Aerospace Workshop ~ n i v esity of Hawaii r

SAR,JF& NHISTORY DCClJMENT'

~ n i v eofrA[,jhrna R s e & r i~y lnstiture History of Sciencs & TechnGiogy Group
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T H E SATURN LAIJNCH V E H I C L E F A m L Y

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I t was in October 1957 that the world was shocked out of i t s lethargy by the announcement of the Russian firing of the f i r s t satellite. We had t o admit that our planned 2-pound grapefruit-size attempts w e r e weightwise not at all impressive, You may remember that before our contribution to the Geophysical y e a r , the Vanguard Project, succeeded with i t s f i r s t beeping 2-pound satellite, we were able to match the Russian feat with a small but scientifically successful Explorer I. This Explorer was developed and launched by the Development Operations Division of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency under Dr. von B r a u n t s technical direction. In 1960 this-group was t r a n s f e r r e d to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and i s now known a s the George C , Marshall Space Flight Center. Back to the Russian Sputniks--the size of Sputnik 3 was about 2, 000 pounds; Sputnik 8 was 14,000 pounds. The long-nourished suspicion that'the Russians were working on a m i s s i l e considerably l a r g e r than any of o u r s was confirmed by their f i r s t launch, It came a s no s u r p r i s e , This high-weight-lifing orbital capability of the Russian m i s s i l e was inciclental. The reason was very simple. The nuclear technology of the Russians was behind ours; they just could not build small efficient nuclear devices; therefore, they had to go the other way and build l a r g e delivery systems, None of our Atlas o r Titan missiles have this weight-carrying capability, Remember that the Atlas m i s s i l e was successfully used i n our Mercury firing with a one-man capability. The Titan i s presently used with the Gemini two-man capability. In 1958-1959 w e succeeded in launching several Explorer and Pioneer satellites on Jupiter C and Juno boosters. At that time the Department of Defense created a small agency "Advanced Research Projects Agency" (ARPA) which had a s one of its assigned responsibilities the task of countering th.e Russian superiority i n payload delivery capability, The von Braun team was approached with a query a s to whether some shortcut could be found to quickly remedy the disadvantage of the United ~ t a t e s b

Appraising the situation, we knew that there were no engines developed l a r g e r than those used in the Atlas, Thor, Jupiter, and Titan. One engine, only twice a s l a r g e a s the Atlas engine, was in an e a r l y stage of design, A capability which would surpass that of the Russians and gain an advantage could only be achieved by clustering o r bundling s e v e r a l of the available engines. ~ u c k i some development l~ work was under way-to simplify and modify the Atlas/Thor/ Jupiter engine and also to look a t a slight improvement and uprating within the capability of the hardware. The direct question to us was, "With this money, can you demonstrate on a t e s t stand the firing of a multiple-engine cluster i n 18 months? " Naturally, we said "yes" and went to work. It was not easy. F i r s t , we called i n the engine manufacturer and asked him the same question, "Can you deliver? ' I He said "yes" but he did not think the funding was sufficient for rebuilding, testing, and delivering enough engines and s p a r e s for our cluster. With some "arm twisting" and permission to clean the stockrooms of leftovers from previous programs, he agreed; now half of the funds given to us by A R P A were gone. With the r e s t we had to finance our portion of the job. F i r s t we had to modify a t e s t stand i n our back yard. The stand had only been used for firing of small m i s s i l e s with 165,000 pounds thrust and 105' in diameter but now must take a m o n s t e r 240" i n diameter, 80 f t , high, and with a thrust of 1.5 million pounds. Furthermore, we had to build tooling for propellant containers and for the t h r u s t s t r u c t u r e to support the engines. We also needed l a r g e assembly fixtures to hold all pieces i n place for the final assembly and checkout. Finally, we had to build the hardware itself, We also went through our stockrooms to "moonlight requisition" whatever could be made t o fit the new projects. Fortunately, from our previous projects we found 70" tanks which were incomplete, partial rejects, and some 105" diameter hardware, These were from successfully terminated m i s s i l e programs, the Redstone and the Jupiter. The d i r e need made us m o r e inventive and we bundled the containers to be loaded with propellants for eight engines to burn a total of 2 112 minutes. The need became a virtue and the clustered tank arrangement i s still with us i n the Saturn IB--but m o r e about this later. Now the design p r o g r e s s e d nicely until the "worms began to crawl in." A W A representatives visited us frequently to observe our p r o g r e s s and finally stated "We really think you will succeed with this demonstration on the t e s t stand. Now we have changed our minds, we would like for you t o make this stage fly, W e do not know yet the place from which i t will be launched. You should build it in such a way that i t can be taken a p a r t and quickly reassembled on the launch pad--something like a tinker toy."

