it’s very hard to find a young kid as a helper, who wants to learn everything. I pass my skills on whenever I can.
Agreed. And I've had to work with younger mechanics who don't have a clue.
Not really. As the video explained, the modern design reduces the numbers of manufactured parts from 50,000 to 40. You don't manage that without skilled engineers.
The reason we can't make F-1 engines now is because of the sheer complexity of the solution wrt modern manufacturing techniques. We don't hand build engines anymore and we wouldn't want to again. Rockets go up all the time nowadays, and reliability is far superior in the modern age.
@@Nickelodeon81we can make an F1 engine. but why? it’s a waste of time and money, when full flow staged combustion is being mastered.
Here's to good welders and manual machinist and fitters who take what engineers design and help bring it to life.
Right, there was a bit of pixie dust, and serious artistry going on in machine shops in those days, in all fairness to progress, however, computer designed parts cut costs & development time by allowing proper-engineering to get it right on the first try, then the parts are each essentially just plug & play.
more like good welders, machinists and fitters who FIX what engineers overlook... -.-'
@@narmale the fabrication specialists you mentioned and others were also engineers.
The loss of personal notes and the redlined documents lost the nuances that made them work.
Sometimes it is easier to just start again.
Highly skilled workers have always been underrated.
Here's to the welders and machinists that have to fix the engineer's mistakes.
I was about to comment “Just make an F-2 engine then” when you said that they made the F1B and had enough information to do so. *Sigh of relief*
Yeah, but again politics get in the way
@6ix 9ine that wouldnt work, maybe the IA does t changes but the times do change, technology advances, cultures develop, we arent the same civilization as 1000 years ago, hell, we arent the same civilization as 1 year ago
And IAs arent perfect remember that, just like with everything else an AI can make mistakes, can be biased, it can even be racist if only by accident, the real world doesnt have an easy solution
An interesting outcome of all this handfitting can be seen in the steam locomotives of the warly to mid 20th century, each one (not each model, but each individual locomotive) had it's own "personality" as they were all slightly different, and parts from one couldn't just be stitched to another to make it go, they too had to be customized to fit. These personaities gave railroad engineers (operators) preferences over which locomotive they liked or didn't like.
It doesn’t mean u forget how to make them.
I used to watch the steam locomotive trains everyday when I was kid, damn I miss them! ( like everything else from the 50's, lol )
@@joesmusic7143 that has nothing to do with his point doofus
@@Ozhull yes it does mr. ad hominid attack because you don't have an argument. isn't your statement a definition of stupid?
My grandfather worked and North American Rockwall in California and also trained a few people that went to the Rocketdyne plant in Canoga Park in California as he was an engineer.
The equivalent of missing comments from software code
I have been into software engineering in the 1980s and 1990s. Since compilation usually took at least two hours, we often applied minor changes directly to the machine code and added a note to the archived source code listings. Once in a while someone forgot to make a note ...
That's a pretty good analogy.
@@helidrones haha, fantastic! :)
@Sam Mencia
The same here in Germany. Also it‘s the predominant mindset, people study rather social science than something useful.
@@helidroneslook at you, saying social science is not useful. If the janitor is useful
Short video is snappy and to the point. You got all your points across and explained it concisely. Top marks and respect!👍
Love it! As a Fabricator/Welder I can appreciate the interaction between Engineers and craftsmen.
I've run into those scenarios were what's on the print will work but it needs a bit of tweaking to really work well. Most of the time we just come up with a solution in our head and get it done. Things haven't changed, things still get done the same!
Amen to that mate! Dexterity is what has been lost in the engineering world :-)
Yep - once had an engineer come down to the shop floor; tell us to make sure to tap some die blocks from the top so they wouldn't be left-handed threads from the other side. Priceless -- we assured him we would not make that mistake, and sent him back upstairs where he belonged.
@@offcenterconcepthaus LOL!!! That is one delicious story. Thanks!
Here in South Africa I was lucky enough to have done a great apprentice ship and I think I have the skill to manufacture anything . One of the last to qualify and get a red seal qualification . At 16 already had the highest collage qualification in the whole company . I was paid the least in the company , less than a cleaner ! they tried to keep me Hungary and poor enough to just keep on coming back, then one day I I realized that simply staying at home left me better off , now I have my own machines and manufacture anything I want just to keep me busy . Now I am a youtuber ! ha-ha . Nothing gets manufactured here anymore !
Well Jel.
I love record players. Wish I had skills to make some parts and tinker.
