The Mighty Saturns: Saturn 1 and 1B

in the early 1960s at the dawn of the new age of space a new breed of powerful launch vehicles was conceived first from a cluster of tanks from proven smaller rockets and later to land a man on the surface of the moon liftoff we have a liftoff 32 minutes past the hour 104 man their creation would test the limits of what man can accomplish with machine and bring forth new ideas on systems management force the creation of new materials and techniques but most of all they harnessed power on a scale never before imagined and launched it into the heaven it is the spring of 1958 and the Cold War is at its coldest a group of engineers brought to the United States at the end of World War two and led by Wernher von Braun are working to give the army the capability to lift massive weights into space the Army is looking for a new weapon system but the engineers have other dreams of course from Bonn always fun to go to the moon his main goal was seen of the development of a military weapon Konrad Dannenberg is a rocket propulsion engineer with the original group of rocket scientists brought from Germany to the United States after World War two the Saddam was II started by the army so it was not initially in NASA project in fact NASA when the said important was started didn't even exist and the army was in a hurry interested in a new booster with a thrust of one and a half million pounds and interested in it quickly von Braun's team fell back on proven materials and hardware to get the job done our organization had received an assignment who could eat Jupiter rocket engines together in a cluster and Fido of hoax them into working simultaneously the team had a great deal of experience with its own jupiter engines and so proposed clustering eight of the engines together to create the super Jupiter or the Juno five later this would become Saturn one by using off-the-shelf hardware a big booster could be developed quickly it wasn't a great leap on the fact you you know you're clustered these engines had to wear a little bit about the interaction of the engines the tankage was essentially the same already been built and developed we repackaged the engine and Rocketdyne had some problems in the repackaging they put the turbo pumps I'm on the thrust chamber as opposed to putting up in the second structure Bob Lindstrom was a project engineer and program manager for the Saturn one the Advanced Research Project agency for the department defense started a big booster program and they looked at a number of vehicles and they finally settled on a booster that AVMA could put together which was a cluster of engines from Rocketdyne which were derived from both the Thor and the Jupiter missiles the concept behind the early Saturn 1 rocket was straightforward TIG tanks and engines from the successful redstone and Jupiter programs cluster eight redstone tanks around one Jupiter tank cluster eight h1 engines at the base and create a massive booster much larger than anything seen before he succeeded pretty well after all we had a reliable engine to begin with and so we had a booster off a total of one and a half million pounds of thrust desist instead that powered our 10 successful subtle one rockets and also the three upgraded southern realms and following the big issue was you know matching the propellant flowing between the tanks bouncing that out and make sure you didn't have any big problems or any interaction with the interest and we had very little interaction before Kennedy's announcement on a lunar program the center was responsible for building the first first stage of a Saturn one not to fly but only to prove that could be done static pirate J Foster was a project manager for Saturn one well is clustering them together and not in this thing and you know this in some ways it's a it's exciting and it was exciting but at the same time you know individual job for in some ways fairly routine well the original program was only to develop a demonstration stage that could be static tested it was quickly expanded to a four vehicle flight program before we went to NASA I passed for a program that would turn into a flight program and so ABMA dromedaries proposed to a four vehicle program I forget the amount of money he did I was there when he present to Mattel by telecom in those days everyone used the telecon it was very difficult because it's classified on a dancer and we'd answer them I didn't do much answering with lists of embarrassment we proposed four flights with some unknown payload on on the fourth vehicle but the making of the Saturn was a big increase in scale a test and originally intended for the Jupiter's 165 thousand pounds of thrust had to be rebuilt to take a million-and-a-half and all in a span of 18 months we had to build some big scaffolding to go around this Saturn one to put all of these different tanks together and this thing was about a four-story in effect a four-story building so there was a lot of discussion about whether we should have an elevator or whether which stairs and on smiles decided on the elevator but he had also established a planning board well hi and smiles went off on a vacation for two or three weeks and shortly after he left or intercourse called a meeting of the manufacturing planning board and convinced us all we really didn't need it an elevator so Hans Mouse came back three weeks later or so and found out we didn't have an L buddy at this feeling we ended up with an elevator but there were problems with the eight tanks with alternating fuel and liquid oxygen and a center tank full of liquid oxygen sloshing propellants could play havoc with the performance of the