Originally Posted by
Bfah
Interesting ramble on your post
But on the engine part: (in my feeble mind and not AI's), wasn't all 'Rocket' stuff done by the Soviets and Germany?
AFAIK, the 'Full flow' that Space X uses is of original Soviet design.
Of course technology and design tweaks will improve any engine.
Yes, a tragedy with the internal fire, (comms crossed over voltage + pure oxygen), wasn't it a design flaw added that mix - internal opening as against the 'away' opening...?
Space is hard and is pushing mankind to keep advancing in this area.
One looks at the 'latest' 3.7mtr crew area and it's like packed sardines!
Is the weight that critical to not have a more spacious capsule.
On that note, I notice the lack of paint job as the first Shuttle launch - straight from the factory
In reverse order;
Crewed spacecraft have always been cramped, and in comparison the Apollo Command Module (with three astronauts) - as I recall it in photographs - was even more cramped than Orion. The Space Shuttle Orbiter may have been somewhat less constrained, but its strictly Earth-orbiting role makes the comparison somewhat inapplicable.
And yes, though I'm not an engineer, it's fairly commonly observed that weight is a primary limiting factor in spacecraft design, whether for crewed spacecraft or satellites.
To the extent the Integrity Orion spacecraft (and/or the ESA Service Module) are relatively unpainted, perhaps this relates to the test flight objectives of the Artemis II mission.
On Apollo 1, without question there were design flaws. The reports following the accident (though I have not reviewed them in some time) document these flaws extensively and in-depth. As you mention, the pure oxygen interior atmosphere, and hatch design were major factors. (Appropos of my rant against ignorance on the part of would-be scolders of U.S. policy, nothing about the causes and effects leading to the Apollo 1 fire and deaths of three astronauts justifies referring to the accident as having occurred during a "launch.")
Rockets, missiles, space launch vehicles. Nothing about the history of these machines, as it has unfolded in the United States, should downplay or understate the tremendous role played by Dr. Prof. Werner von Braun. So, at the risk of understatement here, yes indeed, work done by "the Germans" has been foundational. Perhaps in his role in the achievement which the Saturn V moon rocket constitutes Dr. Prof. von Braun - or at least his karma - finds redemption from his wartime acts.
But whether or not the RL-10 engine, in its earliest design and testing in the late 1950s, drew heavily, or at all, upon the legacy of the V-2 and "Paper Clips" of certain types, I don't know.
The Russians did (according to some down-'n-dirty interweb reading) develop full-flow engine technology. The RL-10 however is not a full-flow type of engine. Perhaps of equal or greater relevance is that the U.S. relied on RD-180 engines built by Russia (some possibly produced in the U.S. under license) for the Atlas V. There is a Space Foundation Fact Sheet on the history of the RD-180 and RD-181 in the U.S., (based on its citations, originally written circa 2013-2014 and updated since then).