Apollo II, Putting a Man on the Moon, July 1969.
 

Damn this used to be a fine USA country with pride, goals, and direction.


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Saturn IV, lets put a man on the moon.

Launched July 16th 1969, moon landing July 20th, 1969.


It was the largest, most powerful rocket ever built and, having served as the launch platform for the Apollo manned moon mission, probably qualifies as the most famous rocket as well.

The Saturn V's task may have been the most monumental in a clearly audacious project. While earlier rockets struggled to put even small capsules into Earth orbit, the Apollo program needed to heft a complex package consisting of a Command Module, a lunar lander and a capsule capable of returning home after a round trip of more than a half-million miles.

It took more than a decade of debate to come up with the final design of the Saturn V and the Apollo spacecraft it would blast into the heavens. Research on a 1 million-pound thrust engine actually began in 1953. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) gave approval to the Saturn development program on New Year's Eve, 1959.

A team led by German-born Wernher von Braun at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., came up with a 3-stage design that stood 363 ft. tall--60 ft. taller than the Statue of Liberty--when the Apollo spacecraft was sitting on the launchpad. When fully loaded with propellants, the rocket weighed 6.2 million pounds. It had more than 3 million parts. At full throttle, its five first-stage engines produced a thundering 7.6 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. All told, a Saturn V churned out more power than 85 Hoover Dams or, if you prefer, enough energy to light up New York City for 75 minutes.



Blast Off
A moon mission was, in a sense, a study in attrition. Igniting seconds before actual liftoff, turbopumps with the power of 30 diesel locomotives forced 15 tons of kerosene and liquid oxygen fuel per second into the five F-1 engines. The first stage burned for approximately 2.5 minutes, driving the astronauts into their seats with the equivalent of 4.5 times the force of gravity, or 4.5 g's. After rising to an altitude of 38 miles, the 138-ft.-long, 33-ft.-dia. first stage shut off, separated, and burned up while dropping back through the atmosphere.

The second stage, relying on two J-2 engines, burned 260,000 gal. of liquid hydrogen and 83,000 gal. of liquid oxygen for 6 minutes, lifting the spacecraft to 115 miles before separating.

The third stage consisted of a single J-2 engine that generated 225,000 pounds of thrust and burned for another 2.75 minutes, producing an orbital velocity of around 17,500 mph. But it did not immediately separate. Instead, the remaining structure continued to orbit Earth until a "go/no-go" decision was made by Mission Control in Houston. At that time, the third-stage rocket, technically known as an S-IVB, reignited and achieved "translunar injection." Once escape velocity, the speed needed to overcome Earth's gravity, or 24,500 mph, was achieved, the S-IVB was discarded as well.

The process of elimination continued over the course of the mission. The lower level of the Lunar Excursion Module was left on the moon. By the time three weary astronauts splashed down during their water landing, only a small capsule survived the long and costly mission.

In all, including test flights, 13 Saturn V rockets were launched.


Big Grins Time; You Want Loud Horsepower? CRANK the volume:


Apollo 11: Launch July 16, 1969 - YouTube

Thanks for the reminder, Dave. I'll bet most folks alive then still remember where they were when they saw Armstrong take that first step.

I was with my parents in a tiny (think 15X20) sidewalk market in Honolulu, watching on a grainy 12" or so B&W TV . . . . can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, but I remember that like it was yesterday.

I'm proud to say my Dad worked on the Big Kahuna of all Rockets.


Yes we'd get up to watch, on any one of the three TV networks, when you had to get up and walk across the room to twist the knob on the black/white TV that was of course on the TV tray, those early morning launches of Redstone, and Gemini, then Apollo missions...


And yes Buzz Aldrin haricuts looked cool.

penny4nasa:

Neil deGrasse Tyson - We Stopped Dreaming (Episode 1) - YouTube

That, landing on the moon, is one of the few events in my life I'll never forget. Watched it on TV in our family room.
I have my doubts as to whether or not our country could ever do something like that again.
Mars?
Who are you trying to kid.

that "we stopped dreaming" video really makes me feel hollow and sad as a people and society.

The moon landing, Kennedy assassination, attack on the twin towers are all events that I will never forget where I was when I first heard of it.

As I've posted before, the rumble of the Earth in our sleepy little town of Huntsville when those Sat. V rockets were fired on the test stand made you think the ground was going to crumble under your feet. Thank goodness they warned us on radio/TV days before the firings so you could move breakable objects to a safe place.

Outside the project itself, one of the more fascinating things related to Apollo that I like to think about is .. well, just thinking about all the $&@* that Wehrner von Braun was around in his life. I mean... starting as a kid in the early 1900's all the way up to space stations and people living aboard them when he died in 1977. In between, throw two world wars in there, and Adolf Hitler. Then coming the the US and being the lead scientist in a massive team of people which put men on the friggin moon.

You guys flew to the moon at the same time we made Concorde.
What a time to have been around - just every idea seemed possible.
Pity we haven't moved on from there and if anything, stepped back.
I have visited the Cape once - place just blew me away explaining to my 12 year old son that this is what we used to make.

The good old days ? At the same time they were burning down cities and rioting on campuses.

Not sayin' it wasn't a tumultuous time, but just think of what came out of that era.
Each of us probably has more computing power sitting on our desks right now than that capsule had going to the moon.

The DREAM was actually a lie, a way to fool the American public into dumping an unprecedented amount of money into a weapons program to develop ICBMs to blow up the soviet union before they blew us up.
A concept I supported, but not in the veiled disguise of a race to the moon.
And perpetuating that lie has cost us trillions.

hey but whatever makes you FEEL good ..............

Would not the ICBM program have proceded even without the moon shot? Was not the Apollo program built with the existing US ICBM technology? The military, parallel to the NASA program, also had a secret astronaut crew in place for military maned space missions.

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Wernher von Braun

People complained about the cost back then (even though 'nam was much more expensive) and after 11 landed the mission was accomplished, we had got the technological benefit promised and they cancelled the last missions. Now we glorify that society but really there were some things worse (the south, vietnam) and some things better (we got stuff done) but we still argue about gov't spending.

I went to school late every time there was a Mercury launch. The teacher excused my lateness provided that I gave the class a report on what I had seen and heard. I've always been a nerd.

Thanks for the reminder, probably the only time the whole world stopped to watch an incredible accomplishment of the human race.

That's because in those days they didn't have PARF, twitter for twits, facebook etc. so moral outrage could be expressed in the comfort of your home or car... you actually had to put in some effort and show up.