We said that we would build into the f i r s t flight birds the capability to be taken apart. Thank goodness we never had to - d i s a s s e m b l e the f i r s t flight vehicle, We finally were allowed to launch from Cape Canaveral, and we mobilized our f i r s t NASA Navy of barges which could float wholly assembled Saturn I stages of 20-ft diameter, and 80-ft length,down the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers, through the Gulf of Mexico, and around Florida to the Cape. The costs of such l a r g e stages were, of course, higher than our friends i n Washington had experienced before. The head scratching began t o work out a solution, The obvious one was "just to fish the spent stages out of the ocean after reentry, give them a "once over' polish, and r e u s e them. I f "Yes, we w i l l even t r y this, we said, Naturally, nobody i s willing to work without pay and the development of a parachute system for 100,000 pounds required "some doing" and also some financial support. We had capable companies on hand, w e r e progressing nicely, and were ready to perform the f i r s t drop t e s t when, after second thoughts (nourished by f e a r s of too high costs), our financing agency cancelled the recovery plans, The designers had already made all the provisions on the vehicle to accomodate the parachute and all other necessary gear to deploy the l a r g e t r i p l e chutes. I t was c l e a r from the onset that we could not reach an orbit with the f i r s t stage of the Saturn alone--we needed another stage on top. The question of the upper o r second stage gave us another round of anxiety. The f i r s t direction was to u s e anything available in the guided m i s s i l e a r s e n a l a s a second stage. The choice was narrow. On hand, t h e r e were only the Atlas and the Titan, both 10-ft diameter with low-performance kerosene-oxygen propulsion systems. In comparison, this was like considering the purchase of a 5-ton truck for hauling a heavy load and finally deciding to merely load a wheelbarrow full of dirt. After numerous iterations, it looked a s i f the only way to really cash in on the lifting power of the f i r s t stage, to reach into the newly developed hydrogen technology with the specific impulse almost 30 percent higher, was to use one engine which was under advanced development with P r a t t and Whitney for the Centaur vehicle. There was a b i g meeting in Washington with all faces red--looking for a good solution, I r e m e m b e r the time of that meeting--it was just before Christmas 1959. The telephone rang and Dr. von Braun, a member of that hatching committee, called me. I was responsible for the engineering of the stages

was Wernher's design chief. is conversation r a n somewhat a s follows: You know that we just cannot use a s upper stage what i s laying around; we need a new upper stage, Let us go all out and u s e the new hydrogen technology and the Centaur engine. Of course we will need six of these engines, but you should not worry. I was just told that the official schedule calls for 12 Centaur firings before we have to launch the f i r s t time. I think I can commit us to do it, " I looked a t the official schedule--there i t was 12 firings. I had the justified expectation that I would l e a r n enough from these Centaur firings s o that we would not duplicate e r r o r s which might slip by the Centaur people. So, I agreed and W ernher committed us and Marshall t o u s e the RL-10 engine and hydrogen. The ironic p a r t of this story i s that we had the f i r s t successful launch of a stage and full-duration burning of all-hydrogen six engines ahead of the f i r s t successful full-duration Centaur firing; we terminated our Saturn I p r o g r a m with six successful firings of six engines each-a total of 36 engines l a s t summer; and we a r e still waiting for a successful - Centaur firing. .Let m e continue my historical resurne. That time frame coincided with the birth of our lunar exploration program which was proclaimed by our l a t e President John F. Kennedy. The Apollo idea crystallized: the size of the capsule was defined for a three-man crew. The mode of doing this job was analyzed over and over and finally changed from an earth orbital rendezvous (EOR) mode to a lunar orbital rendezvous (LOR) mode, In my next lecture I will thoroughly discuss the present lunar program, The vehicles to do this job had to be op.timized for this particular mode of operation. We w e r e able to somewhat clean up Saturn I. Remember all the nonsense we had to consider in the f i r s t design such a s disassembly for transportation, recovery gear, parachute attachments, the requirement to be able to accept any upper stage decided upon a t a l a t e r date, etc. Now, we were able to clean the design, to plan for a manrated vehicle to fly the f i r s t Apollo mission, and to consider flight safety of the astronauts. About that t i m e (it just could not be different), a new little twist was added--another pinch of sand thrown into the gears. You may r e m e m b e r the Dynasoar P r o j e c t which w a s l a t e r cancelled. This w a s a vehicle f o r r e t u r n f r o m orbit, It had lifting surfaces, that i s wings, for landing on solid ground instead of i n the water a s the astronauts do today. We were asked to consider this fixed-shape payload to be

