WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.490 In the history of space, one rocket 00:00:02.490 --> 00:00:04.500 stands out as an icon not only at the 00:00:04.500 --> 00:00:07.410 space race but also as the mighty power 00:00:07.410 --> 00:00:10.800 is symbolized, that one rocket which is 00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:12.450 still the tallest, heaviest and most 00:00:12.449 --> 00:00:15.029 powerful ever built was the Saturn V 00:00:15.029 --> 00:00:17.759 and was designed to take men to the moon 00:00:17.760 --> 00:00:20.429 and later launched to the first American 00:00:20.429 --> 00:00:23.309 space station Skylab but if things have 00:00:23.309 --> 00:00:24.599 been a little bit different back in the 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:26.939 1960s we might have had a different 00:00:26.939 --> 00:00:29.039 rocket to hang on the bedroom walls of 00:00:29.039 --> 00:00:32.429 the space fans of the 70s and 80s. In the 00:00:32.429 --> 00:00:35.100 early 1960s a rocket was designed that 00:00:35.100 --> 00:00:37.920 made the Saturn V looks small by 00:00:37.920 --> 00:00:40.710 comparison. This was called the sea 00:00:40.710 --> 00:00:43.289 dragon a super heavy lift rocket that 00:00:43.289 --> 00:00:45.689 would have been ten times more powerful 00:00:45.689 --> 00:00:47.729 with 80 million pounds of thrust 00:00:47.729 --> 00:00:51.328 compared to the Saturns 7.8 million and 00:00:51.329 --> 00:00:56.250 that was from just one massive engine. It 00:00:56.250 --> 00:00:58.198 was designed to lift a payload of 1,100,000 lbs 00:00:58.198 --> 00:01:01.259 into 00:01:01.259 --> 00:01:03.238 orbit compared to the 00:01:03.238 --> 00:01:05.969 310,000 lbs of a Saturn V. This 00:01:05.969 --> 00:01:07.679 meant but it could have lifted an entire 00:01:07.680 --> 00:01:11.130 space station into low-earth orbit in 00:01:11.129 --> 00:01:14.429 one mission. The rocket bell of this 00:01:14.430 --> 00:01:17.939 single engine would be so large at 75 00:01:17.938 --> 00:01:20.219 feet in diameter that you could fit the 00:01:20.219 --> 00:01:22.950 entire first stage of a Saturn V with 00:01:22.950 --> 00:01:25.829 all five of it's F-1 engines inside with 00:01:25.829 --> 00:01:28.109 room to spare. So what happened to the 00:01:28.109 --> 00:01:31.618 Sea Dragon a why didn't it get built. At 00:01:31.618 --> 00:01:34.290 the time of a design in 1962 it was 00:01:34.290 --> 00:01:36.900 thought by the 1970s, 80s and beyond 00:01:36.900 --> 00:01:39.299 thousands of people would be working in 00:01:39.299 --> 00:01:42.270 space and on the moon even on Mars and 00:01:42.269 --> 00:01:44.728 as such rockets with huge lifting 00:01:44.728 --> 00:01:46.679 capabilities would have been in great 00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:48.000 demand because they would have 00:01:48.000 --> 00:01:50.219 dramatically lower the cost of getting 00:01:50.219 --> 00:01:53.399 materials into space. The Sea Dragon was 00:01:53.399 --> 00:01:56.218 designed by Robert Truax, a US Navy 00:01:56.218 --> 00:01:58.919 Captain and rocket engineer. He was one 00:01:58.920 --> 00:02:01.079 of the pioneers of American rocketry and 00:02:01.078 --> 00:02:03.419 worked on the Thor and Polaris missiles 00:02:03.420 --> 00:02:04.750 amongst others. 00:02:04.750 --> 00:02:07.000 His team debriefed the German rocket 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:08.618 engineers at the end of World War II 00:02:08.618 --> 00:02:11.650 including Verner von Braun who went on 00:02:11.650 --> 00:02:14.800 to design the Saturn V. Truax believed 00:02:14.800 --> 00:02:17.290 that it was complexity that drove up the 00:02:17.289 --> 00:02:20.199 cost of rockets and not their size. His 00:02:20.199 --> 00:02:22.780 designs for the Sea Dragon made it very 00:02:22.780 --> 00:02:26.469 simple yet very large. The Sea Dragon 00:02:26.469 --> 00:02:29.709 would have been 75 feet in diameter and 00:02:29.709 --> 00:02:33.039 500 feet tall, half the height of the 00:02:33.039 --> 00:02:36.310 Chrysler Building. This type of low-cost 00:02:36.310 --> 00:02:39.129 super heavy