My Mums from Pietermaritzburg but family moved to Blighty in 1969.
"highest collage qualifications"..."apprenticeship" to "manufacture anything". Nobody goes from apprenticeship to Master Fabricator. Your tell was in the low wages you received. "Hungary" - "apprentice ship" Sentence structure, spelling & punctuation of a grade schooler. Maybe delusions of grandeur.
@@charlescampbell8319 Ek dink Jy is dalk reg my ou maat , die spelling is mar nie van die beste nie, veral nadat Ek Fraans begin studeer het , kyk dit neek Jou hele skryf patroon op , mar as die spelling Jou so baie ontstel dan vra ek nederig onverskooning ,lekker aand verder!
@@charlescampbell8319, You do sound like a bruttush 2hat with a broom inside, beside the spine. Delusions of past colonic rule now acting as grammar police. 🤣 💩
I was a Project Manager / Senior Estimator for a company that produced many different mock-ups, test models, and static displays for NASA and multiple aerospace / aviation companies. I can tell you that the F-1 rocket engine was a Big Beautiful BEAST to behold. We produced several static display models of the Saturn 5 with Apollo capsule, full size, complete, and accurate to the last rivet and paint detail, with F-1 motors. One of them is at US Space and Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama, 367 ft tall, free standing.
BigDogBob
I was about to ask about the Huntsville Saturn V, and you answered my question. Where are the others?
J Shepard there is a beautiful saturn v at the Kennedy space center in florida.
J Shepard, One is displayed, horizontally, at the Houston Space Center, you can catch a glimpse of it in the movie Space Cowboys, the other is at the Cape in Florida.
the Saturn V and F1 engines were WELDED ... NOT RIVETS .....WATCH...> MOON MACHINES
I have actually visited and seen that specific display model at the USSRC, and it is massive and beautiful.
Very true. Some years back in Fremantle Australia a replica of Captain Cooks Endeavour ship which was made. The original was built in Whitby England in the 1700's
When the replica was being made they wanted it to be as original as possible and they did a magnificent job of it-the ship they made is a beautiful replica. But they underestimated just how difficult it was to find people who had the knowledge of old world shipbuilding techniques, and the whole project became very difficult, very slow, and very expensive. However it was all well worthwhile in the end as they made a very authentic replica.
I thought you were going to say, "and it sank."
Just because the Knowledge Pool for building an F-1 is gone, does not mean it could not be recreated in the same manner as it was first accomplished, by actually building one. There is no Secret Smoke lost to time forever, it's a matter of reestablishing the knowledge pool through experience. The real issue is, just how much do you want to pay to do it.
the problem is that many of the parts used are not in production anymore. Rebuilding an F1 would be incredibly expensive , all to build an antiquated , unsafe and inefficient design
Yep. And especially why would you pay to do it the old way if they can reverse engineer the components into a modern design where lots of test's can be run through simulations. Sure they would have to run some actual tests to, but it would probably be much cheaper overall.
@Hydroclhoric Acid The F1 engines are not particularly unsafe as far as rockets engines go. Don't confuse the fact that they were simple by design with the idea that they were crafted using simple sub par methods. The fact is no F1 engine ever failed in flight. The J-2 engines failed, but mostly due to small stuff and even they never failed catastrophically.
Yeah we can. It's easy as hell. We would use a crane and modern tools though as that makes it a lot easier, but stacking huge rocks in a pyramid shape. Yeah we can do that quite easily.
Wes Smith yes it does. Some skills take 5 to 10 years to developer.
Very interesting, captivating and informative . I like the short quick format.
I'm a machinist at a fab. shop that still does things the old way. All hand welded and machined on machines that are in some cases 100+ yrs old. If they really wanted to remake them the skills are still there, just harder to find and way more expensive.
same here been doing it 20 years and the kids coming up spend more time on their phones than working i don't even think ive met a kid from the next generation that could pass a 6-g certification
TheMattc999 keep the torch alive brother. We build the future let the passed lead
there are a few of us, im 33 with a 6G Box and Ring cert... yeah we get a lot of flack from the older crowd, but I cant say it isn't well deserved for about 99.999998% of us
im 36 not talking about us
I caught shit in one Engineering class because they insisted there was no way I could have de-burred a part in the time I took to do it. It's not hard, you just stop thinking about stuff and focus on the part.
Thank you for doing this. My dad was one of those engineers : ) We still have his slide rules etc.
