In all honesty, why dont NASA sell the design or license Musk to build
Teh original F1 lift engines from the Saturn V?
With modern materiels these would make an awesome engine.
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fluffybunnykiller Is feasting on the clitoris of life, Fri 22 Dec 2017, 18:41,
Reply)
Well I'm sure Rocketdyne would still make them if anyone asked them. They built the original engines under contract for the Saturn rockets and there's still some talk about using them on an uprated SLS.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocketdyne_F-1
Ultimately though SpaceX built their own engine from scratch as they wanted to control their supply lines to keep costs as low as possible. The Merlin engine they built is a pretty impressive beast in it's own right as it is fully reusable. Their next gen engine the Raptor is going to be a good deal more powerful than the Merlin and much more efficient than either.
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evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Fri 22 Dec 2017, 21:30,
Reply)
Efficiency and availability of welders
Also, each engine was unique and fiddled with until it reached specs...
Some info here:
arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/how-nasa-brought-the-monstrous-f-1-moon-rocket-back-to-life/
(, Sat 23 Dec 2017, 6:34, Reply)