Originally Posted by
tdracer
Yellow, that's popular myth, but it was never actually true for any operational rocket.
Think about it - if you needed to burn off fuel to reach the liftoff weight - why not just reduce the starting fuel load?
Thanks wiggy - good to know some sanity remains at NASA. I'm still angry that we're spending tens of billions of dollars to re-create the heavy lift capability we had five decades ago and simply threw away.
As I say, I am happy to be corrected by those who do know about these things.
The myth seemed reasonable to my mind because I assume a rocket engine does not go from ‘zero power’ to stable state ‘top whack’ power instantaneously and that some time was require to go from one state to the other. Using unnecessary, overweight fuel during that power build up stage seemed plausible to me. I suppose a proper myth has to have a large degree of plausibility.
I’m surprised no-one has levered in the expression it isn’t rocket science yet in this thread!