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How NASA Brought the F-1 Rocket Engine Back To Life
First time accepted submitter Martin S. writes "How NASA Engineers have reverse engineered the F1 engine of a Saturn V launcher, because: 'every scrap of documentation produced during Project Apollo, including the design documents for the Saturn V and the F-1 engines, remains on file. If re-creating the F-1 engine were simply a matter of cribbing from some 1960s blueprints, NASA would have already done so.
A typical design document for something like the F-1, though, was produced under intense deadline pressure and lacked even the barest forms of computerized design aids. Such a document simply cannot tell the entire story of the hardware. Each F-1 engine was uniquely built by hand, and each has its own undocumented quirks. In addition, the design process used in the 1960s was necessarily iterative: engineers would design a component, fabricate it, test it, and see how it performed. Then they would modify the design, build the new version, and test it again. This would continue until the design was "good enough."'
the design process used in the 1960s was necessarily iterative: engineers would design a component, fabricate it, test it, and see how it performed. Then they would modify the design, build the new version, and test it again. This would continue until the design was "good enough."'
take note modern IT managers - this is agile, not that bastardised process-heavy "agile" scrum-style crap you do today.
I mentioned this in a comment last week. Manned spaceflight in the USA is essentially a matter of history, not something we know how to do today. If we wanted (for whatever reason) to go back to the moon, we'd bascially have to start over from scratch. It would probably take as at least as long as the original Apollo program, and cost far more.
After the fall of the Roman empire, knowledge of concrete was lost, and for about 500 years Europeans were walking around Roman buildings and upon Roman roads that they had no idea how to recreate. Right now all our Apollo engineers are dead or dying, and the Astronauts will soon follow suit. Soon there will be no living human who has set foot on another world. Then we will know just how those Medieval Europeans felt when we go look at our old Apollo relics in the museums.
Yes, if one is doing a one off project, or a prototype that will then be given to someone else to redesign, the perhaps this is the a good method.
Every mid to large sized IT shop I've ever seen or worked in (dozens) has basically been a "one-off project" when viewed as a whole. Yes sure, every one is basically built out of off-the-shelf hardware and OSes, but there is so much customization and scripting, customized apps and databases and communication software, and other various "glue" bits holding these microcosms all together, but after you examine the innards of any decent sized IT shop that's been running a while, the place as a whole is actually a giant hodge-podge Rube Goldberg contraption that has evolved and taken final shape over time and iterative development.
We've not building Henry Ford assembly line Model Ts here.
Compared to what we were doing at NASA in the 90s - much less by today's standards - the 60s really were lacking in the barest of computer aids. In hindsight, the assistance of computers was amazingly rudimentary. The ability to do structural analysis was being built "as they needed it" and independently in each group or center - NASTRAN, even in its earliest state, didn't exist yet. These are the people who started developing tools which didn't exist.
You have to remember - this was a time when Battin was using discrete math to plan missions, and a general n-body problem was considered unsolvable (and, afaik, still is in explicit form - but is trivial on modern computers for relevant values of n).
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
This flies in the face of at least history. It also flies in the face of the usual mythology that NASA invented the computer. Which is it?
NASA didn't invent the computer. However, in the 1950s computers were room-sized assemblies of hardware. NASA and the Air Force were the only two entities that needed computers that were smaller than that (the Air Force to put in missiles, NASA to put in spacecraft). The Block I Apollo computer was the driver for integrated circuits, and hence the grandfather of all of today's desktop computers (called "microcomputers" back in the old days, when "non-micro" computers meant the Univacs and 1103 and the other big iron of the day.
http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline/1962-Apollo.html
They had no computers, or they invented them?
Both.
It's neither, actually. But by 1963 manufacturing, at least for the money-means-nothing military, was already computerized.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=_1g1b_EeVHw&NR=1
Why do you think it's called "numerically controlled" and not "digital"? It's because the whole concept is so old that the wording has had time to become obsolete.
The comment you're responding to was about computer design tools--CAD--not about numerically-controlled milling machines. And for that matter, the numerically-controlled milling machines of 1963 weren't really what you would call general purpose computers.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Don't be brainwashed by all this "process" crap. These days you have to talk to guys in their 60's and 70's to get the full oral history, but they wistfully recall days when the emphasis was on getting things done and making them work, rather than mindlessly following "process".
All that "process crap" is exactly how any successful engineering project is done. The space program in the 60's and 70's was no exception. Do some reading about the actual engineering that went on and you'll quickly realize it was ALL about developing working processes. A process is nothing more than a set of procedures used to accomplish a task. If the task has to be communicated to someone else or cannot be overlooked or is just plain complicated, documentation becomes a vital aspect of the process. You can't build something as complicated as a space ship without a huge amount of extremely robust processes and accompanying documenation. Developing effective production processes isn't mindless busywork - it is among the most challenging and important things we do. The best manufacturing companies spend a tremendous amount of resources on process development because without them they would be unable to function.
If you want to ensure that a rocket blows up, by all means ignore developing processes and don't worry about documenting or communicating the procedures used. Just be a cowboy and "get it done". When you have no way to discover what went wrong, who was responsible, when you were supposed to do it or how to do it again you might begin to understand why process is important. My company makes wire harnesses and we've made products that have gone into space. For even the simplest cable with a crimped terminal on one end we typically have about 15+ pages (and often much more) of assembly instructions, QA instructions, machine setup instructions, QA logs, shipping and packaging instructions, manufacturing orders (how many to build and when to build them), bills of material, training documentation, defect logs, packing slips, and invoices. And every bit of that documentation is genuinely important. Without robust processes in place it would be complete chaos to try to make even the most basic products, never mind something as complicated as a F1 engine. All that "process crap" lets us build a high quality product (repeatedly if needed), diagnose and correct any problems that may arise, and make sure everyone knows what they are supposed to do and when they are supposed to do it.