Hey, so was my grandfather... Donald M. Leitch... but he passed away in '66, even before the first tests were done on the Saturn 5... sure wish he'd been able to see his handiwork...
@notfiveo Can you elaborate without leaving a lay-person's intellect behind? That is such a cool thought. And it goes along with the laws of entropy in general. Thanks for sharing it.
When the principle is understood, it's obvious that it's easier to make a new design from scratch with modern manufacturing facilities and new materials.
Because, like my Father, who was an Aeronautical Engineer, we are turning out engineers who don’t know the difference between a screwdriver and a Crescent wrench, much less how to use them. They aren’t thinkers.
This term in Manufacturing is typically referred to as tribal knowledge.
Yeah, tribal knowledge that we never went to the moon, lol.
Yes when I worked in manufacturing there were tons of little tricks that were never written down but only passed on from older engineers to younger ones and from older production workers to younger workers.
Right when I was leaving that sector there was starting to be a big push to capture that knowledge since someone finally figured out that having to have the young guys relearn what the old guys knew was causing knowledged loss so when the same issue occurred in another product years later the new guys would have to re discover what the old guys knew if they were not around anymore.
Nate a friend of mine was a technical writer for NASA and a large part of his job involved compiling the engineer's notes into a coherent compendium of sorts to be used with the manuals. Some weren't very forthcoming, I recall
I know exactly what you mean. I work as an engineer in a plant that is more or less run entirely on tribal knowledge. I don't know what I would do without those old guys out on the shop floor.
+X: And when the guys that knew how to do it were gone...It must of been aliens!
I'm in the process of rewriting a computer program. It has been several years since I wrote the previous version, and I have forgotten quite a lot. I have consequently had to re-engineer portions. The new engineering is based not on the original design rather based on the outcome that I wanted. The result is that I have ended up with a more scalable design. The new version has components and modules that can be used in other programs; and those components are also more efficient and effective.
I now think it's sometimes better to redo a project from scratch than to it is to look for ineffectivities and inefficiencies.
Oh, and my documentation is now better, that is, more complete and comprehensive.
That excuse could not work for a corporation like NASA because their software was not written by a person, was written by many and rechecked by a pear. Also if they didn't properly traced everything that did the couldn't correct the issue each time something failed.
If they have done 10% of stuff because they had a hunch they won't be able to work as a team or to assure the spare parts or repairing manual.
@@elenabob4953 NASA is a government agency, not a corporation, also any software they used was contracted out, like how MIT built the AGC
@@aidanstenson7063 NASA was founded by the government but as work split and activities it was not much different than a corporation. I hope is clear now what I've meant.
@@elenabob4953 I see your point
Your comment is not quite the same. When you refine software into new modules you are re-designing.
You are not being an artisan shaving and hand crafting each component to fit its countrrpart in each engine.
It is like you claiming that each time you produce a copy of the program you have manually adjust the argunents so that module A fits module B in programme copy1. And then having to adjust module A to fit module B to in programme copy 2.
Yes sometimes it is easier to redesign from scratch but it is rarely done and certainly not for core modules when you build in inheritance and just create subclasses.
Most peolke don't care if you rebuild an old engine or redesign a better one - just build an engine xapable of goung to moon 50 years later instead of trying to give substance to excuses.
My Dad was one of those craftsmen, working for Coors Porcelain company. He machined ceramic parts for all three of the NASA projects as well as other government contracts. He described the painstaking process involved in making components from rough alumina porcelain blanks. He used mechanical micrometers and had developed a "touch" with his tools so he could hold incredible tolerances. He was also very nearsighted and read his mics with his unaided eyes. I'm talking mere thousandths of an inch. Like said in this video, every part was a uniquely crafted component. It is more than just notes but rather the skill that he developed over years of experience.
Totally agreed, it's better just redesign from scratch. Wonderful information video, thank you!
My dad worked on these engines. Testing literally day and night for a couple years. He. Loved the job. Everyone in town worked for Rocketdyne😎
Great video!
Hollywood could learn a bit from this, stop re-making old movies.. lol
they were called re-runs
Oh God the reboots
Come on dont tell me you dont like a new Marvel movie every 6 months either?
Especially the all female reboots.... because feminism
@@l.dt1993 Lol, because you're the kind of pussy who worries about that shit. Grow up little boy, a lot of roles are written for whoever can do them well. If you don't like women, that's your thing and there's nothing wrong with preferring men, if you need a penis in ever scene you can do that, but don't be such an asshole about it. We're not making fun of you.
