Apollo 11 Saturn V Launch Camera E-8

this is the launch of Apollo 11 July 16th 1969 it's Camry 8 which shows the base of a Saturn 5 vehicles done on 16 millimeter film at 500 frames per second now this particular camera was started at 5 seconds prior to liftoff now at this speed what you're going to see in this full 8 minutes and 22 seconds is about 30 seconds worth of actual time here ignition sequence start is already started and the kerosene and liquid oxygen is mixing the the f1 engines were started by bursting a hypergolic cartridge which spun up the turbines to start driving the propellants into the engine now you're seeing that liquid oxygen and kerosene mixing and billowing up in the initial stage of starting up those engines now when it reached full thrust and started to get thrust from those five engines 7.5 million pounds you see how it sucks all the material back down underneath the vehicle and that was because now all of that material is going at a tremendous speed and being pushed out and into the flame trench and it just sucks all of that home all of that material back down on on the right you see two tail service mass there's a third one on the other side of the vehicle and around the vehicle you also see four hold down arms on the vehicle sat on those hold down arms there was a mechanism inside there that held it on to the launch pad until liftoff at t minus 0 those relieved would release after they got the proper signal from the engines that all five engines were running properly it would release and as soon as it released those tail service owners would move and all the mechanisms would go up into a hood underneath those hoods so that they would be protected from the from the exhaust of the engines you see ice coming down now off the vehicle you know that the space shuttle is real concerned about debris coming off the external tank which is insulated and the reason for that is the thermal protection system on the space shuttle which sits on the side is is very delicate and can't be hit by that much but the Saturn 5 had no such problem so a Saturn 5 liquid oxygen tank on the first stage wasn't insulated so you get a lot of ice coming off of it when it hits the vibration now you see liftoff has happened the tale service masks are pulling back up into the hoods the f1 engines are coming up and you see that dark band of gas that's coming out of those engines all around and then you'll see it get to the really bright now that cool gas it's cooler gas is the reason it's dark that's coming from the turbine exhaust and the turbine exhaust is put around is dumped into the engine around the inside of that nozzle so it would be cooler and would act as something of an insulator on that nozzle extension so it wouldn't get too hot that central gas is what's coming out of the engine injector where the liquid oxygen and the kerosene is being mixed together coming out of that injector now on the tail service masts that I'm the hold down arms in fact even over here on the left hand side in the corner of the tower you see a white material whitish material that that it's painted that is actually a material that was designed to burn and char in trying to protect this material so that the the launch installation so that it would get a minimum of damaged from a saturn v launch they painted these these particular tail service masts and hold down arm covers and the corners of this tower with this ablative kind of paint and this material was designed to burn and char so that it would burn in the underlying material would be insulated and stay safe you'll see that happening in just a moment now you're seeing that the water deluge systems definitely been activated and you're seeing a lot of that flash into steam and come up against the quartz mirror that the the cameras is housed in now remember I was talking about that white material it's a flame now as it's getting hit by the engine exhaust and it was designed to do that you'll see it's already starting to char you see the third tale service massed over on the other side there were three total and you see at least three of the four hold down arms you see the hoods now and the hold down arms have closed over so they're protecting that mechanism that held the vehicle down and you see that although that material that's in the exhaust is now a fire on its own now look how instantaneously all of the water that's dumped into this area and there was a lot of water dumped into this area is instantly flashing to steam it's very very hot there right now and as that tower over here on the left you see it's starting to burn as well so you're starting to get enormous heat coming off of it in fact there are some cameras where you'll get a view of these launches and the grass around the path typically you would have a number of grass fires right around the pad because the heat would move all the way off of the pad to us to a high enough degree to light a good deal of the grass around the launch pad are usually several grass fires that you see after on some of these cameras now you see that white material really burning now including over here on the tower you see the water deluge system is full on at this point that the vehicle would have cleared the tower but the exhaust from those five f1 engines was long enough to still being impinging on a lot launch pad and even at this point all of the white area you see which is a flame is that char material there's an enormous amount of bit water being poured down into the flame trench and then down through the hole as well as you see some nozzles here on the base of the mobile launcher that are dumping water right onto the mobile launcher and at this point there's also water coming from above in order to shield that tower so there is an awful lot of water coming down onto the pad now now you'll start to see a lot of this water and debris as the vehicle has moved away start to swirl around some of it getting on the courts window of the camera you're seeing the the burning of the insulation materials start to go away and you're also seeing a good deal of the steam coming off it's not being blown away the way it was by the exhaust and you're getting a better idea of just how much water is being dumped onto this and still it's so hot that it's flashing a good bit of it into steam now pretty much all of the char is done there's no longer impingement going on from the vehicle the vehicle has moved up away from the tower and has started its trajectory out over the ocean you still see a good bit of debris occurring now this this launch happened at 9:30 2:00 in the morning so it's really pretty bright here but the camera the exposure was set so as to be able to see as much detail as it could while the engines were or being started and moving up so it starts to get a little bit darker after the engines around you're starting to see a lot more of the water coming down on top of the window in the housing so this was the launch of Apollo 11 the first manned lunar landing from the corner of the tower and the mobile launch platform you

Channel: Mark Gray

Views: 7,980,171

Rating: 4.8639398 out of 5

Keywords: Saturn V (Rocket)

Id: DKtVpvzUF1Y

Length: 8min 42sec (522 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 07 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/scotterdoos]

Watch it once for the narration, then watch again with the audio muted and some music playing in the background.

[u/Crysist]

Here's high-speed footage done on the Shuttle missions, it's quite similar in a few ways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlz5u1OBe_c

[u/mua_boka]

500 frames per second using film... Wow Thats an amazing technology for those days. the rocket is cool too

[u/CR7_Bale_Lovechild]

I learned more in these past eight minutes than i have in the last decade on the history channel.

[u/beer_nuts]

It's crazy the scale of this thing. From the bottom of the nozzle to the turbine exhaust manifold (the bulge about halfway up) is roughly the height of an adult person.

[u/Gundamnitpete]

that was hot

[u/Craig_488]

G^OODBYE

[u/Giancarlo456]

Such power... 7,648,000 pounds of thrust..

[u/OldCleanBastard]

The narrator is the Bob Ross of rocketry.