boosted t o orbital velocities. Because of this possible payload, and i n c a s e of booster failure to provide t i m e necessary for the pilot to get away f r o m the holocaust of a failing vehicle, we had to add fins to the end of the f i r s t stage booster. We had considered even for the smooth round Apollo capsule some small fins the s i z e of a "one-car garage door." With a lifting body like the Dynasoar on top of the launch vehicle, we had t o add fins the size of a b a r n door. So--back to the drawizig board. A l l load-carrying m e m b e r s i n the t a i l of the f i r s t stage w e r e ieinforced, redesigned, and r e l e a s e d f o r manufacture. I can a s s u r e you it requires a lot of documentation and sweat to define all details of such a complicated structure. To nobody's s u r p r i s e , we had just finished when a change of mind somewhere above relieved us from this l a t e s t requirement. We had a l r e a d y built up for manufacture, contracts sh ad been let, m a t e r i a l i n r e q u i r e d thicknesses had been o r d e r e d and partly machined. The t i m e schedule of c o u r s e did not change, The only thing we could do was t o reduce the fin s i z e from "barn door" to "garage door." This was done by v i r t u i l l y cutting off the oversize. T h e r e we w e r e again settled with the second best solution--to strongly build for a mission we did not 5y--with a payload capability down t o about 2 2 , 0 0 0 pounds for injection into a normal 100-mile orbit. L e t m e go back and elaborate somewhat on the difference between the E a r t h Orbital Rendezvous mode "EOR" and the Lunar Orbital Rendezvous mode "LOR." In the f i r s t mode, the EOR, i t would be n e c e s s a r y to f i r e two vehicles f r o m the earth i n close succession; one s m a l l e r one the s i z e of our Saturn IB and the second almost the s i z e of our p r e s e n t Saturn V. In our f i r s t designs, the Saturn V was labeled C-4 (configuration 4), In this configuration the f i r s t stage had only four engines while the f i r s t stage of the Saturn V vehicle has five. The second stage had only two engines instead of the p r e s e n t five engines , The m a i n feature of the EOR was that the astronauts had to rendezvous i n e a r t h o r b i t with the propellant-carrying vehicle, t r a n s f e r the propellant into t h e i r own s p a c e c r a f t with quite l a r g e propellant containers of a propulsion stage which had a threefold task: to take the astronauts obt of the e a r t h orbit into a t r a n s f e r t r a j e c t o r y to the moon; to break the velocity to z e r o a r r i v i n g a t the lunar surface; and t o take off again f r o m the moon. Imagine the vehicle which would have been required.