vehicle engineers came up with some fairly interesting I used the what they call the beer cans they were fairly they weren't really beer cans they're approximately size of beer cans or they were made out of aluminum and these things would float on top of the liquid oxygen and when when the vehicle would shake and would roll they would damp out these vibrations a more permanent solution of baffles were developed to reduce sloshing and on many flights television systems were employed to monitor the actions of propellants inside the tanks the systems would transmit real-time images to monitors for recording and study of propellant behavior but in these early days money was tight we spent all the money for this first Saturn one with where we're giving his presentation to von Braun about why we needed extra money and miles basically said the points as a werner so you're not building us to add one together and I've got the center tank and I've got seven of the outer tanks and I just run out of money I don't have that eight tank and you know if you don't give me more money I can't you can't build this vehicle with only seven tanks and you know which was almost like you know putting the gun to von Braun's head you know he didn't have any choice but we got a big chunk of whatever reserve monies that von Braun had because we had had that a tank to go into the first Saturn one in the late 1950s change was a way of life in the new business of space edy buck be handled public affairs at the Marshall Space Center in Huntsville Alabama during the early Saturn years well in the early days the army was not in exploration space business I think von Braun brought that that dream with him so just as the engines began arriving and the project began to roll the army becoming suspicious of the real role for Saturn in a world of space flight decided to cancel Saturn program believing the booster just too big for a military application in late September 1959 a move began to transfer the von braun team to the new nasa and so by early 1960 the team to develop the Saturn's for space flight had begun to come together from Braun was a very gracious individual you know he he very very seldom put blame on people for anything he didn't criticize people you know he listened to people sometimes occasional enough by himself and made the decisions but he was a from the standpoint that was a very democratic type of leader you know he was a very wonderful individual everybody loved them he never he never gave a direct order in a way he could always sit down and talk to you he had this wonderful gift of gab and in the process of discussing things with you I mean he would inevitably get you around to his way of thinking I mean occasionally you could get him around here hit your way of thanking but normally he was way ahead of you in the smarts department and he could convince you to what you really wanted to do was what he wanted you to do but without giving a direct order he never built anything he never developed anything just for today the Saturn you know a vehicle that he had conceived as not only to take care of our moon flights but also to build a station to possibly have a nuclear stage on top and go Mars and we we never were satisfied with what we were doing today we're always looking beyond the next mission he had the capability of making me want to work for him there's a leader I don't know if he was a scientist pretty sure uh severe I had a German TV station a year ago asked him did I think if I'm Brahmas if it's a German a Nazi or in America I just don't tell truth I never thought about and I remember this one letter came from this German guy was graduating and he said I'm I just can't understand I can't I can't grasp what I should do next I I'm coming out of college I've got an engineering degree I got this job offer from the local utility company but I'd like your thoughts and so we wrote a long letter addressing rest address to this gentleman for von Braun's signature on Brian looked at the letter crossed through and said dear Hans come to America we're going to but the moon was still a long way away thus far Saturn hadn't left the ground and it was time to see if the clustered concept would really work by the early 1960s the United States was well into development of a series of large launch vehicles the Saturn's the early Saturn's born of an army project and transferred to NASA along with a von Braun team of engineers was ready to fly of a conservative nature the rocket team practiced an incremental approach to flight testing developing stage one carefully then adding additional stages as the lower stages were well understood so the first four flights of the Saturn one would be single stage flights the payload consisted of a dummy upper stage of the same weight and configuration of a flight stage a Jupiter nose cone topped off the vehicle which stood at around 50 meters only after the first four flights would alive upper stage be added pirate call another firearm was nearly perfect in fact for introductory rocket flights of the time the Saturn record was extraordinary the flights were nearly perfect and very few modifications were made from vehicle to the next the first Saturn sa one left the pad on October 27 1961 the booster climbed to an altitude of 137 kilometers and impacted the Atlantic Ocean 344 kilometers downrange sa 1 did reveal a surprising amount of propellant sloshing and beginning with a third flight aunty slosh baffles would be added to the tanks si 2 departed pad 34 on April 25th 1962 and was the first of two experiments called Project high water the inert upper stages of sa-2 and sa-3 carried 30,000 gallons of water in an