After a decade of work, NASA is less than four days from putting a man on the Moon. Like President Kennedy said, ” I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieve the goal of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the earth”But in 1961, when Kennedy pledged to put a man on the Moon, NASA had little idea of how to get there. It was the most audacious thing NASA has ever attempted in its history.
When America says it’s going to do something, it does it. A new rocket was needed to rise to the challenge. But developing such a colossal machine would push science and engineering to their limits. These were people who weren’t going to accept that failure was an option. What they achieved is a little short of a miracle. And it is still the most powerful rocket ever built. This article tells the incredible story of how NASA built the machine that flew man to the Moon.
Mission to the Moon
In November 1961 NASA pilots test the x-15 rocket plane speeding to Mach 6. NASA reaches out to the edge of space. But unbeknown to the American public, these rockets’ have been built on technology from an unlikely source. 1940 world war two fits of rage as London burns under relentless aerial bombardment, but deep within nazi Germany, Hitler’s plans for a new long-range superweapon are being hatched.
The V2 rocket is the world’s first ballistic missile and will leave Britain defenseless. But the V2 has come at a great cost to the German war effort. However, these early lessons in rocketry will mark the surprising first steps toward manned space flight. And the mastermind behind the V2 rocket is scientist Wernher von Braun. He will later become an unlikely giant of the American space program.
The blending of American and German rocket brains
At the end of the war, u.s agents captured over 100 german scientists, including von Braun, and recruited them to develop weapons for the U.S. Army. The story of von Braun’s arrival in the United States dates back much further than that. It was very clear that the allies were winning the war. They had to decide who they should surrender to. They were too concerned about the treatment that they would get from the Russians. And that left the only option to the united states. Von Braun and his team were shipped over to the states in September 1945 along with 15 tons of paperwork and more than 100 V-2 rockets on arrival in America. Von Braun continues to develop the V-2 rocket for the U.S. Army, working on the rockets captured from Germany.
Von Braun and his team were clearly interested in pushing the technology forwards, improving the performance of the V-2, refining some of the systems that controlled the flight eventually. They started flying two two-stage rockets. Where the V-2 was the first stage, and they had an additional booster as the second stage. With this small young missile called the “WAC corporal” fresh out of Pasadena, California.
The V-2 was a combination, marked for the first time, the blending action of American and German rocket brains. A combination that was destined to have its rendezvous with history as the cold war gathers momentum. Both superpowers realize the conflict will be won or lost on the power of technology. With missiles reaching higher and higher altitudes, it becomes clear that the ultimate symbol of superiority will be the conquest of space.
The battle between two superpowers
The space race was essentially an arms race, but rather than using weapons of war. It was about the development of space technology. This battle was between two competing superpowers, communism capitalism, the united states, and the soviet union. And what better stage could there be for you to convince the rest of the world that your system was superior to the stage of space exploration supremacy in space was vital.
It said to the world we have technological superiority over our rivals, and this is why it came as such a shock to the united states when the Russians launched the first artificial satellite to orbit the earth. All the people on this fast shrinking planet heard about it. Many of them watched it, all of them read about it. In 1957 the U.S learned of several spectacular soviet space victories that sent shock waves across America. October 4, 1957, the soviet union launched Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite. Sputnik really put the united states into crisis was a global event. The Americans were absolutely shocked that a dictatorship suddenly beat them to the first hurdle, which was to put the first object into orbit around the earth.
Every day it was orbiting the earth 16 times, and every day it was passing over American territory. There was nothing they could do about it, and that’s why it had such a powerful effect on their psyche. On November 3, 1957, the earth’s second artificial satellite went into orbit. One month later, America suffers further humiliation as Sputnik 2 carries life into orbit. A dog named Laika. It was a massive leap in the eyes of the public and technologically as well in desperation. The united states looked to the vanguard of nearly 200 newsmen from all over the world who were flown down for the big turkey shoot, and inside the blockhouse, the tension steadily mounted.
NASA is born
America’s prestige had never been lower than at this moment on December 6, 1957. It’s a terrible feeling when things don’t go right, and it’s also a terrible feeling when things don’t go right for your colleagues, you feel dreadfully for other engineers as people were basking in the ore over sputnik this was called flopnik because of course, it got nowhere. It was at that point the American army with von Braun were unleashed to launch a satellite within 60 days, and von Braun and his Army team launched the first American satellite on January 31, 1958 lift up.
