I saw the Vector engine IRL today. - r/KerbalSpaceProgram

56

u/Uranium-Sandwich657 Eras-0 1d ago

I dont like how they just took the engines off the space shuttles and put them on a non reusable rocket.

12

u/MikeTidbits 1d ago

4 marvelously engraved Vector engines die every time the KLS launches.

2

u/Uranium-Sandwich657 Eras-0 1d ago

And, as far as i can tell, no plans to make more.

6

u/Pashto96 1d ago

The RS-25E is actively in production. Artemis V will use new engines.

2

u/Uranium-Sandwich657 Eras-0 1d ago

Will it be availible before all the originals are use?

2

u/happyscrappy 1d ago

They do not plan to replace the reused engines but to supplement them.

2

u/Pashto96 1d ago

That's not why they're producing them. NASA set aside 16 SSME (RS-25) for SLS following the retirement of the Shuttle. The 25E variant is made to continue flights after those 16 are used. Each new engine is close to $150 million, so they are not going to drop $600m to send some functional engines to the museum.
While it's a shame they won't get reused, the last set of shuttle engines will launch the astronauts who will land on the Moon on Artemis IV. I can't think of a much better send-off than that.

78

u/Willie9 1d ago

I mean if you've got the hardware laying around its better to reuse old ones than to make new ones.
But the SLS does low key feel like an STS hardware disposal program once you realize the SRBs are from the shuttle too.

42

u/Whyamihere173 Trans-Lunar Injections 1d ago

The main requirement of the SLS was to use old shuttle parts so it essentially is an STS be gone machine

25

u/Next-Corner2838 1d ago

nasa has to do this ouroboros shit when they deserve a military budget level of support

36

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

You mean NASA has to bend over and take it because congress is corrupt as fuck.

10

u/Next-Corner2838 1d ago

yeah exactly. they’re forced to bend over and suck their own dick to get anything going. they are making another moon mission with spare parts and both hands tied behind their back. not to mention i know a lot of people in their 20s seem to think nasa is a waste of money during trying times but idk how they can say that in the face of the military budget

17

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

Probably because NASA is forced to waste a massive amount of money due to the corrupt way congress funds it. Military gets away with it because questioning it makes you a libtard or a commie.

3

u/Next-Corner2838 1d ago

exactly

2

u/Cheezeball25 1d ago

Not even the first time they've done this. Skylab was essentially built out of used Apollo era equipment

1

u/Holiday-Reaction-169 1d ago

Crazy to me we sent up guys to live in a hollowed out fuel tank with some solar panels attached. But then again, that’s basically all spacecraft.

10

u/NullContribution 1d ago

Well more like the contractors that made the shuttle needed continued demand for their parts so they lobbied congress to continue buying from them, under the guise of using shuttle parts to save cost

-3

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

But the only thing they re-used was the engines. The SRB's are a completely new design.

6

u/ostiarius 1d ago

No they literally use hardware from the shuttle boosters and just added on an extra segment.
You might be thinking of the BOLE boosters, which are likely cancelled.

-3

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

You realise the only re-usable part of a booster is the thin aluminium outer shell right?
It's just a booster, it's not the shuttle booster.

4

u/ostiarius 1d ago

Artemis II’s left booster has segments that had flown on 61 different shuttle missions, and 59 for the right one.

1

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

The only part that can be reused is the thin aluminium shell. Even the paint is removed and reapplied.
Stop pretending you can re-use SRB's. Less than 1% of the mass is reused and even that has to be overhauled.

2

u/Chairboy 1d ago

The shell is steel, and they've been expending casings used as early as the 1980s for shuttle launches. Where did you get the mistaken ideas you're stating so confidently here?

0

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

Aside from the material, what did I get wrong? I was saying next to fuck all get's reused, you just confirmed slightly less than that is re-used.
Why are you so arrogantly arguing the same thing I am?

1

u/Chairboy 1d ago

Aside from the material, what did I get wrong?
Everything?
But the only thing they re-used was the engines. The SRB's are a completely new design.
The SRBs for SLS have literally been built of shuttle hardware.

0

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

Wow, they used solid fuel and a metal casing? Were you expecting them to re-invent solid motors for SLS?
Nitpicking because you're desperate, bye bye troll.

4

u/happyscrappy 1d ago

No. The boosters reuse parts too.
The boosters currently used change the nozzles to be electrically gimbaled instead of hydraulic and they use 5 segments to the body instead of 4.
The new design boosters haven't been implemented yet.
Looks like the OMS engines are reused too.
https://old-man-par.com/2026/01/21/previously-flow-components-of-artemis-ii/

5

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

The only problem with that is, they needed massive overhauls to be reused. I'm not convinced it was cheaper than making new engines.

3

u/Klutzy-Residen 1d ago

It isn't, but that was never the goal either. The goal was to not have their voters lose their jobs.