I was near Titusville, FL along the Indian River on May 14, 1973 to watch that beast launch Skylab. The power of that Saturn V first-stage was unbelievable. We were about 8 miles from the pad. Even at that distance....the sound was incredible.
I go to that exact spot to this day to watch space ex launches. Also me and my girl friend live in cocoa beach so sometimes we're either too lazy or busy to go out there but we can always step outside and see them. Blessed
I was at that spot to see STS-135, the final Space Shuttle mission launch of Atlantis. The sound / pressure wave was indescribable.
lol. 8 miles is practically danger close to the Saturn V. haha. i bet that thing could change the earths rotational period if they strapped it to the ground sideways and fired it off.
There was apparently an M-1 engine developed but never used. There's one on display at the Evergreen Aviation Museum in Oregon. I'd love to see an episode about that engine.
It's one thing to have the complete plans with notes, its wholly different when it's just the plans.
So the rocket science industry is basically a giant computer program that no one bothered to add comments to.
Yeah... yeah...
Not just the rocket science industry, this sort of thing happens in many fields of engineering and manufacturing.
I was always told that I added too many comments and that some things should be left out to maintain job security. However, I find few people read the comments to begin with. Pretty much every major problem we encountered was mentioned as a warning in one of my comments or email but of course that was never appreciated as people like to believe that a problem could not have been foreseen.
Commentless code still runs. I cut my IT teeth overhauling pre-ANSI C programs that had not a single comment, and I could still work through what it was doing, and the main reason I rewrote it is because it was genuinely crap apart from the missing comments. Commentless code is a waste of future man hours and should absolutely be a fire-able offense, but it's not a complete showstopper.
I think the better analogy would be having the requirements docs and the executable, but not the source. ;)
...kind of...
To be honest, I'd love more content from you guys, but I realize that going into every single (relevant) detail of every topic takes a lot of research.
This video feels like it missed something, so I guess in other words I prefer the longer videos!
Anyway thank you, and keep up the good work!
Love the short format. As far as manufacturing. We manufacture a product that is from the same era. We use very different processes and techniques to do it more efficiently. I don’t necessarily think the loss of the method notes are as critical as you make it out to be. Probably the bigger problem is the lack of the why notes. When we reevaluate how a part is made we often make small design changes. Without know why certain details were made the way they were we are doomed to repeat some of the old failures.
I'm a welder fabricator, I worked for the same company since I was an apprentice and i knew every job as well as the tricks i used to put jobs together bringing good old paper drawings into reality, once I'd had enough of that place I got a new job but on several occasions my old bosses called me asking questions and asking if I could come and show the current guys how to do things, I thought id push my luck a little and ask for a weeks worth of cash at my old rate just for an hour of my time and they actually paid it each time!! lol I was flush for weeks with double wages coming in.
HAHA yeh I thought about it after the first phone call, they said yes too quick, I probably could have got more but after the first time they would come straight up with the same offer :)
That's the problem with making yourself indispensable. That happened to me after I graduated high-school. I was the only one who was competent with the sound and lighting equipment. I got called in to fix the sound mixer after one of the students blew an op-amp by hooking something up wrong. Fortunately, the only thing that blew was a little 8-pin SIP (the op-amp), which only cost a few dollars to replace, minus my labour in repairing it. After that, they PAID me to run their sound and lighting.
Reminds me of a friend who bought a high-power stereo amplifier in the very early 1970's....clearly labeled on the output...8 OHMS....and 2 channels....seems like maybe 200 watts per channel....so he hooks up 2, 4 OHM speakers in parallel, maybe thinking it would be even louder....got sound for maybe 2 seconds...then nothing...I had a bit of electronic knowledge, and with no test equipment at all....and no fuses on the output, but the 3055's were hot....I tried replacing all 8 of the 3055 transistors...and it worked..!Those transistor were pretty cheap even then...$2-3 each. Later, I checked out the 3055's with my Simpson 260....all were shorted.
?ClueLess? I never minded the idea of showing a new hire our routine but the company kept hiring throwaway temps from an agency. They had zero skill or basic technical training or even motivation to do an honest days work sometimes. It was an insult to me. Like they felt any kid who came from flipping burgers at a food court for min wages could take my place with 30 minutes demonstration time.
That's pure management greed. Hire someone who has an equal skill and general education background as myself and I'll gladly show them the specific skills of our company line but I'm not even going to try and transfer a lifetime worth of knowledge to some unmotivated punk who'd rather work at the mall for the same entry level pay.