In 1958 Washington formed a research organization to accelerate an American space program. NASA is born. Von Braun was enveloped within this expanding NASA organization that hoovered up all of those different departments of air force army and civilian activities to create the infrastructure that could mobilize major programs. Von Braun and his men immediately begin work on a heavy lift vehicle that they believe will give America the lead in the space race.
Having stumbled at every hurdle in the race, there was further humiliation for the united states with the launch of yuri Gagarin. He was the first human being to orbit the earth, and that’s all he did, one complete orbit and then land successfully. I say that’s all he did, but we need to remember, of course, that every second he was traveling five miles, and he landed as a global hero. He was fated by the soviet union as a triumph of what was possible under a communist society.
It really put a lot of pressure on the white house. How could you have let our country fall behind so badly? How could it be possible that the Russians could launch an artificial satellite and then secondly launch a human being, so the Americans felt this very, very deeply? Kennedy said at the time, “we’re going to have to take more hits before we pull ahead, and that was the view. Simply head down, focus, keep going.
Nova and Saturn V
One month later, the united states responded with Project Mercury and launched astronaut Alan Shepard to become America’s first man in space. Although Shepard’s flight is a success, President Kennedy believes America must now show the world they can supersede all soviet achievements. President Kennedy begins a tour of four space installations at Huntsville, Alabama, where he is greeted by Wernher von Braun. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space. And none will be so difficult or expensive. Kennedy’s will inspire the American people, calm hysteria, and unite an army of engineers to take up his challenge.
But in 1963, NASA had little idea of how to build a rocket capable of flying beyond earth’s orbit. Von Braun’s favorite design is a colossal rocket known as “Nova” capable of launching a large lunar lander. This heavy spacecraft would fly directly to the Moon to land on its surface before returning to earth.
When NASA was doing the very early designs for the whole Apollo mission, they developed a specification for the rocket, which was never built, called the Nova rocket, which would have been absolutely immense in size. The whole front end of which would have been a spacecraft weighing about 45 or 50 tonnes. This would have been such a colossal spacecraft with such weight that people did not know even if the surface of the Moon was sufficient to support the weight of such a huge stage.
The Nova design is eventually abandoned due to cost and complexity. NASA committed to an alternate design, a smaller launch vehicle comprised of three main stages, consisting of fuel tanks and engines. Each individual stage will burn at a specific time during launch. This stage design allows the heavy fuel tanks and engines to be discarded once used up, reducing the weight of the rocket as it climbs higher. This rocket will become an iconic symbol of the Apollo program; the mighty Saturn V. The Saturn v will send a small Apollo spacecraft to the Moon.
Unlike Nova, the Apollo spacecraft will be made of two modules with only a lightweight lander descending to the Moon’s surface. This lander can then rendezvous with the main spacecraft and return to earth. But before building the Saturn V, NASA must expand its understanding of multi-stage rockets. Work begins immediately on the Saturn I, a smaller test vehicle needed for trialing stage designs. And just five months after Kennedy’s pledge, the first Saturn I is ready for launch.
Over the next four years, NASA successfully launched a total of 10 Saturn I rockets to help perfect the liquid fuel dynamics and multi-stage designs needed for the larger Saturn V. By 1963 construction on the mighty Saturn V had begun with the most powerful engines ever built. Capable of launching man beyond earth orbit, the Saturn V will secure America’s dominance in the space race. But building such a colossal vehicle will require precision engineering on an unprecedented scale.
The Apollo Lunar Program was an absolutely enormous undertaking. At the height of the program, they had 375 000 people working on the project. The range of skills that were required was much much broader than any single company could cover. The chance of success would be maximized by bringing together the very best minds from the top companies in the united states. Under the direction of von Braun, Boeing North American aviation Douglas aircraft company and the leading computer giant IBM are all contracted to the Saturn project. And new launch sites, control centers, and vast support complexes are built across America.
The mighty F1 engine
The first stage of the Saturn V consists of two main components, the fuel tanks and the giant F1 engines. The 42-meter high first stage will be the largest section of the Saturn V, with most of its mass being made up of rocket fuel. Two tanks will hold kerosene and liquid oxygen for five F1 engines. Many people forget about the fuel tanks, but you must remember the challenges. The coldest temperature on the earth normally is about minus 88 centigrade in Antarctica.
They have to go well below those temperatures. For the fuel tanks to work efficiently, oxygen has to be cooled down massively until it becomes a liquid to have the amounts of oxygen they need to get the Saturn V into orbit. So, first of all, your fuel tanks have to function as some of the best cryogenic thermos flasks in the world. But you can’t make them so heavy that you’re never going to get them off the ground. So when you consider all of these challenges, it really was pushing science to its very limits.
Combustion instability in rocket engines
The five F-1 engines will do the heavy lifting, pushing the 3 000 ton vehicle to over 8 000 kilometers per hour. When you think about the Saturn V, the mind boggles. But it wasn’t going to go anywhere unless it had the right power plant, and this is where the F-1 engine came in. each of its engines could produce more than 620 tons of thrust.
The F-1 has actually been in development since 1955, but a cluster of five engines needed for the first stage will push current technology to its limits. But during testing, a discovery is made that threatens the entire Apollo mission. One of the biggest problems they faced was the issue of combustion instability. The individual motors burn three tons of fuel a second. Imagine three tons of fuel just disappearing every second; it’s quite extraordinary.
The flow of that amount of fuel into a cauldron of burning gas is a very complex physical process. The cause lies deep within the engine. Inconsistent fuel flow increases thrust raising pressure and restricting the fuel supply, which in turn reduces the thrust. So the decreased pressure now causes a surge of fuel, again boosting the engine.
The cycle continues with fatal consequences. They were actually getting a thrust flame which was streaking around the inside of the combustion chamber faster and faster and faster. This leads to massive instabilities in the engine. The engine was failing after just a few seconds. And believe me, when an engine of the power of the F-1 fails, it does so spectacularly and catastrophically. Thousands of engineers work tirelessly to solve the problem, eventually discovering that installing baffles to balance the fuel flow leads to a smoother, more stable burn.
When we look back at the challenges that the engineers faced, in a time when we didn’t have computational fluid dynamics modeling on supercomputers, what they achieved in those few short years is a little short of remarkable. These were people who weren’t going to accept that
failure was an option. They knew the time pressure. They felt there was a national goal. They were putting their hearts and souls into it.
So when they encountered difficulties, and when we look at the F-1 testing regime, boy were there difficulties, they didn’t give up. They just learned from the lessons, and they moved on. The F-1 stable the first five engine cluster on a fully developed first stage is test-fired. Collectively the five engines now produce an astounding 7.5 million pounds of thrust, meeting von Braun’s original specifications.
The four outer engines are then fitted on gimbals to direct their thrust for in-flight course corrections. It’s the nearest thing you can see to an explosion that isn’t quite an explosion. It’s quite stupendous to see something that is so nearly out of control and yet being controlled so precisely.
It’s that balance that makes you respect the people who can design and build equipment like that. Although the F-1 engines will only burn for two and a half minutes, they are a feat of engineering. And to this day remain the most powerful single-chamber liquid-fueled rocket engines ever built.
Saturn IB and project Gemini
In parallel to the development of the first stage, workers began building the apollo spacecraft that would fly the astronauts to the moon and back. But to flight test this apollo hardware, a new rocket is needed. Construction of the Saturn IB begins immediately with a new, more powerful second stage. This vehicle will launch a manned Apollo spacecraft into orbit for flight testing.
NASA selects 16 new astronauts for ten pioneering manned missions named the Project Gemini. Gemini will develop the techniques critical to the future success of a lunar mission. With the space program gathering momentum, the American people share a new sense of optimism. NASA defiantly presses on with the project Gemini. They made huge steps towards fulfilling President Kennedy’s dream and showing the world the America he believed in.
Gemini played an absolutely crucial role. Ten manned Gemini missions had to prove all the technologies that were going to be essential if the project was going to meet its challenge of landing a man on the moon. How do you get two spacecraft orbiting the earth at five miles a second to rendezvous and achieve a docking? Would a human being be able to survive 14 days in what we call the microgravity environment? Longer flight durations, docking maneuvers, and spacewalks are all practiced and perfected by the Gemini crews.
Rocketdyne J-2 engine
For the forthcoming Apollo Program, construction of the Saturn V’s third stage is well underway at the Douglas aircraft company. Stage 3 has two main roles requiring its single Rocketdyne J-2 engine to fire twice. The engine will first boost the spacecraft into earth orbit and later reignite, setting the ship on course for the moon.
But during J-2 testing, engineers encounter another serious engine problem. The entire assembly exploded, destroying the motor. The spherical tanks designed to pressurize the fuel system had ruptured. So a weld had failed, and the shrapnel created an enormous explosion that destroyed the motor and also seriously damaged the test stand.
