This video is supported by SurfShark. In November 1967, NASA launched the iconic
Saturn V rocket for the first time. Standing 110 meters tall and producing 7.6
million pounds of thrust, the Saturn V stillI holds the record for the largest and most
powerful rocket ever launched. But a rocket designed years before the Saturn
V would have shattered the scale of rocket design and altered the course of rocket technology. The rocket was known as the Sea Dragon. This was an enormous two staged rocket, aiming to cut costs and launch extremely heavy payloads into space. The idea for the Sea Dragon came from engineer
Robert Truax in the early 60’s. Truax envisioned a semi-reusable two-stage
launch vehicle, capable of delivering extreme payloads to the Moon and Mars. Simplicity, reusability, and cost-savings
were the guiding principles behind the rocket’s design. Sea Dragon’s first stage consisted of a
single engine rather than multiple smaller engines like the Saturn V. Instead of using
complex fuel pumps, it had liquid nitrogen tanks which would pressurize the fuel tanks
and push the propellants into the engine. Taking away the complex and unreliable fuel
pumps would make the engine cheaper to build and easier to refurbish. Since both stages of the rocket were designed
to be refurbished and reused, they had to be recovered carefully after each launch. Once the rocket launched and reached an altitude
of about 38 kilometers, the first stage engine would cut out and separate from the 2nd stage. It would continue to fall back to Earth using
an inflatable flare. This would help to slow the stage down and
orientate it in a way that wouldn’t damage the engine once it hit the ocean. The second stage would follow a similar path back to Earth after delivering the payload into orbit. Given the sheer size of the Sea Dragon, it
would have been far too big to build and transport on land. The incredible amount of sound generated during
liftoff would have created shockwaves strong enough to damage the launch pad and the rocket
itself. In order to overcome these issues, the rocket
would need to be built and launched at sea. The rocket would be built in a shipyard and
towed out to the launch site. In order to orient the rocket vertically,
6 tanks near the base of the rocket would fill with water and sink the engine into the
sea. Although sea-launched rockets had already
been used during the second World War, the technology had never been tested on such an
enormous scale. In order to begin testing the Sea Dragon,
engineers modified a rocket from the U.S. Navy nicknamed ‘Sea Horse’. Testing began in San Francisco Bay where engineers
fired the rocket’s engine on a barge above the water and slowly lowered it into the water. The engineers found that once submerged, the
engine continued to fire perfectly and the sea dampened the shockwaves substantially. The success of this test opened the door for
the Sea Dragon to become a reality. However, like many other rocket designs, Sea Dragon failed to leave the drawing boards. As the 1960’s came to a close, NASA’s
budget was slashed as the United States went to war with Vietnam. At the height of the decade, NASA’s annual
budget peaked at $5.9 billion. Over the next few years, their budget was
reduced by 37%. These cuts ended many of NASA’s experimental
research programs along with the construction of the Sea Dragon. In many ways, the sheer size of the rocket’s design contributed to the downfall of Sea Dragon. As the Saturn V rocket continued to develop,
NASA were reaping the benefits of having a rocket much larger and more powerful than
anything else that had come before. Although Sea Dragon would have opened the
door for even larger payloads, NASA couldn’t justify the cost of developing the unproven
technology required to make Sea Dragon operational. From a technical standpoint, there were also
concerns with combustion instability for a rocket this large. Sea Dragon would have generated more than 79 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, 10 times the amount of the Saturn V - which had
its own combustion instability problems. Either way, the Sea Dragon will go down in
history as one of the craziest rocket concepts that almost happened. Since the retirement of the Saturn V in 1973,
SpaceX’s Starship rocket is the closest thing we have to the Sea Dragon concept. Starship is designed to be 118 meter tall
and produce 16 million pounds of thrust. So although we never got to see what became of the incredibly ambitious Sea Dragon, we can look forward to the exciting future that lies ahead in the world of spaceflight. Thanks to SurfShark for supporting this episode
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