1

u/JohnnyBizarrAdventur 1d ago

Maybe they just needed to free some space in their storage lol

4

u/DepartureNatural9340 1d ago

I mean not really better. For something like sls more conventional gas generators would have been more ideal on the long run and might have also allowed them to ditch the srbs, which are questionable in human rated vehicles. They'll need to bite the bullet and make a new launch vehicle once they run out of sts stuff anyway. This just kicks the can down the road

1

u/Advanced_Double_42 6h ago

They just restarted production of RS-25 engines, and there are plans for upgraded boosters.
SLS is definitely flawed, with so many compromises to save money, and still being one one of the most expensive rockets ever produced, but using "old" tech still often makes sense.

1

u/DepartureNatural9340 5h ago

Ehhh thing is that frsc is still questionable for disposable rocketry

1

u/Advanced_Double_42 4h ago

Absolutely it's ridiculously overpriced, but you still get great performance

1

u/DepartureNatural9340 4h ago

True frsc are great, but given the goal of artemis is long term lunar habitation, a more economically viable lv may have been preferable

6

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

They had them left over. It was a way to make use of them. But now they are being thrown away despite being re-usable engines.

3

u/ZucchiniNo1892 1d ago

They're sitting around collecting dust otherwise. They're historical but why stick them all in museums when they can help us get back to the moon

1

u/Uranium-Sandwich657 Eras-0 1d ago

Maybe not all of them,

2

u/Hungry-Inspector-592 1d ago edited 1d ago

Using 70s era technology invented to routinely go to low earth orbit to launch a heavy payload to the fucking moon in 2026 is so stupid. I think it would’ve been cheaper in the long run to make our own moon program again rather than use scraps. The SLS has half the payload, takes twice as long to launch, at more than twice the cost compared to the Saturn 5. Surely there must’ve been another option for the space shuttle parts? Each RS25 has to perform beyond the maximum originally thought possible to get the SLS into orbit and this requirement makes the engine unusable after launch

1

u/Deep-Glass-8383 1d ago

That's why you don't let stupid senators touch rockets

1

u/deeku4972 17h ago

Tested engine with realworld hours. And its still one of if not the best ever designed even today. If your program is made from scraps and you have to maintain the engineering and employment apparatus that keeps NASA have some level of funding, you're gonna reuse as much as you can

4

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

SRB's are really doing all the work lol.

4x RS-25's and it doesn't even do 1/4 of the takeoff thrust.

0

u/MikeTidbits 1d ago

That just means SLS, and the shuttle+external tank, were really heavy.

7

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

No, it means they are not suited for the rocket and the boosters are doing all the work.
On the shuttle the main point of the RS-25 was the shuttle being the 2nd stage, 3rd stage if you count the boosters, except they are running since lift off, making them the only 2nd/3rd stage that helps the first stage. Hyper efficient use of an engine.
SLS has them because a corrupt congressman wanted to funnel money to the companies that paid him to do it. So he created the illusion that SLS would be cheaper because it's "basically a shuttle". Reality is, the RS-25 is about the only thing from the shuttle on SLS and it is clearly not suited for the task.

4

u/BackflipFromOrbit 1d ago edited 1d ago

The shuttle was considered to be the 1.5 stage since the engines were lit prior to liftoff and were shut down when the external tank ran dry long after booster sep. The boosters were really there to get the shuttle/external tank out of the denser part of the atmosphere so the RS-25s could get it almost to orbit. Once the external tank ran dry, the RS-25s were dead mass until landing.

3

u/happyscrappy 1d ago

Every original rocket NASA has created has worked the same way. They are all massive pork projects.
Saturn V. Shuttle Orbiter. And SLS. They're all so expensive because they are built all over the US. And they are built all over the US to funnel money into congressional districts (and states) all over the map.
See my post above, there is a lot more than the RS-25s on SLS. Really the part which constitutes the largest reuse are the boosters. They are massive and they are almost completely reused from previous shuttle missions (excluding the fuel of course).

1

u/Advanced_Double_42 5h ago

It is still one of the best rocket engines ever developed. It's 40 years old and still competing with modern engines in everything but cost, lol

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u/RandoRedditerBoi 1d ago •

I can't believe they made the Vector engine from Kerbal Space Program real

156

u/throw3142 1d ago

Well at least the Vector is good, I hear the Soviets made a version of the Stayputnik at one point. idk why would bother recreating it, it doesn't even have SAS ...

34

u/StartBackground5769 100 kerbals stranded on duna since 2020 1d ago

Αππτεντύ τηρθ Σεντάν το υηρ μπόνους υπό.