experiment to determine what might happen to liquid in a rocket stage exploded at high altitude the upper stages of the second and third flights were destroyed at 105 kilometers above the Atlantic the resulting ice cloud extended upward to an altitude of 145 kilometers siii was launched on November 16th 1962 and in addition to being the second project high water flight carried for solid fuel retrorockets in order to prepare for the later addition of a second stage the last of the original test flights sa for left the ground on March 28th 1963 and not only fired experimental retro rockets but also carried simulated camera pods and simulated haulage Rockets on the inert s for stage haulage rockets are used to seat propellants in a rocket stage prior to ignition and comes from an old Brewers term s a4 was also an important test of the clustered concept 100 seconds into the flight one of the eight h1 engines were shut down on purpose as planned the rocket remained on course by burning the remaining seven engines longer as the first saturn's were taking to the skies events in the country were turning the course toward the moon and the results were being felled in Saturn having boldly given the country a goal to reach the moon in the 1960s President Kennedy traveled to Huntsville to meet face to face with von Braun I don't think he was comfortable with the fact that he had made he had set this goal and he didn't really know if we could carry it out so he came to see the man and had to rock it to kids to the moon and it was obvious when they when he arrived at Redstone airfield and got off Air Force One and he and Braun met and he climbed in that limousine open top limousine you could see the chemistry and they they met and they mixed very well they bonded I would say as well as you could expect them to I managed to stand next to the president and not next to the president but in the group when the president and the vice president and mr. Webb and well I'm Ron gotten with gel weasoner got in the discussion of the how best to accomplish the Apollo program you know I'm sure standing office the thing I remember is they talked for a long time and Brainard Holmes who was the guy running the Apollo program in Washington was off the side I remember mr. Webb motioning to Holmes come get in the discussion thing I remember most lists you know the presidency and say were but all sudden he's he heard nothing just nod his head and everybody stopped and they all left I so remember he had very steely gray eyes and Kennedy at one time you know right out came right out and said dr. Brown can we accomplish this mission within the time I've said and my mind said yes sir mr. president we can do it we're not doing the time Elvis timeframe you said I stand at the airport when the president left stand next to the dr. Reese mr. Eason is Tom Brown Stephanie I think the press plane took off first don't recall but it took off in nicely our calls of hand and get you know got up here quickly and then the president's plane took off you know Belton smoked all the way down the runway I guess they had their afterburners on or something in Reese's that see that they got their fuel from the lowest critter unfortunately the president did not get to see a Saturn 5 firing he did see a Saturn 1 and ignore did he ever see a launch but he saw the makings and he was so moved by that test firing that day the Saturn 1 first stage had proven to be a powerful reliable vehicle but did not have the ability to reach orbit on its own now engineers would add an upper stage to give Saturn the capability to reach orbit conventional Rockets used hydrocarbon fuels and the Saturn 1 first stage was no different releasing its energy from a combination of RP 1 a form of kerosene and liquid oxygen but the new Saturn upper stage would use the higher energy combination of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen liquid oxygen was cryogenic cold enough at 297 degrees below zero but it would convert to a solid if exposed to the temperature of liquid hydrogen at 423 degrees below zero while more complicated than a conventional rp1 powerplant hydrogen offered greater specific impulse in rocket engines or greater power for propellant weight the new combination of propellant had been under development since the late 1940s and was just being developed for spaceflight in the Centaur program this inte R was an upper stage for the Atlas and used two of the new RL 10 hydrogen oxygen engines with 15,000 pounds of thrust the original plan for the Saturn upper stage was to cluster four engines I remember we went from the four-inch and s4 to the six engine s4 and we were walking around Douglass's plant in Santa Monica with a guy from Los Angeles district and told me the decision had been made to go to six inches and he gave directions right there oh the game contractual direction as finally configured the s4 stage would clusters six rl10 engines in the case of the s4 technological leaps were required in fact after specifications were set only eleven bidders were interested in competing for the task Douglas eventually won the contract that engine was started also by ARPA as a part of the Centaur program you know by Pratt and they had a lot of problems with it then we had a fair number of problems with the Douglas building in order to save weight the stage would use a common bulkhead separating the oxygen and the hydrogen and developing insulation of the hydrogen tank to prevent heat flow to the adjacent oxygen was a challenge one important decision was the choice of using internal insulation individual tiles were used for shadowing the future Space Shuttle thermal protection system