Gravity – Rocket Size Comparison as of 2024
A evening pause: The list is not quite complete, but it does give a sense of the comparable sizes of the most important rockets flying today, with a few important historic examples thrown in for context.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
A evening pause: The list is not quite complete, but it does give a sense of the comparable sizes of the most important rockets flying today, with a few important historic examples thrown in for context.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The print edition can be purchased at Amazon or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Similar
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Unq6JNLvcHo
Boeing—in another universe
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4Kk9CWegvxQ
Forgot the Flag on the Statue of Liberty: United States.
Hazegrayart, linked by Jeff Wright above, does amazing work. I’ve blown hours going through their videos. Back when I was an avid KSP player, I did one career where I tried to do all those ridiculous late ’60s through early ’80s concepts. The various Titan derived concepts worked pretty well, a Titan IV SRB with a Centaur on top was an amazing workhorse. The monstrously big stuff with multiple Saturn boosters got ridiculously expensive, and I don’t even want to think about what the ground infrastructure for those would end up being.
“Hazegrayart, linked by Jeff Wright above, does amazing work. ”
He really does. I love his stuff.
Apparently, they forgot the name of my country: United States of America (USA).
Two of the largest SHLLVs that don’t get enough exposure is the AMLLV and the lesser known NEPTUN:
https://up-ship.com/blog/?p=39462
It is somewhat like the Super-Nexus.
Nick Stevens does good work:
https://nick-stevens.com/
Charles Vick did art for Nat Geo for awhile
https://www.globalsecurity.org/org/staff/vick.htm
He still around?
Why does the Falcon 9 have a European flag attached to it?
Lots of goof ups.
Soyuz FG does not look that bloated—Saturn IB is not a Saturn V mini-me (it used cluster-tanks as a first stage.
Worst was (snicker) Neytron with a huge goiter.
Jeff Wright: I do remember the difference in appearance between the 1B and V. Kid-me didn’t think it was as cool as the smooth-skinned later version.
I noticed in the splash page that the Saturn V wears German colors. Fair.
To Blair,
Saturn IB was my favorite…about the same payload as Falcon, but more compact.
Prior to the EELVs, we never had an all-liquid equivalent to R-7….Saturn IB closer to UR-500 Proton…
We had IRBMs and ICBMs bodged together into “just-enough” type LVs.
In many ways, Neutron will be the closest R-7 analogue America will have.
Jeff Wright,
I don’t see any way in which Saturn 1B was “more compact” than Falcon 9. Saturn 1B might have been a tad shorter, but it was far larger in diameter – almost 22 ft. vs. F9’s 12. The fineness ratio of the Falcon 9 makes it look nearly anorexic next to most rockets – except those that are pretty much smaller copies of it.
The early IRBMs and ICBMs didn’t have to be “bodged together” to make serviceable launch vehicles. They were all designed to deliver early thermonuclear weapons, which were pretty heavy as were their re-entry vehicles – about the same masses as Mercury and Gemini capsules as it happened. Then Sam Cohen put thermo-nukes on a diet, the RVs followed and we could then put more than one on something as small as a Minuteman.
As you seem endlessly fascinated with both Soviet rockets and never-built rockets, here’s a Hazegrayart video about stuff that is both. It includes, among others, your beloved Baikal fly-back boosters plus a lot of other stuff that makes them look positively sane by comparison. There is much heroic/epic music accompanying too, though none of it sounds especially Russian except for the anthem that accompanies the N-1 lunar lander which completes the video. The music over the concept for a Stratolaunch Roc-like twin-fuselage super-lifter with a lot more engines sounds more Outer Limits-ish than anything else. Good call by Hazegrayart.
Enjoy.