RS-25

Uh, I, I wanna come back to you on the math question, but I also wanna geek out on the rockets for a second here, Craig, if that's okay with you.

Uh, so, you know, for a listener who has never seen a rocket engine, can you describe the RS-25 to us? You know, size, weight, what it's made of, what it's like to stand beside one?

Well, I have never stood beside one either, uh, but I did, when I found out that w- I, I'd known what, how, what the engine was, and basically how it worked just from normal media coverage and stuff like that.

So I looked it up on, I looked it up, uh, actually using Gemini.

So like, you know, they had a mission to do it and there wasn't really any new development that Rocketdyne was doing.

At least, you know, they had their team that was already, you know, working on more, maybe more advanced teams of the SSME space shuttle main engine.

So you got the bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon.

And then you said that you went to Stanford, I'm assuming for your master's.

My first love was the F1 engine on the Saturn V and the iconic video of the Saturn V rocket lifting up and then you seeing USA.

I mean, so many things are possible in this country because of the freedom that we get and you just work hard and you get to do these things.

And I remember seeing like the flame and the power coming out of these engines and then the SSME, like this beautiful engine, like, And I used to think it must take a god to make these kinds of engines.

They're so complex.

And then in the middle of the rocket is the core stage.

And that contains liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen that feed RS-25 engines.

And there's four of those.

Okay.

Talk about some of those advancements on the manufacturing side that you've had your eyes on and that will continue to help you innovate in the space program.

Sure.

Our RS-25 engines, as a part of the shuttle program, we had transferred 16 of those engines to be a part of the Artemis program.

So we have four flights of engines that are heritage that we did some upgrades to, but they came from the shuttle program.

This is dream come true land for me.

It is a two-hour webinar, and the focus is on the RS-25 rocket.

And this rocket is the one that Artemis uses on all of its missions, will be using for sending the craft up into the blue.

And so...

[laughs]

Question number nine, which rocket engine powered the first stage of the Saturn V during the Apollo missions? J-2, Merlin 1D, F-1, or RS-25?

The Merlin's a SpaceX thing.

What's the...

Mm-hmm

...

F-1, or RS-25?

I'm gonna go with A.