I t would have been the height of a water tower but with s h o r t s t i l t s and a longer cylindrical container. On top of this t h e r e would have been the crew compartment. The little astronauts would of necessity have been in a reclining position looking away from the lunar surface into the sky and using a rear-view m i r r o r o r a T.V. system for the final approach, I think you would not like this situation and position. Neither did the astronauts. The f i r s t mode, the EOR, was finally dropped i n favor of the so-called LOR which I w i l l describe briefly. The crew compartment, the Command Module (CM), was equipped with a relatively s m a l l propulsive stage which had to work l e s s than the propulsive stage i n the Eor. This propulsive stage called Service Module (SM) packs beside the electric power and oxygen relocated f r o m the CM into the SM enough propellants to take the less-propellantconsuming braking mission of CM plus SM plus Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) into a lunar, near-circular orbit. Then i t m u s t take only the CM out of the lunar orbit, again this being much s m a l l e r vehicle. Finally, it m u s t reduce the velocity of the CM for an e a r t h r e t u r n and landing before i t s own disposal. Really the t a s k was subdivided and d e c r e a s e d i n magnitude and energy requirement. The l u n a r landing i s p e r f o r m e d out of the c i r c u l a r orbit after t r a n s f e r of two of the t h r e e astronauts f r o m the command module t o the LEM by a specially designed small descent stage of the LEM. This LEM w i l l deliver the two astronauts in standing position not m o r e than LO feet above ground, looking downward so they can s e e where they a r e going. After the astronauts have performed the assigned task, they w i l l dispose of the unit which brought them down by using i t a s a launch platform for the LEM ascent stage. They w i l l leave it behind on the moon. The a s c e n t stage w i l l propel the LEM into a matching lunar orbit for a rendezvous with the waiting astronaut i n the command module. T h e r e they t r a n s f e r and leave the LEM in lunar orbit. Totally the energy requirements a r e d e c r e a s e d and optimized, The whole adventure can b e performed now with only one launch vehicle, somewhat bigger than the second vehicle I described a s 6-4. Thus the Saturn V was chosen a s the launch vehicle for the lunar landing, Soon the training requirement for the astronauts was established and orbital long-duration flight of the three-man Apollo capsule, e x e r c i s e of the Service Module propulsion, e x e r c i s e of the Lunar landing and ascent stage, and finally, the rendezvous were made mandatory.

This necessitated a launch vehicle almost twice a s l a r g e a s that we had i n manufacture and already in launch tests, the Saturn I , A building block approach and quick thinking resulted in an improved Saturn I which we-labeled Saturn ID. It consists of the f i r s t stage of the Saturn I with the engines another'notch "tweeted up" and a second stage which was already under development a s a third stage for Saturn V, Thus we even cashed in on early demonstration of the S-IVB stage which i s the most important stage of the Saturn V, This i s the factual history of the'saturn family. ' I have not added to it but rather have shortened it a great deal, Now, with a few slides I would like t o bring to you a c l e a r e r understanding of the technical features and the realization of the technological p r o g r e s s in space transportation i n general. SLIDE #1 The f i r s t slide shows the relative size of the vehicles of the Saturn family. The Saturn V m e a s u r e s 381 feet i n height; this i s almost 2 1 3 the h.eight of the Washington Monument, The improved Saturn I, o r Saturn IB, i s about 225 feet high. F o r completeness sake, I would like to mention that we had other preliminary plans between Saturn I and Saturn V: there were the C-11, C-111, and C-IV configuration, already mentioned. The third stage i s called S-IVB because of i t s historical development, We studied S-111 stages and we also flew an S-IV stage. The next slide shows the p r i m e o r main contractor structure and responsibilities. SLIDE #2 H e r e I want to emphasize that the Apollo program i s the biggest technological t a s k ever undertaken by mankind. It outranks the building of the pyramids in the past and i t even overshadows the Manhatten P r o j e c t of World War I1 (development of the atom bomb). It i s directed by the t h r e e Centers of NASA: Kennedy Space Center, the moon port located on Meritt Island close to Cape Kennedy; the Manned Spacecraft Center a t Houston, Texas; and the George C . Marshall Space Flight Center located a t Huntsville, Alabama, under the baton of Dr. George Mueller, head of the Manned Space Flight Office of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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The total manpower actively participating in this program i s pver 300,000 located in 48 of the 50 states with a system of 17 main contractors and their facilities and about 20,000 subcontractors. The launch vehicle program requires a t the present 1 1 / 2 percent of the national budget, another 1112 percent goes to the spacecraft program. A total of 12, 000 government employeees participate actively, working and managing this complex contractor structure with the final management goal of synchronizing all elements of the Apollo program to culminate i n a successful launch on schedule. The t a s k i s a difficult one. J u s t imagine all elements including the astronauts themselves who must be trained and the numerous n e c e s s a r y t e s t s that m u s t be performed i f one day, within this decade, a vehicle can be launched to l p u r s u e this nation's bigges! human technological achievement--to reach the moon and return safely. SLIDE # 3 H e r e a r e the geographical locations of the elements of this program. You.see the Centers and the p r i m e contractors, SLIDE # 4 To i m p r e s s you with just one other necessary aspect of the program, I want to mention the ground transportation for these l a r g e subassemblies. You s e e a i r transportation routes, river and gulf transportation routes and west-east routes through the Panama Canal. In the l e f t corner you s e e transportation times and distances, SLIDE #5 H e r e i s the way our Super Guppy looks during various phases of loading, The Super Guppy i s presently the biggest airplane built and flown. I know that I a m speaking i n superlatives but that i s truly the only way t o describe the space program. SLIDE

