FU Money + Meets the (Next Big) Thing

[Wayne E Baisley]

> Modified HP: 350HP at the crank shaft, minumum.

My favorite, and not just because I worked for a (completely unrelated)
division of Rockwell, is the hydrogen fuel turbopump for the Shuttle
Main Engines.  It's considerably more expensive than a Jetta, and far
less useful in commuting, but it's very impressive.

Not much larger than a car engine, it develops 69,040 horsepower. IIRC,
that's done with 122 titanium turbine blades, each weighing about an
ounce.  That's about 565 HP each.  And it goes from 0 to 37,000 RPM, and
from a few degrees above absolute zero to around 600 degrees C in about
a second.  The discharge pressure is enough for 36 miles of 'head', at
least for liquid hydrogen.

Cheers,
Wayne

Got me under pressure.