they were numbered for placement and glued within the stage each in its proper location the adhesive surface between the insulation and the structure was not exposed to cryogenic temperatures and was protected from external aerodynamic forces the aluminum construction of the stage with a very high coefficient of expansion due to temperature would not be exposed to the extremes of liquid hydrogen at the time of the s4 large quantities of liquid hydrogen were not readily available and new plants were created to produce the exotic new fuel oxygen hydrogen was an issue obviously even though you know how you get it where you build a plant for you know eventually they put a hydrogen planet and Saturn right outside the gates at the Kennedy Center issue-by-issue the problems were worked the engines in the stage was tested and the Saturn was ready to add the s4 along with the addition of the new stage the booster was operated as well with improved engines that placed the total thrust at just over one and a half million pounds to feed the hunger of the extra power the length of the propellant containers had been increased because of the reliability of the h1 engines the whole downtime of the booster was reduced from 3.6 seconds to 3.1 seconds resulting in more fuel being available for powered flight and the Saturn team had learned how to better utilize all the fuel that was aboard si1 had used 96 point one percent of its fuel and at the time of the final Saturn one flight that figure had risen to ninety nine point three percent to study stage separation and the performance of the s4 a number of new visual systems were added including more television coverage and fell seven six five four three two one liftoff plus two three four five the first launch of a Saturn one with a live of her stage was the SA five mission launched on January 29th 1964 it marked a number of first for Saturn including the first to fly guidance and control packages first Saturn stage separation and the first Saturn orbital vehicle it was also the first recovery of motion picture pods on Saturn yielding some of the most overwhelming images of the project you sa5 was a textbook launch further proof that the Saturn one vehicle was powerful reliable transportation into orbit now the Saturn's would begin to be put to work qualifying and testing the Apollo hardware it would take a man to the moon the Saturn one vehicles were proven and reliable incredibly the Saturn's had scored five picture-perfect missions including the first orbital Saturn flight combining a successful booster in the s1 stage and now a high-energy upper stage with the s4 the Saturn was to begin a series of flights to test Apollo Hardware and examine the space environment to confirm the safety of the Apollo design si6 roared off the pad on May 28 1964 and was the first to carry a dummy Apollo capsule all the way to orbit the flight caused some concern when one of the first stage engines number-8 shut down unexpectedly 117 seconds into flight telemetry revealed that the failure was due to stripped gears in the turbopump and a modified design had already been incorporated for the next flight sa-7 left earth on September 18 1964 and after the flight the Saturn vehicles were declared operational the sa-7 camera pods were not picked up right away being consumed by Hurricane Gladys but seven weeks later two of the capsules washed ashore with the film undamaged sa sevens payload was apollo boilerplate 15 and the flight was a complete success the last three flights of the Saturn one series were to loft a payload called Pegasus into Earth orbit designed to extend panels to determine the rate of micrometeoroid impacts in Earth orbit the Pegasus satellites confirmed the rates were well within expectations considered for Apollo Saturn design most of the s-1 first stages were manufactured in-house by a Marshall Space Flight Center with later booster construction being contracted to the Chrysler Corporation because of the changeover sa9 a Marshall booster flew before si8 the first Chrysler booster sa9 would carry the first Pegasus satellite the Pegasus was attached to the forward end of the s4 stage and it's huge panels were deployed over a 60-second period sa9 was launched on February 16th 1965 an on-board television system monitored the deployment si8 carried Pegasus - into orbit and the first night launch of a Saturn vehicle on July 30th sa 10 the last of the Saturn 1 vehicles left pad 37 be carrying the Pegasus 3 satellite Saturn 1 with a perfect success rate was over and while closely related the Saturn 1b would be a new vehicle and accomplished new missions including launching a manned Apollo spacecraft into orbit for the first time the Saturn 1b consisted of an improved s1 first stage and a completely new upper stage the s4 be the first stage of the Saturn 1b was improved over the Saturn one with redesigned fins uprated engines taking the thrust from one hundred eighty eight thousand pounds each to two hundred thousand pounds and new fabrication improvements resulting in the saving of considerable weight perhaps most importantly the Saturn 1b enabled flight testing of hardware that was to be later used on a Saturn 5 the Saturn 1b second stage would also be the third stage of the moon rocket with some minor differences although the design would be similar the s4b was a completely new machine and the only commonality with the s4 was the use of a hydrogen oxygen combination mounting a single j2 engine the s4 be thrust of 200 thousand pounds was significantly more powerful than a six engine cluster on the s4 many of the insulation and fabrication difficulties of a hydrogen oxygen stage like the s4 B