I was in grade school when Apollo flew. We had no TV, so videos have some extra thrill. At last I see it fly.

Apollo was truly a most magnificent achievement. We built that rocket, and rode it to the moon. The gods that we once imagined are pale in comparison.

One of our regulars was a sound engineer for Technicolor. They put a microphone, covered with ablative, somewhere near the flame. When they played what it got for others, they weren’t believed, even though they modeled for the enclosure and corrected for that – “it sounds like radio static”. Then one of the engine guys said no, shut up, that’s what it should sound like in there – “you’re listening to the thunderstorm.” It turns out there’s really lightning in there among all the ionized gases.

If any of you get the chance, see the Saturn V Exhibit at KSC. They’ve actually dragged the real flight equipment out of warehouses and set up Mission Control at KSC for a simulation of the night launch of Apollo 17.

I saw them all, and cheered them on. Here was something we could do that was all positive.

Don’t forget to look Apollo up elsewhere, and try not to be bummed that 47 years will have passed between 17 and the next American landing.

Yes, three in fact: 69 seconds for the first N-1 rocket after reaching an altitude of over 12 km; 51 seconds for the third rocket after reaching an altitude of 1 km; 107 seconds for the fourth rocket after reaching an altitude of 40 km. Extract from Wikipedia — N-1 rocket:

February 21, 1969: Due to unexpected high-frequency oscillations in the gas generator, one of the pipes broke apart and a fire started. This fire reached the engine control system which at the 68.7 s of flight sent the command to shutdown the engines. The rocket exploded at 12,200 m altitude, 69 seconds after liftoff.

July 3, 1969: At liftoff a loose bolt was ingested into a fuel pump, which failed. After detecting the inoperative fuel pump, the automatic engine control shut off 29 of 30 engines, which caused the rocket to stall. The rocket exploded 23 seconds after shutting off the engines, destroying the rocket and launch tower in the biggest explosion in the history of rocketry.

June 27, 1971: Vehicle serial number 6L – experienced an uncontrolled roll immediately after liftoff beyond the capability of the control system to compensate; the vehicle was destroyed 51 seconds after liftoff at 1 km altitude.

November 23, 1972: Vehicle serial number 7L – the engines ran for 106.93 seconds after which Pogo oscillation of the first stage caused engine cutoff at 40 km altitude; a programmed shutdown of some of the engines to prevent over-stressing of the structure led to an explosion of engine number 4. The vehicle disintegrated.

The last men who did this are now eligible for Medicare and Social Security. That, folks, is just pathetic.

You’re thinking of the Nova system which was never an actual rocket design. It was a mission feasibility study concept and code-name that was used 1959-1964 and later for potential Mars missions that would have been follow-ons to Apollo. During the early days, Saturn was called Juno and Nova was its much more powerful cousin. Ultimately Juno and Nova’s elements were merged into the Saturn design.

In 1963 NASA considered using strap-on solids to be able to loft one million pounds into orbit. That idea was discarded due to the uncontrollable nature of solid rocket boosters. See: Challenger Incident.

The idea was revived, albeit not very seriously, when Nova was resurrected and considered as a delivery system for Mars whenb Apollo’s missions ended.

We got the Space Transportation System instead because Nixon chose not to go to Mars and decided to merge NRO and NASA interests and provide the NRO with a way to service Keyhole satellites in orbit…and do other stuff too.

The Lunex Project in the 1950′s also considered solids. Lunex was an Air Force initiative to go to the moon which never got off of the drawing board.

That won’t last another decade. Ares V will toss 188,000 Kg into orbit vs. 118,000 Kg for the Saturn-V.

Cool (for me): I saw every single Saturn launch, I-B or V, in person. Closest was 5 NM on the Banana River Causeway. Some mission called Apollo 11 — maybe you’ve heard of it?

Cooler: My grandfather was MIS at KSC during Apollo. They had a wee bit of data and telemetry to obtain and manage.

Best part: My uncle was the Lead Engineer for the S-I-C project for Boeing/Huntsville. That’s what you’re watching in action in the video.

When I say space is the family business, I am not kidding.

We should never have gotten rid of it.

Can you imagine what today’s space program would be like if we didn’t scrap the Saturn V, and it’s smaller cousin, the Saturn 1B?

I heard of designs of the Saturn V to have solid boosters added. Imagine what THAT could’ve done!

The video description has info on which segment corresponds to which mission.

Ares V will be a big sucker, but still won’t be a Saturn V.