Needless to say that company didn't survive the last big downturn. We were down to fewer than six people who actually brought some skill and three dozen or more throwaway "team members" filling out the ranks at the end.
If it was my call we'd have had fewer people receiving a better pay grade to get more work done. Management prefers greater numbers of poorly paid underlings. Go figure!
@@puirYorick _"Like they felt any kid who came from flipping burgers at a food court for min wages could take my place with 30 minutes demonstration time."_ I don't mean to be rude, but that's probably true. Unless the agency gave you people with mental disabilities, there's nothing they couldn't learn given an hour, two hours, ten hours, whatever. Part of it depends on your teaching skills, too.
Personally I prefer the longer length videos 👍
same here.
This is the channel I re-watch the most.
Same, just because I like your videos. Perhaps if you had more of these shorter ones I wouldnt mind as much :)
Keep doing longer videos. Your videos are intresting and allways worth to wait for.
Zygimantas Marcipukas I also prefer the longer videos. They’re interesting enough to watch all the way through and sometimes re-watch.
This reminds me of an old joke I read 20 some odd years ago. A programmer was nearing the end of his life and decided to be placed in cryo-freeze. 500 years later he is revived and the first thing he hears is, "Hi! Do you know COBOL?"
Lol. I know COBOL as the computer I learn't programming on in the mid 90's was already antique.
Still in use in government ....
@SuperTruckerTom And it's probably in use at your ATM.
Evan Moyer The video is about rocket engines. What were you expecting? A discussion about football and guns?
Chen Lee loo
this reminds me a lot of my old job building equipment for a NASA sub contractor. I could hand someone all of the blueprints but every one of those units was unique and I had a laundry list of tips and tricks to actually make them work. it would take an enormous amount of trial and error to get one working with no help from existing staff. it really would have been easier to just give you a list of requirements and ask you to start from scratch
Love the concise, no nonsense and very informative format. I had forgotten what a good teacher sounded like.
That was called job security back then, not giving up Your tricks.
Americans of that era loved to share with apprentices and craftsmen in similar trades..... the politicians turned off the lites and sent those with the knowledges packing.... often ending up creating highly useful components for equally challenging projects...ie-skunkworks... but no apprentices there either.....I can just hear the demonicRat politicians then, as well, "...here puppy, puppy...." and NASA became another screwed pooch.
To error is human; to really screw things up usually takes a computer......to completely FUBAR something takes government beauricrats and politicians..... example Killary and ifones. Nuff said......
Not giving up your tricks means your tricks may be lost when you die. The patent system was developed to combat that problem.
@@archiedavis1079 go outside
Back then?? I am a software engineer, I am still doing it now.. Recently a manager wanted to setup a handover meeting so I could share knowledge of my development.
Sadly I was too busy LOL. probably will be too busy until 2098 LMAO!!!
@David David Nope I tried that approach when I was younger and more naive..
Upon leaving, other workers would find fault with my work which was a lie, pour over my numerous well written documentation then quickly get up to speed, make the next minor enhancements I was going to deploy and claim all the glory..
A smart engineer is one who doesnt document anything and keeps everything in his head. Its not nice but if you are good you become indispenable..
I wont be changing my approach anytime soon..
“Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who implement them are priceless.” What a great quote by Mary Kay Ash,
I enjoyed this very much. I am very good friends with one of those "old school, slide rule" engineers who actually worked on that beast from the Apollo missions and I guarantee he would wholeheartedly agree with nearly all of your comments.
Its because the STCs from the dark age of technology of mankind may be forever lost to us.
who knows what great secrets await on mars
@@Milordoslaw One word: Cyberdongs.
I wonder how old engineers would feel being referred to as STC's. I bet most of them would get it.
They will be found again someday!
And the Imperium will become stronger than ever before!!
I was hoping to find this lmao
I so relate to this. I came across this problem in the 1990's aerospace industry. When the company decided to subcontract subassemblies as part of counter trade. The plans were duly faxed to the subcontractor. What came back was true to plan but would not fit the aircraft. In those days the plans were as much guidelines as instructions.
When they shut down the Apollo program, I remember the astronauts talking about losing all the vendors who made the parts.
The vendors were also engineers that would also roll up their sleeves when needed.
The real reason we can't build an F1 is there's nobody left that knows how to use a slide rule.