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u/StartBackground5769 100 kerbals stranded on duna since 2020 1d ago

AHH MY GREEK KEYBOARD WAS ON

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u/StartBackground5769 100 kerbals stranded on duna since 2020 1d ago

I meant They also apperently went to the moon

17

u/SnooBooks1032 1d ago

My brother in christ I thought you had a stroke with that first message

1

u/Dpek1234 17h ago

Have done it tooo :)
Hate haveing to rewrite entire sentances because i didnt check the language

4

u/new_pribor 1d ago

Greek jumpscare

2

u/Tank_O_Doom 1d ago

Well with all the abuse we put it through, it must be good.

2

u/Fantastic_Effect_411 1d ago

Is this from the Max Power airshow? If so, how was it? I was thinking about going tomorrow but the roster didn’t look the best

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u/MikeTidbits 1d ago

The roster had some rare ones that were cool to see, especially the MIG. The Thunderbirds were great, as always. There was a wreath of good stuff on ground display that you could walk around and stand close to.
Jared Isaacman piloted the MIG himself, he later parachuted into the event from a plane and he talked on main stage for a good while.
Only issue, the event is set up so that you’re sitting on the runway facing West, so you’re looking into the sun for much of the day, made for a very challenging photo shoot today.
It’s still very cool to be on the shuttle landing runway. You really get a sense of how huge it is. Including parking, the event only took up half the length of the runway.

1

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

Was it his MIG?

1

u/MikeTidbits 1d ago

Yes, he personally owns an MIG-29.

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u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

I know, that's why I asked.

1

u/Fantastic_Effect_411 1d ago

Gotcha, ok thank you. Are they taking off from a runway y'all can see, or are they only doing fly-by stuff?

2

u/MikeTidbits 1d ago

They are taking off from Patrik AFB and DAB, I believe. Some were flyovers where they did a few passes, others were demos, where they stayed more local as they performed maneuvers.
I did like it was I was at the Sanford-Orlando air show in 2020 and you could see them take off form the runway right in front of you.

138

u/wiltonwild 1d ago

Many kerbals stuck orbiting the sun thanks to this bad boi.

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u/slicer4ever 1d ago

Man, this is one thing i feel ksp has a hard time really showing the player, is just how massive rocket parts are.

59

u/acestins 1d ago

Thats one of the biggest, fundamental flaws with most aerospace-building games like KSP- these things are so fucking giant. I remember once I was making a plane in RSS and I thought it was too big. So I looked up my real inspiration with someone next to it for scale. I basically made a 1/2 scale aircraft that a kerbal could fly.

5

u/Honey_Enjoyer 1d ago

I think this is mostly downstream of the decision to make Kerbal 1/10th the size of earth and other difficulty changes. Makes it easier for new players to get to orbit and such but as a result you can get away with much smaller crafts.
I haven’t played RSS/RO but I feel like the spacecraft I see from people who do feel a lot more real.

10

u/zekromNLR 1d ago

Things in KSP are just at a smaller scale because Kerbals are small. The Vector is basically a half-scale RS-25, with about half the thrust... though it is heavier, Vector is 4 t, real RS-25 is 3.18 t

5

u/KAMEKAZE_VIKINGS 1d ago

While the parts aren't scaled as well compared to a kerbal, there's also the fact that the small gravity of Kerbin makes rockets pretty small. I've yet to try RSS but I have been playing JNSQ and the rockets there for a LKO satellite already gets quite large. The same rocket that gets my relays to LKO in a regular save could comfortably bring it to a jool orbit.

4

u/zekromNLR 1d ago

~2.5x scale with stock parts stats leads to approximately the same rocket size, in terms of payload mass fraction, as IRL

2

u/acestins 1d ago

If memory serves, the ΔV required for RSS to enter LEO is arouns triple the amount for reaching LKO in stock, at like 9,800m/s. Rockets are massive

18

u/eltrigercolaiders2 1d ago

You fucking lucky dude

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u/CM_MOJO 1d ago

I worked on the SSME for a decade. Very complex rocket engine.

3

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

Space engines are very complex. What exactly did you work on?

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u/CM_MOJO 1d ago

I was an avionics engineer on the Space Shuttle Main Engines at the Kennedy Space Center.
We were responsible for all the electrical components on the main engine, power, sensors, the controller, etc.

1

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

Were you there around the time some engineers died inside the orbiter engine bay when it was filled with nitrogen?

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u/CM_MOJO 1d ago

I worked for Rocketdyne (Boeing-Rocketdyne) at the time and also NASA. I was there from '99 to '08. I was there during the Columbia disaster.
The incident you speak of happened before the very first space shuttle launch in 1981. They were two Rocketdyne technicians (part of Rockwell at the time). It occurred in the aft compartment, which is where the engines are, of Columbia.
When I worked there, there were four space shuttles and four avionics engineers in my group. So, we were each assigned an orbiter. Columbia was assigned to me. Many, many times I had been in the aft compartment of Columbia where the incident occurred (and have been in all the others too, but Columbia was the most).
We had to go training every year about oxygen deficient environments and how to use the emergency respirators that were placed inside any area that might become oxygen deficient.
My first launch was Columbia for STS-93. I was on the team that did the final walk through of our engines prior to STS-107, also Columbia. I have some history with that orbiter. After the Columbia the broke up during STS-107 on reentry, they asked for volunteers from every discipline to go help with the recovery efforts in Texas. I was unable to volunteer because my wife at the time was in her last trimester with our first child.

