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The question Astronomical ABCD…! suggests a corollary for SXSE.

I'm looking for one example of a rocket with $n$ first-stage engines, for each $n$ for which you can think of an example for. It should be at least built, or very seriously proposed and investigated at a minimum.

I'll start off with some suggestions, items of recent popularity to get the ball rolling, but you don't have to use them.

Let's first try without jumping immediately to vehicles with variable strap-on number options, and see how that goes?

uhoh
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  • I assume you're talking about first stages of orbital vehicles? –  Nov 30 '17 at 11:23
  • @JCRM ya, "$n$ first-stage engines" is specified in the question. I'd be surprised if there were any rockets with multi-engined first stages that were not intended for orbit! – uhoh Nov 30 '17 at 11:29
  • ah, it wasn't there when i started to answer the question. –  Nov 30 '17 at 11:34
  • The Bristol Spaceplanes Ascender is suborbital, but has two engines. –  Nov 30 '17 at 11:45
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    @uhoh I can name a few actually, the most notable is the Falcon booster intended for use with the in-flight abort test, which has 3 engines. In any case, this question really is too broad, so... – PearsonArtPhoto Nov 30 '17 at 15:39
  • @PearsonArtPhoto I wish we had a "space-golf" tag in analogy to code golf where we could make puzzlers, community wiki's etc. more on-topic. This one seems to have been well received for example. – uhoh Dec 01 '17 at 00:50
  • @PearsonArtPhoto The linked Astronomical ABCD...! question contained 23 out of 26 items already, and only asked for the last three missing letters. That would have been a better strategy here perhaps. – uhoh Dec 01 '17 at 01:01
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    For the record, the mods there didn't like it there, they just weren't as fast to close it. I don't really think it belongs there, but I don't really have a say of moderation there. I did ask around, and it's pretty universal, this kind of question isn't really a question, and isn't appropriate for the site. It could possibly do for a meta question, but not on the main site. – PearsonArtPhoto Dec 01 '17 at 03:50

2 Answers2

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British, very seriously proposed and investigated (and the Black Arrow orbited a satellite after it was cancelled): $$\begin{array} {r l} \text{Black Arrow}^1 & \text{1 engine with 8 combustion chambers} \\ \text{Europa}^2 & \text{2 rocket engines} \\ \text{MUSTARD}^3 & \text{3 engines (one in each of the triamese craft)} \\ \text{Interim Hotol}^4 & \text{4 engines} \\ \text{Skylon D1}^5 & \text{6 engines with 12 combustion chambers/nozzles.}^* \\ \hline \text{The BIS Space Ship (1939)}^6 & \text{168 solid motors}^{**} \end{array}$$

* two engines per nacelle, two SOMA engines in the tail. All running during the latter parts of the ascent.

** OK, perhaps not so seriously

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Arrow
  2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europa_(rocket)
  3. umm...
  4. err...
  5. https://web.archive.org/web/20160328220308/http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/tech_docs/SKYLON_Users_Manual_Rev_2.1.pdf
  6. http://www.bis-space.com/what-we-do/projects/bis-lunar-spaceship
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DylanSp
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