X-Nico

9 unusual facts about Saturn V


Boeing 377

:Conversion of one 377-10-26, incorporating an enlarged upper deck and a fuselage lengthened by 16 feet to carry sections of the Saturn V rocket.

Budget of NASA

The costs associated with the Apollo spacecraft and Saturn rockets amounted to about $83-billion in 2005 Dollars (Apollo spacecraft cost $28-billion (Command/Service Module $17-billion; Lunar Module $11-billion), Saturn I, Saturn IB, Saturn V costs about $ 46-billion 2005 dollars).

Goal programming

The first engineering application of goal programming, due to Ignizio in 1962, was the design and placement of the antennas employed on the second stage of the Saturn V.

Information Centre for History and Technology, Peenemünde

In the mid-1960s, building on his technical experience from Peenemünde, Wernher von Braun was able to design the Saturn V rocket for NASA that was used to fly to the moon.

Manned Venus Flyby

The proposed mission would use a Saturn V to send three men to fly past Venus in a flight which would last approximately one year.

McDonnell Douglas

Douglas also gained contracts from NASA, notably for part of the enormous Saturn V rocket.

Moon rocket

Saturn V - the Apollo program launcher for the manned moon landings

Of a Fire on the Moon

After spending time at the space center and mission control in Houston, and witnessing the launch of the colossal Saturn V rocket at Cape Kennedy in Florida, Mailer began writing his account of the historic voyage at his home in Provincetown, Massachusetts during marathon writing sessions to meet his deadlines for the magazine.

Propulsive Fluid Accumulator

Boeing has suggested a non-extractive propellant depot, or "space gas station," which accumulates material launched from the planet at low cost, allowing future lunar missions without the need for large launch vehicles like the Saturn V.


James May on the Moon

The show saw May interviewing Apollo moonwalkers Harrison Schmitt, Alan Bean, and Charlie Duke, before himself experiencing weightlessness and G-forces similar to that of a Saturn V rocket launch.

Moon Machines

It covers everything from the iconic Saturn V to the Command Module, the Lunar Module, the Space Suits, the Guidance and Control Computer, and the Lunar Rover.

Phillips Report

The so-called "Phillips report" was a document summarizing a review conducted in November-December 1965 by a NASA team headed by Lt Gen Samuel C. Phillips, director of the Apollo manned Moon landing program, to investigate schedule slippage and cost overruns incurred by North American Aviation, manufacturer of the Command/Service Module spacecraft and the second stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle.

Saturn C-5N

The Saturn C-5N was a conceptual version of the Saturn V launch vehicle which would have had a nuclear third stage instead of the S-IVB used on the Saturn V. This would have increased the payload to Low Earth orbit of the rocket from 118,000 kg to 155,000 kg.

Surface-mount technology

The design approach first demonstrated by IBM in 1960 in a small-scale computer was later applied in the Launch Vehicle Digital Computer used in the Instrument Unit that guided all Saturn IB and Saturn V vehicles.

Titanium dioxide

The exterior of the Saturn V rocket was painted with titanium dioxide; this later allowed astronomers to determine that J002E3 was the S-IVB stage from Apollo 12 and not an asteroid.

William Kwong Yu Yeung

He also discovered the object J002E3, which was first thought to be an asteroid, but is now known to be part of a Saturn V Rocket that propelled Apollo 12 into space.


see also

Gregory Webster

Soon after he was the main protagonist in Saturn V. In 1997 he founded Sportique, his present band, with Mark Flunder and Rob Pursey.

Marion Power Shovel Company

Marion also designed and built the NASA Crawler-transporter used to transport both the Saturn V rocket and later the Space Shuttle to their launch pads at the Kennedy Space Center, Florida.

Mobile Launcher Platform 3

After NASA decided to move Saturn IB launches from LC-34 to LC-39, it was modified by the addition of a structure known as the Milkstool, which allowed the Saturn IB to use the same Launch Umbilical Tower as the much larger Saturn V. Three manned flights to Skylab, and the Apollo launch for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, were conducted from ML-1 using the Milkstool.

SA-500

SA-500F, prototype NASA Saturn V rocket used for facilities integration

Saturn-Shuttle

But because of the need to keep costs down and to allow President Richard Nixon to approve the shuttle program in 1972, NASA decided to utilize segmented solid rocket boosters similar to those used on the Titan III rocket instead of the S-IC, thus ending the Saturn program after the initial Saturn V order was completed.