whose is biggest?

I was looking up some information on the new Ares V launch vehicle today, and I ran across an intersting page listing heavy-lift launch vehicles of the world. "Heavy Lift" here is defined as being able to life more than 20,000 kg into low orbit.

It's interesting to see the whole list. For some reason I'd thought that the Soviets had a rocket that could lift more than the Saturn V, but apparently not. The big Soviet/Russian workhorse is the Proton at 21,600 kg to orbit (The shuttle is 24,400 kg, but I presume part of that is people). The Soyuz-FG rocket that launches the Soyuz spacecraft is a smaller vehicle and thus isn't on this list.

So the Saturn V rocket built for Apollo stands as the largest launch vehicle ever made, at 118,000 kg to low orbit, and it was retired with a perfect launch record, 12 out of 12 successful. Here's hoping the Ares rockets are as successful.

Why does Rice play Texas?

I got the "From the Earth to the Moon" Signature Edition for Christmas from my wife. The series, and other places, have different cuts of Kennedy's "We will go to the moon" speech. Having seen several bits, including the random statement "Why does Rice play Texas?" on those DVDs, I went looking for the full text of the speech.

I found a page a Rice University (where the speech was apparently given) that contains the full text of the speech. Here are the couple of paragraphs with those statements. Happy holidays and happy new year, everyone!

There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain. Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

Houston, we have a problem

I spent the latter part of the evening burning DVD-Rs and listening to Ron Howard's commentary track on the Apollo 13 Special edition.

Early in the ascent to Earth orbit, one of the engines in the first stage of the Saturn 5 rocket shut down unexpectedly. The guidance experts on the ground said that the mission could continue, as long as the other four engines continued running. Jim Lovell (commander, played in the movie by Tom Hanks) says "Well that was the glitch for this mission".

I had assumed that line was added as dramatic irony. As it turns out, that was directly from a transcript of the flight tapes.

[I should probably admit here and now that in addition to spending way too much time thinking about airplanes, I'm a little bit of a space nut, particularly about the Apollo program. Be sure to watch this space for a long rambling post about the AGC, the guidance and control computer used in the Apollo spacecraft.]