rocket is now known as a big 00:02:39.129 --> 00:02:41.650 dumb booster due to its simplistic 00:02:41.650 --> 00:02:43.930 design. Instead of having very 00:02:43.930 --> 00:02:46.330 complicated turbo pump driven engines 00:02:46.330 --> 00:02:48.910 like the Saturn's, his were the simplest 00:02:48.909 --> 00:02:51.849 possible design for a rocket engine. In 00:02:51.849 --> 00:02:54.340 place of having powerful fuel pumps to 00:02:54.340 --> 00:02:56.560 push huge amounts of rocket fuel and 00:02:56.560 --> 00:02:58.840 oxidizer into the engine, he proposed a 00:02:58.840 --> 00:03:01.270 pressure fed system with a separate 00:03:01.270 --> 00:03:03.850 liquid nitrogen tank to pressurize the 00:03:03.849 --> 00:03:06.400 fuel tanks. This would push the fuel into 00:03:06.400 --> 00:03:09.069 the massive combustion chamber. His 00:03:09.069 --> 00:03:11.289 engines were literally not much more 00:03:11.289 --> 00:03:13.060 than the valve to turn on the fuel and 00:03:13.060 --> 00:03:15.819 the huge engine bell. This would make 00:03:15.819 --> 00:03:17.319 them not only much cheaper to 00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:19.840 manufacture but more reliable and much 00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:22.599 easier to refurbish and reuse unlike the 00:03:22.599 --> 00:03:25.090 f-1 engines of a Saturn which were left 00:03:25.090 --> 00:03:27.459 to crash into the sea and be discarded. 00:03:27.459 --> 00:03:30.099 The rocket would be of a two-stage 00:03:30.099 --> 00:03:32.650 design the first stage would lift it to 00:03:32.650 --> 00:03:34.930 a height of 130,000 feet before it 00:03:34.930 --> 00:03:37.180 separated and then fell back into the 00:03:37.180 --> 00:03:40.599 sea using drag bags to slow its impact 00:03:40.599 --> 00:03:42.609 with the water, where it would then be 00:03:42.610 --> 00:03:46.480 recovered for reuse. Although the design 00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:48.399 was much less efficient than a Saturn, 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:51.159 the overall increase in size made up 00:03:51.159 --> 00:03:53.259 that shortfall so in theory it would be 00:03:53.259 --> 00:03:55.120 much cheaper per pound of payload 00:03:55.120 --> 00:03:57.430 compared to smaller rocket systems even 00:03:57.430 --> 00:04:00.790 ones the size of a Saturn. However there 00:04:00.789 --> 00:04:02.709 are problems in making such a huge 00:04:02.709 --> 00:04:05.469 rocket firstly just transporting the parts 00:04:05.469 --> 00:04:07.389 let alone the fully assembled version. 00:04:07.389 --> 00:04:10.389 This together with the 80 million pounds 00:04:10.389 --> 00:04:13.129 of thrust meant but it could not be launched from land. 00:04:13.129 --> 00:04:15.740 This amount of thrust would have 00:04:15.740 --> 00:04:19.069 destroyed any existing launch pad. It's 00:04:19.069 --> 00:04:20.779 estimated that the noise level at 00:04:20.779 --> 00:04:23.569 takeoff would have been around 165 00:04:23.569 --> 00:04:27.199 decibels, five miles away or the 00:04:27.199 --> 00:04:29.629 equivalent of standing next to a 5,000 00:04:29.629 --> 00:04:32.120 horsepower top fuel dragster at full 00:04:32.120 --> 00:04:34.579 throttle. Then there was the exhaust 00:04:34.579 --> 00:04:36.889 plume this would have been up to one 00:04:36.889 --> 00:04:40.039 mile long. For these reasons the Sea 00:04:40.040 --> 00:04:42.470 Dragon would have been launched at sea, hence the name. 00:04:42.470 --> 00:04:44.720 Not from a floating platform 00:04:44.720 --> 00:04:48.200 but from beneath the water. Now this is 00:04:48.199 --> 00:04:50.300 not as mad as it seems and there have 00:04:50.300 --> 00:04:52.220 been examples of sea launch rockets 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:56.510 before and after. In 2002 a low-cost sea 00:04:56.509 --> 00:04:58.339 launch rocket delivery system called the 00:04:58.339 --> 00:05:00.619 Aquarius with a very similar design to 00:05:00.620 --> 00:05:02.959 the Sea Dragon but much smaller was 00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:05.659 proposed to deliver