#6

This i s a typical r i v e r barge. SLIDE # 7 This i s a seaworthy military craft adapted to stage transportation. Can you imagine how much planning i s required to effect the most economical means of transportation?

L e t u s get back t o the Saturn family, family, Saturn I

The f i r s t of the

SLIDE # 8
This slide shows the c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s : ( r e a d f r o m slide)
SLIDE #9

This is a description of the missions assigned t o this.vehicle.

I can proudly r e p o r t that we have concluded the f i r s t step of t h e

l a r g e launch vehicle development. With an unprecedented success of 10 successful launches out of 10 atternpb, w e achfeved a reliability of .932 a t a confidence level of 50 percent, which i s pretty good. We have m a s t e r e d the clustering of l a r g e engines and in tests, on the launch pad and in the a i r , we have also learned to handle liquid hydrogen a s fuel with liquid oxygen a s orddizer, a most potent combination. As a v e r y important contribution t o f i e Apollo program, three successful "Pegasusl' satellites a r e still circling the earth reporting steadily the frequency and s i z e of small meteoroids populating t h e higher regions of useful e a r t h orbits.

W e can s a y today, based on the Pegasus measurements, that tvitE1 the design of o u r spacecraft we a r e safe f r o m the most frequent sn.a:i meteoroids which nevertheless c a r r y a g r e a t deal of ener-7 and a r c able t o p e n e t r a t e c e r t a i n m e t a l thicknesses. We have s u c c e s s i d l y launched the f i r s t two of the Saturn IB s e r i e s , the improved S a t z : ~ 1. This i n c r e a s e d the reliability to .994 with a 50% confidence level.
SLIDE #10
Shown h e r e a r e the c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s of the improved Saturn I, o r S - 3 . (DISCUSS)

This, again, i s ' - a description of the mission. (DISCUSS)

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- This slide shows data of a typical Saturn IB trajectory. F o r better clarity, both scales used a r e different. The altitude of the t r a j e c t o r y in this presentation i s shown increased by a factor of 5. SLIDE #13 This i s the majestic liftoff of the f i r s t improved Saturn (S-IB) #201 which c a r r i e d a well-instrumented command module down-range to simulate a steep reentry trajectory from earth orbit. SLIDE #14 L e t m e describe briefly the stages of the improved Saturn I. The S-IB stage i s built by the Chrysler Corporation Space Division and i s 80 feet long; i t has eight 70" containers around a 1 0 5 ~container in the center, with eight engines in the r e a r . There> ' a r e eight -fins for better flight stability and for the support of the whole. vehicle on the launch pad. SLIDE #15 H e r e is a view of the assembly line a t the Michoud Assembly Facility. SLIDE #16 A stage i s being lifted into the static firing facility. SLIDE #17 This i s how the inferno of a static t e s t looks. Static firings a r e being conducted i n the development phase of the vehicles i n o r d e r to establish the flight worthiness of the stages, SLIDE #18 The second stage of the improved Saturn I i s the S-IVB stage, 54 feet long, manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Corporation a t t h e i r Huntington Beach, California facilities. You s e e the subsystem of the stage depicted on this slide. SLIDE #19 As a r e all stages, the S-IVB i s also t e s t fired for flight worthiness
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The next major stage o r unit of the launch vehicle i s a 3-ft. high slice c r a m m e d with instrumentation, actually the brains of the vehicle.