Tom

Regarding the “fireball suckback” phenomenon: I believe that the initial fireball seen is the exhaust from the gas generators which drive the turbine pumps for the fuel and oxidizer. The exhaust from these generators is vented out through the exhaust bell; on Atlas launches it can be seen coming out of a separate exhaust below and to the side of the main engines.

Once there is enough speed in the turbopumps and the engines ignite, there is sufficient downdraft to draw down the initial fireball.

Although… given the specifics of Saturn’s five huge F-1 engine bells and the corresponding acoustics, I believe it’s more earth shattering than 30 smaller engines, even for a smaller amount of thrust. It’s not ranked the loudest man-made object after a nuclear detonation for nothing, after all.

Also, didn’t one N-1 go some 80 seconds into the flight before failing? Not exactly an on-the-pad explosion (western) people like to joke about. Given more time I’m sure the russian designers would have worked out the problems, even though I don’t personally like the concept of that many engines and stages. That’s why the Falcon 9 Heavy makes me uneasy as well – 27 engines!

Edward: the first stage of the Saturn V (aka the S-IC) burned for two and a half minutes. Then the whole glorious machine was cut loose and fell into the Atlantic Ocean. One of the awesome statistics about the Saturn V is that each of the F1 engines burned one ton of kerosene fuel and two tons of liquid oxygen… per second.

I am not denying that fact; the Saturn V article that I linked at my above post stated: “It remains the largest and most powerful launch vehicle ever brought to operational status from a height, weight and payload standpoint.”

What I was trying to point out was the fact that the Saturn V rocket was not the most powerful rocket ever made — there is a difference in definition.

Extract from the N-1 rocket article (link above):

Generally the N1 produced much more thrust than the Saturn V. However, as it used only kerosene fuel in all three of its stages, it had somewhat lesser overall performance than the Saturn V; the N1 stack could place about 95 tons of payload into Low Earth orbit, whereas the Saturn V could orbit about 130 tons. The US’s earlier work with liquid hydrogen propellant gave them the confidence to use this lightweight fuel on their upper stages, which significantly reduced the upper stages’ take-off weight and led to a higher payload fraction.

You see, one of the problems of the N-1 was the heavy kerosene fuel — because it was cheap and plentiful — that it carried in the second and third stages, which meant that there was less available payload weight for it to carry.

The second and major problem of the N-1 was its complex plumbing: 30 NK-33 engines — of a radical ‘closed cycle’ design — which had to be supplied with fuel and oxidizer. Whereas the Saturn V only had 5 very large ‘open cycle’ engines — less efficient, but more reliable.

Also, the N1′s Baikonur launch complex could not be reached by heavy barge. To allow transport by rail, all the stages had to be broken down and re-assembled. As a result, the complex and destructive vibrational modes (which ripped apart propellant lines and turbines) as well as exhaust plume fluid dynamic problems (causing vehicle roll, vacuum cavitation, and other problems) were not discovered and worked out before flight. These problems, coupled with lack of funding for proper testing, the N-1′s 30-engine cluster was a recipe for disaster.

Yes, DrFlimmer, there was a “magnificent” explosion on the launch pad!

The N-1 had just one maiden flight, I think…. the explosion (moments after lift-off) must have been very “magnificent”

Also, the Saturn V is still the most powerful OPERATIONAL rocket ever made, the N-1 never even made it past 1st stage flight.

IMHO, it will remain the most powerful rocket for quite some time yet as the Ares V program collapses under it’s own ludicrous statements of “safer, simpler, sooner”. Even now, about the only thing Ares V baseline has actually GOT in common with the Shuttle technology is the orange foam of the external tank. How’s that for Shuttle-derived? That thing just keeps mounting technical and infrastructure problems (height issues, weight issues, performance issues, etc.) and it’s headed straight for cancellation. NASA would be wise to switch to DIRECT alternative A.S.A.P. which basically has just one vehicle design and so it wouldn’t be at risk of cancellation as the puny Ares I might be the only thing left after Ares V is axed. Can you say “goodbye, Moon”?

I always wondered about that dark plume. Thanks!

The Saturn V is still the most powerful rocket ever made.

ADDENDUM: Further to my above post at RD-170 rocket engine, the Russian N-1 Moon rocket was the most powerful rocket ever built: a cluster of 30 NK-15 engines — known as the NK-33 — produced a thrust of 4620 metric tons (10 million lbf) of thrust. This far exceeded the 3469 metric ton (7.65 million lbf) thrust of the Saturn V.