dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (11/09/86)
The largest and most powerful rocket ever built -- right after this. November 9 The First Launch of Saturn 5 On this date in the year 1967 -- less than two years before men stood on the surface of the moon -- the rocket that was to get them there was successfully launched for the first time. That rocket was Saturn 5 -- a mammoth vehicle that stood nearly as high as a football field is long. The Saturn 5 launch vehicles were designed and developed at the Marshall Space Flight Center under Dr. Wernher von Braun. They were built in order to provide enough thrust to send the first people from Earth to the moon. The first Saturn 5 lifted off from Cape Canaveral on November 9, 1967 -- in a test of both the rocket and the Apollo spacecraft. The test was successful. The first Saturn 5 used for a manned spaceflight mission was launched on December 21, 1968. This manned mission flew around the moon and then returned -- without an actual landing. The Saturn 5 survived a lightning strike during the launch of Apollo 12. During Apollo 13, when the center engine of stage 2 of the rocket shut down two minutes early, the other Saturn 5 engines burned extra-long to make up for it. Saturn 5 did launch men toward the first actual landing on the moon. And, a few years later, it launched the first U.S. laboratory in space, called Skylab. The Saturn 5 rocket was highly successful -- but it's no longer used. A Saturn 5 could be used one time only. It has been replaced by the reuseable Space Shuttle. Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1985, 1986 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin