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.