Brian Potter on the Apollo Program
Two things I took away from Brian Potter's recap of the Apollo Program:
- The mixture between "complicated" innovation and "brute force" innovation; to make the second stage rocket booster light enough to be effective took both totally new design concepts and simply shaving off weight wherever it could be taken off.
Not every effort at weight reduction was solved through clever (if complicated) ideas like cold-strengthened aluminum or the common bulkhead. Much of the effort was achieved by pure brute force: parts would be fabricated, tested until failure, and then redesigned to be slimmer until they broke at exactly the required load (scaled by an appropriate safety factor).
- The interaction between new designs, new materials, and new techniques. New designs almost always require a new material or a new technique to be used.
Worth reading!
2023-12-29