From: utzoo!decvax!cca!David.Smith@CMU-10A@sri-unix Newsgroups: net.space Title: rating rockes in horsepower Article-I.D.: sri-unix.1459 Posted: Thu May 13 23:32:09 1982 Received: Fri May 14 05:34:12 1982 From: David.Smith at CMU-10A (C410DS30) Rating rockets in horsepower is mainly useful for producing impressive numbers. The horsepower equivalent of a pound of thrust is directly proportional to the velocity. When the SSMEs are firing on the pad with the holddowns on, the SSMEs produce zero horsepower. But 3 x 430,000 pounds applied at 17,000 mph comes to 58,480,000 horsepower.