As an engineer, I'm enthralled with taking old ideas while making them simpler, cheaper, more capable and more reliable than the original. That's the essence of product engineering, after all. If a successor design to the F1 engine meets those criteria, I would go with it.
They should rather invest in the single-staged Aerospike engine since they meet all those criteria that you mentioned. It just need more development and money as the Droid mentioned in his earlier video.
+Frimodig - According to your reasoning, we shouldn't be spending any more time developing cars powered by reciprocating internal combustion engines, yet here we are, over 140 years later, and our streets and highways are filled with hundreds of millions of them. Thank goodness for engineers who see ways to eke out more utility from old ideas.
Frimodig Single stage is not necessary a good thing. There are inefficiencies inherent in them. They may have their place in the future, but proposing to abandon all other methods just because you like the aerospike is foolish. Breakthroughs may occur in other methods that make aerospike and ssto unnecessary. Diversity in ideas is always a good thing.
The SLS is made of pork, not steel or aluminum. The whole purpose of the thing is to keep all the guys who made the shuttle working, so the was no way it ever WOULD'T use solid boosters.
My dad designed some of the commo gear that went to the moon. He said the hardest part of going to the moon was getting back. You couldn’t practice that aspect. It was do or die.
yeah, its probably hard to make a manned flight to the moon with no successful engine tests on earth...
@@lowlifeglitch6199 Yes, but that is the easy part. The hard part is knowing if your little lander can even start it's engine up there, or if it gets stuck in the dust, or something like that.
@@lowlifeglitch6199 Or you need a genius filmmaker like Stanley Kubrik.
@@INGBWLer you'll need a good filmmaker to make documentaries on the greatest engineering accomplishment of all time
THEY DID NOT DIE , DID THEY ? 7 TIMES THEY DID NOT DIE, IS NOT THAT AMAZING? PROBABLY YOU CAN NOT DIE IN SPACE OTHERWISE IT WAS BOUND TO HAPPEN......
I was at the national museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton Ohio I noticed that they were showing one of your videos (I couldn't tell which) as an informative video for young kids
by far the highest achievable goal for any decent youtuber. well deserved.
..... you dont says...
5,600 parts, to 40 with the F1-B. That is an insane leap in technological progress and simplicity
This makes so much sense. One of my hobbies is bringing old mechanical stuff back to life and I can honestly say that no two things are exactly the same. Each has it's own quirks and idiosyncrasies.
There's an old rocketdyne factory across the street from where I live. They've got a big F1 standing upright in all its massive glory in front of the facility (Winnetka, CA). Pretty cool
omg, I'm gonna go visit that. thanks for the info!!
Hey Anton, thanks! I had to look up location on Google maps to have a look.. very nice. Here's the map location I viewed: www.google.com/maps/@34.2330682,-118.5882204,3a,75y,44.24h,91.44t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s1dyySKL1Z38QW6fr-eLrYQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
@@captmack007 Before doing so go online and spend some time familiarizing yourself with the F-1's design. To the uninformed an F-1 looks like just a convoluted collection of pipes, wires and machinery. To really appreciate the majesty of the F-1 and to understand how it worked some preliminary research is necessary. Pay particular attention to the gas generator and the turbopump as they had the immense task of pumping 3 tons of propellant into the engine's thrust chamber every second.
Just a bunch of excuses. My Kerbal Space Program engineers have no troubles making similar engines, and do it with great ease.
XD. Yep it's almost as if they have an endless supply that they can just drag and drop from onto the rockets.
And they do so without getting paid, or getting food! The best workforce ever.
Yea total bellyaching solely to praise the older generation and then follow it with "we redesigned it to be a much more piratical". There probably some teenager out there that could 3D print that bitch from home by himself.
Agreed! Also, they never asked for extra time or cheat notes.
LOL
Very concise and informative, thank you. It also makes clear the big difference between designing and actually producing a complex system. The world over, legions of skilled labourers make it possible to bridge the gap between theory and its practical implementation. Their contribution - a precious mix of observation and clever embodiment of remedial strategies never considered during the design phase but devised on the spot while respecting the design - is rarely acknowledged, but it is crucial. Luckily, it remains preserved in the peculiar structure of - e.g. - a perfect and perfectly functional welding, like a well-preserved fossil. Exactly like the latter, it is very hard to reproduce, but it keeps telling a very interesting tale.