SLIDE #20
H e r e you s e e a simplified overall schematic of the electronic intelligence contained i n a launch vehicle. This slice,as you s e e h e r e , c a r r i e s most of the electronic instruments. T h e r e i s a systematic approach which i s recognizable in the repetition of the s a m e type of subsystems through all of the stages. SLIDE #21 This picture shows the physical arrangement of black boxes. All instruments a r e bolted to cooling plates so they can be properly temperature-controlled during long hot days in the Florida sunshine, and i n the hour-long coast time i n earth orbit. SLIDE #22 H e r e you s e e the s t a r t of assembly of such'an instrunzent unit in t h e IBM Huntsville facility, The Saturn V instrument unit i s m o r e impressive.

. SLIDE #23
Proposed and possible missions a r e shown here. SLIDE #24 The m o s t important support data a r e contained in the characteristics. SLIDE #25
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This diagram explains the payload capabilities of the Saturn V launch vehicle. SLIDE a26 The f i r s t stage i s built by The Boeing Go.. i n the Michoud Assembly Facility. It stands 138 feet high and i s 3 3 feet in diameter.

S L I D E #27

E a r l y s t a t i c firings we-re conducted a t our Huntsville facility. After completion of a totally new acceptance firing complex i n Mississippi, all stages except the S-IVB will be test' fired there. SLIDE #28 The S-I1 stage, the second stage of the Saturn V stack, i s 81.5 feet long.

It i s being manufactured a t a new North. American Aviation, Inc., facility

i n Seal Beach, California. Basically, the systems look s i m i l a r to the S-IVB , We u s e five engines instead of one. SLIDE #29
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In o r d e r t o appreciate the size, h e r e a r e the bulkheads of the LOX containers. P l e a s e notice the two men.working in the center. In conclusion, I would like to emphasize the new technologies introduced i n t h e s e advance launch vehicles tax our engineers and m a n a g e r s to the utmost. Sizes never before handled require new tooling approaches, new assembly procedures, and new facilities. Materials i n t h e s e alloys and thicknesses of m a t e r i a l s never before joinecl. demand t h e highest skills of our welders and welding engineers. Inspection methods m u s t a s s u r e p r i m e quality. T h e r e have been occasions when we have l o s t hardware because of incomplete evaluation o r misinterpretation of x-ray films of w eldments !

T h e u s e of hydrogen a s fuel i n these giant stages imposes f u r t h e r elements of r i s k i n the t e s t and launch a r e a s , In m o s t
c a s e s , leakages a r e c r i t i c a l because of the danger of ignition A pipe connection absolutely tight for u s e of hydrogen i n a i r . with a i r o r nitrogen may leak considerably i f used with hydrogen, The p r o p e r functioning of all electronic equipment i s dependent upon selection of dependable components and the skill of c r a f t s m e n who a s s e m b l e these components to systems. Thousands of soldering units have. to be produced and inspected.

W e just do not have a second chance with a launch vehicle failure-t h e r e i s no pilot on board to act i n emergencies,

The hardware p r i c e i s high due to i t s special handling in xanufacturing, testing, and inspection. I t has'to be perfect. J u s t one imperfection, a little soldering point failure, could nullify the efforts of thousarnds of workers who went all the way to e n s u r e the highest degree of quality. By the end of this decade, the United States w i l l have established itself a s the f i r s t nation i n Space. We will be able to launch 1,500, 000 pounds of payload yearly into a low-earth orbit of 200-300 m i l e s . We w i l l be able t o send probes into the interplanetary s p h e r e with a total y e a r l y payload weight af 500, 000 pounds.
W i t h the maintained production of six Saturn I vehicles, we will be able to launch 18 astronauts in.t;o orbit every year.
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We m u s t m a s t e r the technologies to stage a Mars mission, a fly-by o r a M a r s landing, within the next decade.

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I hope that we w i l l all live t o s e e m a n ' s biggest achievement.

Men a r e now able to defy e a r t h ' s gravity long enough to be able t o tr'avel t o the c l o s e r heavenly bodies, i n fulfillment of mankind's d r e a m through centuries past.
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Our nation will be f i r s t i n Space.