In subsequent investigations, it was found that the weld for that sphere was out of specification. And in combination with multiple tests of over-pressuring the sphere, the assembly had weakened and led to that failure. Welding the fuel tanks of the Saturn V has proved to be a major challenge. Sophisticated modifications are made to equipment in order to produce the flawless welds needed to withstand the extreme in-flight stresses.
All welds are inspected and subject to a new policy of over-testing to destruction. The big secret with the engineering on the Saturn V lay in the experience of the German rocket pioneers. It was the uncompromising commitment to test, test, and retest and the very systematic development of one system after another. That was the reason why the Saturn program worked so well. Do you want to know more about welding and rockets? Head over to my article named; Welding Apollo Rockets.
The S-II (pronounced “S-two”)
Despite steady progress on the first and third stages, the second stage of the Saturn V at North American aviation is proving more difficult due to redesigns of the Apollo spacecraft. The Saturn V is too heavy, and the weight reduction must somehow come from the second stage.
The original design of stage two uses two separate fuel tanks, but designing a single fuel tank with a common bulkhead separating the two liquids will shorten stage two and dramatically reduce its weight. But this leaves stage two engineers facing one of the greatest challenges of the entire build. Two intensely cold, highly flammable liquids will now be separated by only a thin layer of insulation. This common bulkhead was one of the really challenging, potentially show-stopping problems.
With a difference of nearly 130 degrees across those two cryogenic fluids, hydrogen at -423 oxygen just the other side of a very thin wall minus 297, you couldn’t have a heat leak between the two. And the technology was stretched to the very limit in terms of the materials that were required for this common bulkhead. And all this was happening in parallel as these various stages were being developed. By May 1965, the shorter and lighter second stage is near completion. And in parallel, the instrument unit is also under construction.
During the motor burn, you’ve got to control the flow of fuel into the combustion chambers; you’ve got to control the direction in which the thrust is pointing. The engines are designed to move to steer the vehicle. The engines have to keep moving just to keep it on track, so you need the control computers that took signals from the various sensors telling it how to gimbal the motors so that the thrust was pointing in the direction that was necessary. You’ve got to think back to the 1960s and what computers were like then. Probably your electric watch has got more computing capacity than it had.
Launch escape system (LES)
The Lockheed propulsion company has designed and built the launch escape system (LES). The Saturn V vehicle stirred 110 meters. The final 10 meters attached to the top of the command module that the astronauts actually sat in was the launch escape tower. The launch escape tower was essentially to take the astronauts to a safe place in the event of a vehicle failure.
The rocket motor would pull the command module containing the astronauts away from the rocket, and it would divert them out towards the sea. The command module would come down into the water under its parachutes. With the astronauts out of harm’s way, they can be recovered by U.S. Navy.
Fire in the spacecraft
Throughout 1966 success follows success, and it seems nothing can stop the Apollo Program. But in January 1967, disaster struck. Astronauts Gus Grisson, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee border Saturn-IB for a routine static launch test. Once locked inside the capsule, a fire breaks out in the pure oxygen environment.
The fire flashes through the spacecraft, killing the trapped astronauts in seconds. The Apollo 1 fire was a shock; the expectation was that we would have difficulties and problems. There was no realization that within the design of the spacecraft itself lay deeply embedded serious engineering design flaws. And so the shock was a deeply incisive and damaging to a great extent impact on morale.
Gus Grissom himself said, “We expect to lose people in this business,” and he said, “it must not stop if lives are lost.” Sadly he was one of those whose life was lost. But there was a sense that just as the death of Kennedy had deepened the resolve to fulfill his commitment, so too were the loss of these three lives not going to reduce in any way the effort and the determination and the resolution to press on and get on the moon by the end of the decade.
The Apollo Program is delayed while NASA engineers apply new fire safety measures. But with the end of the decade looming, NASA bypasses its reliable incremental testing strategy and proceeds with the high-risk all-up flight test. All stages of the vehicle are assembled at the Kennedy space center, and the first Saturn V rocket will be launched as Apollo 4.
Apollo 6 and the “pogo” problem
After years of pioneering rocket design and engineering NASA’s first 135 million dollar Saturn V is ready for liftoff. It was the most remarkable scene, and it was the most impressive sight. The weight of a warship lifting vertically into the air was just breathtaking. Apollo 4 brings the dream of landing a man on the moon a huge step closer. But before astronauts can pilot the mighty Saturn V, further testing must take place.
