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The ‘Biggest Bomb’ Pushes Man Toward the Moon
by michael shinabery
Man’s first step on the lunar surface was a decade away when the NASA’s “study” of the Saturn rocket’s “upper stages” was finished on Dec. 15, 1959, according to the website astronautix.com. Just 2-1/2 years had passed since Dr. Wernher von Braun had “proposed” the booster, said “A Historical Look at United States Launch Vehicles: 1967-Present” (Anser/March 1988).
Saturn’s “primary goal” was “to develop a launch vehicle capable of sending men to the Moon with the necessary equipment allowing them to return safely.” The project wasn’t an easy sell. Initially, the Department of Defense Advanced Research Project Agency had, on Aug. 15, 1958, given “approval for (the) research and development program,” said “Space Travel: A History” (Harper/1985). DARPA, though, lacked adequate funds “because of Eisenhower administration budget limits for FY 1960,” Dr. Michael Neufeld documented in “Von Braun: Dreamer of Space/Engineer of War” (Knopf/2008). So, in January 1959, von Braun publicly pleaded “for an extra $50 million to $60 million for the big rocket. He did not get it.”
About the same time, NASA, not even three months old, chose to assimilate the project.
“The original impetus for Saturn envisioned a brawny booster to launch Department of Defense payloads,” nasa.gov said. “The von Braun team at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency received money from to demonstrate the concept.”
A decade later, the Saturn V would boost astronauts Moonward.
A Saturn V lifts the Apollo 11astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, away from Earth in July 1969. – NASA
“It might seem logical to narrate the story of Saturn V’s various stages from the bottom up, beginning with the S-IC stage,” nasa.gov said. “However, the stages were not built that way. The Saturn V third stage, the S-IVB, evolved first, based on upper stages of the Saturn I and Saturn IB. … The S-IC and S-II stages, while sharing a common diameter, used different propellants. Although S-II contracts were let prior to those of the S-IC, the S-II became the pacing item in the Saturn program, completing its firing tests later than the other components.”
NASA carried out six Saturn I tests from 1961-64, history.nasa.gov said, with the first lifting off from Cape Canaveral in October 1961. That mission “recorded more than 500 measurements on a 200-mile trajectory,” said “Space Travel: A History.”
“The first five (Saturn I) launches were used primarily to test the launch vehicle and its many subsystems,” said “A Historical Look at United States Launch Vehicles.” The second and third liftoffs “were used to qualify boilerplate models of the three-man Apollo Lunar spacecraft in earth orbit.” One deployed Project High Water, releasing 30,000 gallons of water at 94 miles altitude “to study the effects on radio transmission and changes in local weather conditions,” science.ksc.nasa.gov documented. “Explosive devices ruptured (tanks) and in just five seconds, ground observers saw the formation of a huge ice cloud estimated to be several (miles) in diameter.”
Four operational Saturn I launches occurred from 1964-65, with the final one in July 1965. The latter three carried Pegasus satellites that studied micrometeorite impacts.
Nine Saturn IB launches followed, the first in February 1966.While the first stage remained unchanged, the second was increasingly powerful. Saturn IBs boosted unmanned missions, as well as Apollo VII, the first manned Apollo; sent a crew to Skylab; and, on July 15, 1975, lifted the Americans who would meet up with Soviet cosmonauts during the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program.
Astronaut Frank Borman, who commanded Apollo VIII in December 1968, described, in his autobiography “Countdown,” awaiting launch atop a Saturn.
“It swayed slightly in the early morning breeze and I heard the gurgles of the fuels being routed for ignition. It seemed like listening to the digestive system of an overfed giant whose stomach is acting up.” At liftoff, he said, “the noise generated by 3,000 tons of metal pushing through the atmosphere” trailed beneath them.
The first Saturn V, Apollo-Saturn 501, launched the unmanned Apollo 4 on Nov. 9, 1967, said pao.ksc.nasa.gov. According to Neufeld, AS-501’s success was “absolutely critical” because NASA was “still reeling from the (Apollo I) fire” that killed three astronauts. AS-501 performed flawlessly.
The Moon-bound Saturn V missions were Apollos 11-17.
“NASA Facts” (Vol. IV, No. 5) called the Saturn V, at 363 feet, the “mightiest space vehicle.”
“Everything about the Saturn 5 was big,” John Noble Wilford described in “We Reach The Moon” (Bantam/1969). “Its first, or booster, stage was the biggest aluminum cylinder ever machined. Its valves were as big as barrels, its fuel pumps (for feeding engines at the rate of 700 tons of fuel a minute) were bigger than refrigerators, its pipes were big enough for a man to crawl through and its engines were the size of trucks.”
Cutaway of the Saturn V, shown with the F-1 engine configuration. An F-1 is on display at the New Mexico Museum of Space History, in Alamogordo. – NASA
Cutaway of the Saturn V, shown with the F-1 engine configuration. – NASA
Martin Caidin wrote in the April 1970 Popular Mechanics that the Saturn V was “the biggest bomb ever made. … 6,400,000 pounds of supercold, superhot hell waiting to explode in a titanic blast if just one of several million parts doesn’t work exactly as designed.”
“During the launch the first stage’s five engines would burn 200,000 (gallons) of propellants per minute, generating the equivalent of 160 million horsepower,” Neufeld said. “Fortune magazine noted that the vehicle had the orbital payload capacity equivalent to1,500 Sputniks, 9,000 Explorer 1s, or 42 Gemini spacecraft.”
Of the 32 Saturn flights, only Apollo VI failed. “Two of the second-stage engines shut down prematurely and the third stage engine failed to reignite in orbit,” Wilford said.
As NASA’s budget in the early 1970s declined under President Richard Nixon, the agency dismantled Saturn. “Space Travel: A History” called that “an incredible decision by the world’s most powerful spacefaring nation.” One of mankind’s greatest achievements was now relegated to history, and that rankled New Mexico astronaut Harrison “Jack” Schmitt. A remark that Nixon made as Apollo XVII left the Moon – “This may be the last time in this century that men will walk on the Moon” – prompted a response before the crew even splashed down. A Nov. 29, 1992 Associated Press article published in the El Paso Times reported Schmitt said Nixon’s comment “was an inappropriate statement for the president of the United States to make.” The story said Schmitt “has never forgiven Nixon for that remark and says he never will.”
Michael Shinabery is an education specialist with the New Mexico Museum of Space History. E-mail him at [email protected].
Source: http://moonandback.com/2013/12/17/the-biggest-bomb-pushes-man-toward-the-moon/
