Ah. The light dawns. My recollection is they went from plated-closeout
cores for the Merlin to 3D printed. (I'm sure someone will correct me
if needed.) Keeping the new engine within the max envelope of their
current printing machinery could explain this decision to go for
ultra-high pressure.
Mind, my first guess would be that larger printers would be a lower-risk
solution than developing new engines at an unprececedentely high
pressure. But that's just a guess, presumably SpaceX has reason to
think otherwise.
Henry
On 9/28/2016 11:10 PM, Jonathan Goff wrote:
I think it's more that Elon wanted to keep similar size rocket hardware
to what their factory was already setup to do, but wanted as much thrust
and Isp as he could get.
~Jon
On Wed, Sep 28, 2016 at 11:30 PM, Henry Vanderbilt
<hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Could be for the same reason Shuttle went for relatively
high-pressure main engines: Combining good sea-level Isp and good
vacuum Isp in minimum vehicle aft cross-section area.
On 9/28/2016 5:33 PM, Alexander Ponomarenko wrote:
Still wondering why they selected champion
chamber pressure.
