"NoHoverStop" wrote in message
...
"John Halliwell" wrote in message


Sadly "Horizon" has been noticeably "dumbed-down" of late, preferring
hyperbole to subtlety, relishing in constantly trotting out the same
"established scientists said it couldn't work/happen/exist, but these
renegades/upstarts/FSU-engineers have proven them wrong" line whether the
programme is about dinousaurs, rockets, asteroids or aircraft. Rockets are
not my field, but I am given to understand that the SSME (noticeably
American when I last checked) is a closed-cycle design.



The statement about the US having abandoned close cycle engines was
made by one of the US engineers who was involved with licensing
the rocket motor design from Energomash and in this instance I
dont recall any rubbishing of US efforts by the program maker.

The Channel 4 web site carries the same story by the way stating

http://www.channel4.com/science/micr.../timeline.html

Quote

US rocket scientists are taken to see stored NK33s.

Scientists from the US company Aerojet are amazed to find a store of over 60
pristine engines, of a compact design that they had never seen before. What
surprised them most was that the engines used the closed-cycle technology
that had been rejected by American rocket scientists as being too risky.

/Quote

As does wired.com

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/9.12/rd-180.html

It agrees that the SSME has a closed cycle engine but states that its
the exception and of course the SSME is quite unusual in being
a restartable engine. Most rocket engines are one shot devices.

Keith