This reminds me of when Jeremy Clarkson was reviewing the Eagle Speedster (a modern reproduction of the classic Jaguar E-Type) and how the curved windshield was custom made for the vehicle. He went on to say that there were only a handful of people remaining, with the skill to build such a windshield. Soon, those people would retire and the art and craftsmanship would be lost to time...
Pyramids and other "impossible" works of craftsmanship people now attribute to aliens. Skilled craftsmen today ARE alien. A lost breed.
@@ashemgold Hey, at least the likely methods of creating Stonehenge have rediscovered. Guy even made a scale replica with no heavy equipment.
We can’t fix our own machines. It’s hilarious wake up
5,600 parts down to 40? That's quite a reduction
Big 3d printer can do most of it in one piece, between that and a CNC machine...
Michael Halpern common misconception that is kind of the whole point of this video. 3D printing and CNC machining do *not* offer the same performance as forged parts. The metallurgy simply isn’t mature enough and may never be.
Metallurgy is fine, you get more performance from not needing as many structural parts, because its all one piece
the part yes, but not the joins. Fewer point of weaknesses and fewer assemblies that fail inspections
ayeckley dear Lord, that 3D printing bullshit again. Engine is consisted of many parts because because each part needs to have it's own structural property. Yes, CNC machines can do really great job but they are also imperfect. People need to look at documentary about manufacturing of Rolls Royce aircraft engines. That is engineering a it's best.
I worked in the aerospace industry for 40 years making fighter aircraft and watched as the old guys retired and took their skills with them. By the time I retired in 2012 we didn't have a single craftsman left who could form sheet metal into a complex form. Thank goodness for the custom car trade. As I watch some of those guys on TV on various car shows I am thankful that the trade is not completely dead.
What fascinated me the most besides the solid rocket boosters was the turbo pumps for the main engines, the temperatures were excessive and yet these pumps work so efficiently, it was incredible sight to see an experience that we're able to pump this much fuel with the high specific impulse ratios that were needed, safely and efficiently, the srbs is another thing one mistake with the srbs it can't be solved, in some cases and Challenger God bless her crew had experienced this but it never happened with our rocket engines
I'll save you 5 minutes. The design as it is printed on paper is not fully operational. Each F1 engine was hand fitted and hand tuned, and the tuning dimensions was never written down, and we would have to build another couple dozen engines to relearn the tuning dimensions the original engineers used.
such stupidity and the stupidity from the author of this video is unprecedented.
Thanks
Lies, nobody designs and builds without records, because you always want and are thinking of replication at the back of your mind. This is pure bs excuse
thanks
AP unprecedented? Fucking really?
I like the new format, but ... still like the longer video :)
Mix of both ?
Thanks for education us !!!
Each generation loses some of the knowledge known to their ancestors. I can fix a computer. My father could fix a car. My grandfather could "fix" a horse.
If you can work on computers, then YOU can fix a car now days lol.
Each generation may lose some knowledge of the previous generation but also has knowledge the previous generation didn't have as well.
The only difference is that your grandpa couldn't google how to fix a computer, while we can google how to fix a horse.
Not to mention you didn't need a computer to fix a car in your dads time, depending on your age of course. Now days it's mostly the computer or a sensor your fixing on a car, or something to do with emissions.
Our generation can eat tide pods
Actually, we can. It's called the F-1B. Dynetics will be happy to build one for you. They did scans of NASA's museum F-1. They built a new turbo-boost pump to confirm that it was capable of 1.8 million lbs of thrust.
As a modern craftsman, I know The feelings if being undervalued. I get the idea the management has no way if seeing or doing what I do, go threw and can't do the job I do.
It gives a kind if satifiction, that I can't describe. It's also not that I'm not willing to teach, it's just normally there is no one around willing to learn.
tek413 I feel exactly the same. I started out on ma-1a gas turbine engines 30 years ago in the Air Force and now work on hybrid transit buses. The knowledge I have gained through trial and error is mine. I have no intentions on sharing it with a 20 something year old who has mgmnt aspirations. They don’t want to learn anyway, when they ask me how to do something I always ask...”what have you tried so far?”, the answer is usually nothing. They’re afraid to fail at even the simplest things.
Skeezix You're just keeping the cycle going. Are you so insecure that you want to make it as difficult to learn as you did? Get over yourself. Why do you want to make another mechanic struggle if you don't have to? Share what you know and it will make the job so much easier. Making kids jump through hoops could expose them to bad habits, hazards or quit in frustration.
Jrsydvl you’re right. We should coddle the next gen, lower the bar, never let them face adversity and see how they turn out. Wait...that’s what happened to the millennials.
