Hi there. I wanted to compare single unit rockets to ones that rely on SRBs for assistance in getting them into space. It seems to me like the rockets in Gemini and Apollo, which I believe were all multi-stage liquid rockets, gradually powered their way through the atmosphere with engines that later increased in thrust and efficiency once they were supersonic and through max Q. They used roughly the same type of fuel the whole way through launch. The shuttle on the other hand, seemed to have a system which relied on separate rocket boosters that quickly lifted them out of the atmosphere and used a mixture of fuels (solid fuel for the boosters and liquid fuel for the shuttle). It also seemed unable to climb very high once the SRBs were separated. It reached orbital velocity roughly 30 miles lower than the Saturn V, but 3 minutes sooner. The shuttle system also was burning all of its engines simultaneously and constantly losing weight, whereas the Saturn V gradually lost weight one stage at a time. I guess my question on all this...which of these costs less in terms of fuel and which is a better way to get payload into orbit. Fast and furious, or gradual? And when does it make more sense to build an extremely powerful single unit rocket, or one that utilizes SRB strap-ons? And also, I'm just mainly trying to figure out why the shuttle launches and Saturn V ones operated in the manner they did.

I'm also wondering, on a side note, why the Saturn V's first stage only generated roughly the same total thrust as the entire shuttle system when the weight of the vehicle was much greater. Von Braun when I heard him speak in a video seemed perfectly satisfied with 7.5 million pounds of thrust. The N-1 rocket was designed for 9 million pounds of thrust. I guess my question is, it seems like we were capable of designing a more powerful booster, so why didn't we? Thanks. If I'm repetitive in my past few threads, I don't mean to be. As I find out more, I have even more questions.