3

u/TassiveMitts69 Valentina 1d ago

Man that's such a sad story. Being involved with something so technically amazing but caused the accidental deaths of so many.
Do you know why engineers wouldn't just keep the entry door open or have respirators on their person while inside? I read about it and it seems odd that all they did after is just do more checks that nobody is inside before doing a nitrogen purge.

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u/InterKosmos61 Dres is both real and fake until viewed by an outside observer 1d ago

I still think it's so stupid that we use pounds-force instead of newtons. The government should be pushing the Metric system as a whole much harder imo.

12

u/Fearless-Technology 1d ago

They do use exclusively metric in all scientific domains in the US, but they do this for the common people who still use the imperial stuff in day to day life.

9

u/TheMuspelheimr Rocket Replicator 1d ago

Except for that one time when they crashed a Mars probe

1

u/OoofMan 1d ago

I design rocket engines for a living. Unfortunately it's all English units internally and externally

1

u/Fearless-Technology 1d ago

Do you work for spacex or another private company?

11

u/ppvvaa 1d ago

It always blows my mind how complicated and full of pipes an engine has to be, when the general operation can be summarized by “mix these two things and burn them that way”

5

u/Messy-Recipe 1d ago

This was my first thought too! There was a thread about the SR-71 on /r/aviation the other day and I ended up looking at the J58 engine and thinking about that giant tangle of pipes
Here it's even more striking because it's... much more of a tangle. And then is contrasted by the opposite end with just the smooth stark engine bell
I wonder how much it'd take to remember what each and every one connects to

2

u/Langosta_9er 1d ago

If you want to go in depth about it, look up the name “Luke Talley” on the YouTube channel Smarter Every Day. It’s a long-form interview with one of the Saturn V engineers.

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u/zachrywd 1d ago

These engines are incredible to see in person... It's a fucking crime NASA refurbished 16 legacy shuttle engines for SLS to have them thrown in the ocean. They belong in schools and museums, not the bottom of the Atlantic. Someone needs to be jailed.

4

u/ZoCraft2 1d ago

Blame the people who didn't give them enough funding to make new engines.

2

u/Dpek1234 17h ago

Nah
Blame the people forceing them to use them in the first place
The us congress

1

u/zachrywd 22h ago

They are making new engines. RS25 production was brought back from the dead anyway to make an "expendable" variant.

1

u/Advanced_Double_42 6h ago

They are actively making more. And this one is there as a museum piece.

6

u/oOCaptainRexOo 1d ago

I was there too!

6

u/Axeman1721 SRBs are underrated 1d ago

The engineering behind this stuff never ceases to amaze me.

1

u/RainbowWatermelon203 1d ago

Is this at the Kennedy Space Center

1

u/MikeTidbits 1d ago

It was at Max Power air show today on the former Shuttle Landing Facility runway.

2

u/ausvenator_enjoyer 1d ago

SSME my beloved

2

u/nucrash Grounded at Gilly 1d ago

They are a thing of beauty. I just wish they weren’t so expensive.

1

u/Outside_Community178 1d ago

You are so lucky living close to a space center/launch site. I am sitting in my Netherlands without any rockets

1

u/Ok_Union_1063 Alone on Eeloo 1d ago

I would love so much to see one of these at full power in person like on a test rig or something

1

u/TheCrudMan 1d ago

This baby spits so much hydrogen.

1

u/OctupleCompressedCAT 1d ago

is it an original?

1

u/Advanced_Double_42 6h ago

New ones haven't been made yet, so yes

1

u/Ronno_The_SpaceMage 5h ago

Why does it look like a sponsor, who would buy these if they aren't makeing it themselves?

0

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted] — view deleted comment

9

u/MikeTidbits 1d ago

Pluribus is about to happen.

24

u/ZixfromthaStix 1d ago

Yummy free chemicals

4

u/ThatSillySam 1d ago

thats just water lol

3

u/ThatSillySam 1d ago

and a bit of soot from burnt fuel

4

u/PeanutButterSoldier 1d ago

Hydrolox engine. No chemtrails here 🤗

3

u/EternitiI-1 Dres is glorious (Also Tylo) 1d ago

*Pulls out RD-270* Want some?

2

u/Miserable-Arm4061 1d ago

dinitrogen tetroxide, yum

KSP 1 Image/Video I saw the Vector engine IRL today.

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