[skissane]

> It's kinda like people complaining about Space Launch System, why aren't we using Saturn V or an improved version of it. We have the blueprints and schematics and everything but it appears there's a gap between what's written down there and what's in the textbooks. A lot of in-between experience has evaporated because shop classes and manufacturing were shut down.

Because it was designed to be manufactured using 1960s components. A lot of the parts it used aren’t even made anymore more, because they’ve been replaced by newer components

The Space Shuttles were progressively upgraded over time to address this, e.g. the early 90s upgrade of their computers which replaced core memory with semiconductor memory. If we’d kept the Saturn V series alive, todays Saturn Vs would have had rather different innards from the ones that flew in the 60s/70s

But this is why “just reuse the Saturn V” design never made sense. You have to redesign so much of it to substitute for unavailable original parts, you might as well just redesign from scratch

[Animats]

> > It's kinda like people complaining about Space Launch System, why aren't we using Saturn V or an improved version of it.

Because the SLS uses left over Space Shuttle engines. Once.

The Space-X approach is to use 33 Raptor engines.

[skissane]

> Because the SLS uses left over Space Shuttle engines. Once.

The reused RS-25s aren’t the same as the ones that flew on the STS-1. STS-1 used the original RS-25, Artemis uses RS-25D, and will in future use the new RS-25E.

In the same way, if Saturn V survived to the present, we wouldn’t be using the original F-1s/J-2s any more, we’d be a using significantly enhanced versions-and the originals would be infeasible to manufacture due to component availability changes