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Originally Posted by JRD77VET
Not sure how long this has been in the works but about 12 years ago at my former employer, I made some heavy duty parts for the solid rocket engines.
A couple steel plates that were 48" x 60" and 6" thick ( just over two tons each) plus a rail system made out of 2" steel plate , 12" high that the pieces bolted together to be almost 30' long.
The solid rocket fuel is a wet slurry when the booster bodies are filled. The heavy duty press squeezed the liquid out and then they were transported to a building away from everything and everybody to fully dry.
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The original F-1 engines for the Saturn V launch vehicle had several failures with the engines exploding on the test stand until they figured out how to stabilize the combustion process. They also used a combination of Liquid Oxygen and RP-1 (basically highly refined kerosene) as propellant. Not sure about the solid boosters, but these engines are the RS-25 Shuttle engines which have a proven track record. When the SLS launches, it will be the only rocket to ever have more thrust than the Saturn V. Pretty damn impressive
You should look at pics of the Orion capsule compared to Apollo...things have come a very long way.
I should add that as complicated as they were, the F-1 engines had zero problems and a perfect track record on the Apollo program.