consumables in to 00:05:05.660 --> 00:05:07.460 low-earth orbit for supplying things 00:05:07.459 --> 00:05:09.379 like the space station but failed to 00:05:09.379 --> 00:05:11.629 get selected. Then there was the US Navy 00:05:11.629 --> 00:05:13.550 which also did research into floating 00:05:13.550 --> 00:05:15.860 launch rockets and found that the 00:05:15.860 --> 00:05:18.379 take-off or smoother and less stressful 00:05:18.379 --> 00:05:20.300 on the rocket than that of a normal 00:05:20.300 --> 00:05:22.730 land-based takeoff. And if you're 00:05:22.730 --> 00:05:24.980 wondering why the water doesn't put out 00:05:24.980 --> 00:05:27.110 the flames it's because the rocket has 00:05:27.110 --> 00:05:29.629 its own liquid oxygen supply just like 00:05:29.629 --> 00:05:30.889 the Rockets that work in space where 00:05:30.889 --> 00:05:33.319 there is no air and the thrust just 00:05:33.319 --> 00:05:35.240 blows the water out of the engine bell. 00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:37.939 In fact the sea makes an excellent 00:05:37.939 --> 00:05:40.459 launch platform as it's indestructible 00:05:40.459 --> 00:05:42.649 it requires very little in the way of 00:05:42.649 --> 00:05:44.659 support systems which makes it very 00:05:44.660 --> 00:05:47.450 cheap, it also provides excellent shock 00:05:47.449 --> 00:05:49.579 and noise oppression and even allowing 00:05:49.579 --> 00:05:51.979 for a slight swell, the density of water 00:05:51.980 --> 00:05:53.930 helps guide to rock it up in the initial 00:05:53.930 --> 00:05:56.389 moments of lift off till it the exits of 00:05:56.389 --> 00:05:59.779 water. As part of a low-cost build and 00:05:59.779 --> 00:06:02.149 the size of Sea Dragon, it would have 00:06:02.149 --> 00:06:04.159 been built in a shipyard a bit like a 00:06:04.160 --> 00:06:07.100 submarine from commonly used materials 00:06:07.100 --> 00:06:09.110 including aluminium, sheet nickel steel 00:06:09.110 --> 00:06:11.360 and stainless steel for the engine Bell. 00:06:11.360 --> 00:06:13.520 It would have then been floated into 00:06:13.519 --> 00:06:15.799 position and fueled allowing it to sink 00:06:15.800 --> 00:06:17.750 so that just the top was sticking out of 00:06:17.750 --> 00:06:19.819 water and it would have been supported 00:06:19.819 --> 00:06:21.319 by flotation tanks under 00:06:21.319 --> 00:06:24.259 rocket. one idea was to use a nuclear 00:06:24.259 --> 00:06:26.449 aircraft carrier to provide the power to 00:06:26.449 --> 00:06:28.969 electrolyze the sea water to make the 00:06:28.970 --> 00:06:31.940 hydrogen and oxygen rocket fuel, although 00:06:31.939 --> 00:06:33.529 the first stage would have been powered 00:06:33.529 --> 00:06:37.129 by RP1 or Kerosene and oxygen, the second 00:06:37.129 --> 00:06:39.439 stage was powered by hydrogen and oxygen. 00:06:39.439 --> 00:06:42.439 Although smaller scale versions called 00:06:42.439 --> 00:06:45.079 the Sea Bee and the Sea Horse were made to 00:06:45.079 --> 00:06:46.819 prove that they could be launched from 00:06:46.819 --> 00:06:49.550 underwater the project came to an end 00:06:49.550 --> 00:06:52.340 when due to budget cuts NASA's future 00:06:52.339 --> 00:06:55.699 projects branch was closed. But even if 00:06:55.699 --> 00:06:57.379 it had had been built it would have been 00:06:57.379 --> 00:07:01.430 a very short life, it was just too big, there 00:07:01.430 --> 00:07:04.160 just wasn't enough stuff to be lifted 00:07:04.160 --> 00:07:06.410 into space to make the economies of 00:07:06.410 --> 00:07:09.890 scale it promised viable. The technology is 00:07:09.889 --> 00:07:11.930 still as perfectly valid today as it was 00:07:11.930 --> 00:07:15.379 in the 1960s and maybe at some point in 00:07:15.379 --> 00:07:17.360 the future when a large amount of 00:07:17.360 --> 00:07:19.129 equipment is needed to be lifted into 00:07:19.129 --> 00:07:21.740 space economically something of a 00:07:21.740 --> 00:07:24.170 similar scale might find a role once 00:07:24.170 --> 00:07:27.170 more and as always thanks for watching 00:07:27.170 --> 00:07:33.220 and please subscribe, rate and share.