What could've been, if we funded NASA adequately - V-4X, literally 4 Saturns strapped together

Mar 16, 2025 9:55 AM

hazegrayart

nasa

I think there’s more than straps holding them together.

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

But killing Vietnamese people was more important.

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 5

Falcon 9 emits about 300 tonnes of Co2 per launch. This thing has to top 1000 surely?

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 2

NASA was funded adequately. They were given billions that would have gone to developing new tech. But then got handcuffed. Obama did a lot of good. But when it came to space exploration policy, a lot of promised space program money got wasted or diverted.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_policy_of_the_Barack_Obama_administration

6 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 3

Best I can do is debris raining down from another failed Starship launch.

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 2

Amazing

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 1

THINK OF THE BILLIONQIRESSSSS

6 months ago | Likes 5 Dislikes 4

It's pretty slow though

6 months ago | Likes 8 Dislikes 1

Yes, if anyone thinks that is anything possible in a real world, I have bad news for them.

6 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 0

What for?

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Isn’t there a diminishing returns element to a rocket that large?

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Yes.

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

with a rocket that large, there are a lots of integration problems
you can't just stack four Saturn V rockets together and hope it won't go kaboom

6 months ago | Likes 4 Dislikes 0

And this is just one!

6 months ago | Likes 7 Dislikes 1

Is this made up? Reference?

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

I was a Boeing study: http://www.astronautix.com/s/saturnv-4xu.html – but basically never left the "look how much thrust adding four of those together would produce" phase. There was zero actual development done on this.

6 months ago | Likes 3 Dislikes 1

One thing I'm grateful to For All Mankind for is the Sea Dragon launch scene they filmed. They actually planned and designed the Sea Dragon, a rocket so big that it would have to start while swimming in the ocean, as a cargo rocket to establish permanent moon bases.

But, well, without being able to one up a soviet space program that was trying the same, they didn't see a point in funding their own space program either.

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Why the ocean? So it could support its weight?

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

Yes. It was pretty large and heavy ("was". It was never built). It was really more the cost factor. The water takes care of both on rocket and launch pad systems and infrastructure that would have had to be designed and built in order to support and launch such a huge rocket. That all could be skipped, so the idea, if the rocket just had a ballast stage that would put the rocket upright in the water and was released in order to launch it.

AFAIK, most parts were intended to be recoverable.>

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

So the rocket would, in theory, he pretty economical. From the economy of scale, the reusable parts and the minimal infrastructure needed, compared to the entire spaceports needed for conventional rockets.

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

But then a bunch of asshole shareholders wouldnt be able to leech billions off the workers and the government!

6 months ago | Likes 15 Dislikes 3

What are you going to do about it?

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 7

Kill all billionaires and then fund NASA?

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 0

How so? NASA doesn't build rockets so this would be built by a private company.

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 3

Nasa is perfectly capable of it and has done before. You might want to examine how we got to the moon.

6 months ago | Likes 2 Dislikes 1

The Saturn 5 was built by private contractors.

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 1

NASA designed it. NASA is perfectly capable of building it. NASA has built rockets before. Saying "NASA DOESNT BUILD ROKKIT" does not mean they cannot, nor that they have not. I get it. You want Elon to notice you, to take you to mars. He never will, bro. Let it go.

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0

Designing is not remotely the same as building something.

6 months ago | Likes 1 Dislikes 0