had already been worked through by Douglas on the s4 stage in fact the s4 B did not go to come bidding it was bought directly from Douglas sole-source by the government the first Saturn 1b flight left pad 34 on February 26th 1966 the vehicle si 201 was a 32 minute sub orbital flight the primary test of the mission was the separation of the spacecraft and a test of the Apollo space crafts heat shield on the Saturn 1b flights only two cameras were flown to document stage separation and one was not recovered next up would be a s 203 with a s 202 delayed for additional checkout time needed for its Apollo spacecraft since a s 203 was primarily designed as a launch vehicle development flight it carried a nose cone rather than an Apollo spacecraft and much of the data sought concerned the behavior of the propellants in orbit for extended periods of time since the s4b was required to restart up to several hours after liftoff in order to place the Apollo spacecraft on a lunar trajectory data was required on the behavior of the stage during parking orbit a s 203 was launched July 5th 1966 and after an outstanding flight and simulated J to restart sequence the S 4 B stage was tested to failure in Earth orbit disintegrating when the common bulkhead failed due to high pressure a s 2 o 2 was launched on August 25th 1966 and was a suborbital flight designed to test the Apollo heat shield a skipping reentry gave the Apollo a real workout clearing the way for manned Apollo flights to begin the first manned Apollo mission was scheduled for February 21st 1967 the a s 204 vehicle would become Apollo 1 but on January 27 1967 of fire and the pure oxygen atmosphere of the spacecraft during a ground test hand to the program tragedy Gus Grissom ed white and Roger Chaffee were gone and it would be nearly a year before the Saturn 1b would rise again and with him the first flight of the vehicle deston you the a s 204 booster would eventually leave the earth on a successful mission Apollo 5 left pad 37 on January 22nd 1968 it carried a lunar module in its spacecraft lunar module adapter for an unmanned test of the Landers propulsion systems and structures in Earth orbit the successful flight of Apollo 5 was a milestone on the way to the moon a flawless launch vehicle and spacecraft separation and a positive first flight for the lunar spacecraft now the way was clear for three astronauts to climb aboard a Saturn and write it into space the a s 205 flight was Apollo 7 and carried Wally schirra Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham into Earth orbit thorough workout of Apollo system once again the Saturn performed flawlessly and the torch was passed to the saturn v to place men on the moon Apollo 11 this is Houston you are go for tli or we believe that my cons is not maneuvering the spacecraft well Graham I can we understand that you are duck writer eagle I've got you Oh of the planet Earth first set foot upon America July 1959 50 became an eighth of all mankind with the moon landing goal complete and the Saturn 1b man rated and fully developed the Saturn 1b vehicle became the United States most economical transport to Earth orbit it was in this role that 1b was used to safely launch three crews to the Skylab space station AAS 206 was launched on May 25th 1973 and carried the first Skylab crew designated Skylab 2 for a 28-day stay having been launched nine days earlier on the last Saturn 5 Skylab itself was in trouble during launch the station's micrometeoroid thermal shield and one of its solar arrays was torn off by the stress of launch when it reached orbit temperatures in the station began to soar rising above the level of habitability now it was up to the first Skylab crew to deploy an umbrella like Sun shield to protect the station and lower the internal temperature since the launches came five years after the last use of a Saturn 1b the missions were launched from launch complex 39 using saturn v hardware the vehicle sat upon a tower called a milk stool to enable it to use a launch facility designed for a much larger rocket the Skylab 3 crew flew to the station aboard a s 207 State aboard Skylab for 59 days Skylab for broke space duration records by staying aboard Skylab for 84 days the a s 209 vehicle was also assigned to the Skylab program as a rescue vehicle but was never used is now on display at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Center finally on July 15th 1975 the last launch of the Saturn Apollo program the Saturn 1b lifted CSM 111 to a successful docking with a Soyuz spacecraft the apollo-soyuz test project marked another successful performance for the Saturn 1b and closed out the incredibly successful record of the vehicle 15 men rode the Saturn 1b into orbit and the next Americans into space would not fly until 1981 when space shuttle flights began from first flight in 1961 to the apollo-soyuz test project in 1975 the early Saturn's were powerful workhorses in the United States arsenal leaving behind a 14-year legacy of achievement eclipsed by the enormous power and glamour of the Saturn 5 the early Saturn's are often overlooked for the enormous contribution to American success in space through the development and flight testing of the early Saturn's the Mission Operations and launch crews learn the valuable lessons that brought success on the way to the moon and beyond you you

Channel: Mark Gray

Views: 227,229

Rating: 4.8515768 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: _z1a1R7RUfM

Length: 42min 34sec (2554 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 03 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/ar0cketman]

Original post by /u/Steelheaded to /r/Documentaries.