NASA launched Apollo 6, their second unmanned Saturn V, in April 1968. NASA expects another perfect flight, but shortly after launch, Saturn V starts shaking violently. If these vibrations continue, the vehicle will break itself apart. The vibration is known as “pogo.” NASA engineers have encountered pogo before but never on this scale. Rockets vehicles such as the Thor, and even the Titan II used for the Gemini program, had a similar experience.
What is pogo?
Pogo is essentially a vibration that occurs along with the rocket. It’s created by the motion of the rocket changing the way that fuel flows along the fuel lines, which then varies the thrust. And it can become so violent that it actually destroys the vehicle.
As the first stage burn ends, the vibrations subside, but the damage caused is about to become clear. Four minutes into the second stage burn, two of the J-2 engines lose power and shut down. With two engines out, NASA prepares for a mission abort, but the remaining engines gimbal to correct the trajectory, and the rocket just reaches orbit. After this precarious flight, NASA investigates the pogo problem. Engineers discovered the pogo vibrations ruptured a fuel line causing the engines to fail. Apollo 6 flight data also reveals that astronauts would not have survived the violent vibrations had they been on board.
NASA must stop pogo. At one point in time, NASA had about a thousand engineers working on the pogo problem. NASA decided that the pogo suppression systems that had been developed that hadn’t been fitted because of the complexity and the cost and delays that they would have caused should then be fitted to all subsequent Saturn vibes. Although engineers fit suppression measures to the first stage F-1 engines, it will be several manned missions before they address the severe pogo of the second stage J-2s.
First manned mission of the Apollo Program
In October 1968, astronauts Commander Walter M. Schirra, with command module pilot Donn F. Eisele and lunar module pilot R. Walter Cunningham, fly aboard a Saturn IB on Apollo 7, the first manned mission of the Apollo Program. They give the apollo spacecraft a comprehensive system checkout in orbit. All hardware works perfectly, and the stage is set for further exploration.
Apollo 8 Christmas broadcast
December 1968 NASA chases Kennedy’s deadline with Apollo 8. Apollo 8 will be both the first manned flight of the Saturn V and the first time man will attempt to fly beyond Earth’s orbit to the Moon. It was the most audacious thing NASA has ever attempted in its history.
The challenge was not just to go to the Moon but to get back again. Apollo 8 was arguably the boldest decision that NASA has ever made in the history of human spaceflight. After years of design development and testing, the Saturn V is handed over to the crew of Apollo 8.
Apollo 8 successfully orbits the moon ten times and, on Christmas eve 1968, makes a historic television broadcast. “To the world for all the people back on earth, the crew of Apollo 8 has a message that we would like to send you; In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. And the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And God said; Let there be light, and there was light. And from the crew of Apollo 8, we close with a good night. Good luck, a merry Christmas, and God bless all of you. All of you on the good earth.”
Now with a fully functioning Saturn V, NASA accelerated towards a moon landing in March 1969. Apollo 9 orbited the earth for ten days conducting the first manned flight test of the lunar module. Two months later, apollo 10 returns to the moon to practice landing procedures flying the lunar module just eight miles above the surface.
With all testing is complete, the stage is now set to attempt a lunar landing. July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins board their Saturn V. Four days later, Armstrong sets foot on the moon, realizing Kennedy’s dream and securing America’s superiority in the space race.
Between 1968 and 1972, 24 men fly to the moon, and 12 walks upon its surface. As NASA grows in confidence, crews land in mountainous and valley terrain and explore vast areas of the moon. But on December 7th, 1972, man leaves the moon for the last time. Apollo 17 closes a remarkable chapter in the history of space flight.
In 1973 the final flight of the Saturn V launches America’s first space station. And the service of this remarkable vehicle comes to a distinguished end. The legacy of the Saturn V is the number of scientists and engineers, and teachers who were inspired by the sight of that magnificent outrageous rocket standing on the launchpad.
Saturn V was a totally remarkable vehicle; you just didn’t question it. It was a pinnacle of engineering and a pinnacle of man’s defiance of the laws of nature. It is still the most powerful rocket ever launched from the surface of the earth. Its whole purpose is the whole embodiment of what it represented was to go in search of answers to questions that have been asked since the beginning of time. What we are, what is out there, what is that moon, what is it like to walk upon it. The Saturn V showed us what we could do. It’s about time we did it again.
When people imagine the moon landings, I think you see an astronaut standing on the surface of the moon, and you also see that amazing rocket leaving the launch pad. The Saturn V remains the most powerful vehicle ever built and will always be considered one of mankind’s greatest technological achievements.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please feel free to browse my website for more exciting facts about the Apollo Program, Mission to the Moon.