Skeezix Right, because teaching them the right way instead of watching them struggle is coddling. Again, get over yourself. I bet you strut around the shop and only tell people they're doing it wrong without telling them how to do it right unless they shower you with praise.
Jrsydvl I am actually very reserved and enjoy solitude. I read technical manuals on breaks and at home, educating myself on my own time. Meanwhile the younger gen is watching videos of pumpkins blowing up or checking their Facebook posts. The one thing I feel I’m good at is judging character, a persons work ethic and willingness to learn or even try. Those are the 10% I will assist in any way, usually they have reached a wall and may ask for help at which point I will. Because they have at least tried and have gained knowledge of a system they will not forget perhaps years down the road. The other 90% or so just want an easy button placed in front of them. I have actually tried to help that crowd a few times and by the third step of troubleshooting they are bored or frustrated because it requires thinking and time away from their phone. My time can be better spent elsewhere.
Just another reason the Saturn V was such an incredible machine.
I've never had much patience with the "they've lost the institutional knowledge" argument of why we can't recreate engineering feats of the past for the simple reason that they didn't have that institutional knowledge when they started the projects. When they started developing the F-1 engine, they didn't have the institutional knowledge that Rocketdyne had when they finally shut down production. They had to develop it from scratch. Today, they wouldn't be starting it from scratch. They'd already have a leg up, if not a complete one, from the designs and documents that do survive. If they can't do it for less than it cost the first time, it does not speak well of the current engineering establishment. One might argue where that problem lies (I tend to think it's at the bean counter level that has become increasingly risk averse), but the fact remains that the problem lies not in the lost information, but in ourselves.
What man has done, man can aspire to.
Hello GothonIce, you are correct. The advances in turbomachinery design, development, manufacturing, testing makes reverse engineering much easier. AI driven CFD, CAE, FEA, Simulation software all exists. 40 parts, can't be the full engine, maybe the turbopump alone.
@@mkoronowski Oh yes, it is the FULL engine! Modern parts are no longer welded, they are built, line by line, from scratch by machine. Gone is that skilled labor of welders and fabricators. Valves and complex working machinery that has to be incorporated part by part are now built as a single assembly. Hoses and wires that are needed for an analogue control are now handled by solid state electronics.
As they say, it is a whole new world.
This misses the point by a country mile. It's not that today's "inferior" engineers need the extant example to look at. It's a problem of what professional Engineers call "document control" i.e. that the production drawings were never back-drafted with the additional detail and adjustments and corrections needed when hand-making things at the end. Engineering projects "As-Built" the drawings at the end of the work but not all drawings are required - only those which describe how something works are As-Built. The surviving examples of the F-1 are little use to anyone. Modern engineers could arrive at what that tells them in a very short time using modern design methods. The trick is the manufacturing design and to make working parts again would take just as much trial and error now as it took then. It would be much cheaper and easier to start from scratch rather than reverse-engineer something not properly documented. THAT is the point. It's also worth mentioning that time moves on and attitudes to technical assurance and process-safety have changed beyond recognition since the 1960s - the result being that people / governments / organisations / the public expect things to be safe and not to fail. Quality assurance and control is much, much better on a widget made from CNC machining in one piece than one welded together from several pieces, since, as an example, processes like welding cause most of the metallurgy issues one tends to find. Then they made stuff like that because it was the only way. Now you design to make something with CNC because it's intrinsically less likely to fail.
@@melitele-buildinga16ftsail88 : They've actually made a new revision of the F-1 in the last decade and a half, based on analyses of surviving examples. I don't recall if it's the 'A' or the 'B' variant, but it was part of a pitch a few years ago as an alternative to the SLS's solid rocket boosters.
Hum, perhaps the engineers back in the 1960's were under some sort of time pressure? Say, well, a Race to the Moon??
Back then, the world was analogue. Sitting at a drafting table to sketch out all the changes and revisions did indeed take TIME.
As touched on in this video, there is little point trying to build the same F1s they used back in the 60s when we can update the designs to create a more powerful and cheaper to manufacture version. It's not that we can't build one today it's that there is little point. The skills in machining and fabrication are still there but significantly enhanced with newer technologies and methods.
Yeah.. A lot of people lament that we've lost the skills of the past, but they're ignoring that we've replaced those skills with different ones that fit better in modern times.
Science and technology advance, and manufacturing has to advance with them.
This is the perfect example of how things have been lost over time.