Check out the Convair Nexus rocket. The giant rocket that never got off.

Here is a feature from the YouTube channel “Escape Velocity” where they talk a little more about a giant rocket that NASA was considering building in the 1960s.

The giant rocket went under the name “Nexus” and would be able to transport nearly 450,000 kg of material to Earth’s orbit and the moon. Plans for the Nexus were launched in 1962, at a time when the United States was considering building a permanent base on the moon. In order for this to be possible, large amounts of material would be required and then also a craft that could transport this to the moon.

Nexus was originally planned to run on liquid hydrogen, but there were also plans to build a nuclear-powered version of the craft. The whole thing was a pretty spectacular rocket as you can see in the clip above. However, NASA and their partner Convair never built a Nexus rocket and some of the reasons why this did not happen are also told in the clip.

Science, Space,

rockets, nexus, Convair, space history, general dynamics

General Dynamics Nexus

The NEXUS reusable rocket was a concept design created in the 1960s by a group at General Dynamics led by Krafft Arnold Ehricke. It was intended as the next leap beyond the Saturn V, carrying up to eight times more payload. Several versions were designed, including 12,000 and 24,000 short ton vehicles with payloads of one thousand and two thousand short tons respectively. The larger version had a diameter of 202 feet. It was never built.