“And I think it's gonna be a long long time
'Till touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I'm a rocket man….”
-Bernie Taupin & Elton John from the 1972 album Honkey Chateau
This news will come as a shock to no one who knows me. I am a complete geek; not a sprinkle water on the forehead type and occasionally dabble in the world.
Oh no.
I am a full immersion, faith healing, shout ‘Hallelujah”, pass me the snake, Dungeon and Dragons, card carrying, Comic Con geek. I have been to a Star Trek Convention twice. I have sat on the actual bridge of the Enterprise TNG in Hollywood. I have shaken the hand of Brent Spiner. I have ridden the Spider-man ride at Universal Studios 14 times. I played Warcraft on line for years as a level 60 ‘Night Elf’. I firmly believe that The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is the finest cinema ever created by Hollywood. And I know more facts about Marvel movies than a grown man should admit.
I love the stuff.
Oh, I try and suppress it. I try to act like a grown up all the time. But someone will mention a Batman movie and I will explain to them in scary detail why the Frank Miller run of the Batman was the superior interpretation.
So here in quarantine I have let my natural geek ‘come out of the closet’, so to speak, and indulge itself.
Ok that came out wrong, but you get the point.
I have long admired the large Lego models that are at some stores. When the boys were young, we would build Lego sets and hang them from the ceiling. The ones that were the most fun were ships we would make ourselves out of a pile of random legos. The only toys we have kept after they moved out was a suitcase full of the bricks.
Here in quarentine I was looking for something to pass the time in between lawn work, Zoom meetings, and household chores. I decided to purchase a large complex Lego model set that I could take my time building in one of our empty rooms.
I selected the Saturn V rocket set. It is a huge model that stands over 3 1/2 feet tall and, charmingly, has 1,969 pieces. 1969 was the year of the moon landing. Even when the kids were young I have never attempted anything so massive.
For those that remember, there are few things more satisfying than the ‘click’ a well placed Lego makes when placed on a set. It is like bubble wrap. The tactile pleasure when it seals to another brick is addictive and a real pleasure.
I know for many this tale boring and, dare I say, childish. If so, bail out now.
Still here?
Great! Adults can enjoy Legos as well. Think of them as a 3D jigsaw puzzle.
Ok for those that want to see the construction of such a large set and take a dive into the history of this amazing rocket I invite you to fly on. It’s a great story.
The Saturn V rocket was only used from 1967 to 1973. It was a super heavy launch vehicle designed for The Apollo program. It only flew 13 times.
Despite it’s massive size it was a completely used up each launch. Nothing was reused. In today’s dollars, each launch would cost 1.23 billion dollars.
The whole thing, all 363 feet of it, was made with much less computer power than what is in your cell phone. The project was an extraordinary feat of engineering and one of NASA’s greatest achievements.
Wernher Von Braun was a brilliant Nazi engineer. He designed the V2 rocket. The V2 was a rocket without good guidance system that could travel hundreds of miles and explode over a target. Think of it as a bottle rocket with a 1000 pound warhead. Hitler called it a “Vengeance Weapon” and some 30,000 were fired at England. The V2 was the worlds first ballistic missile. Much of their parts were also built by slave labor. Thousands died from these weapons.
Von Braun and his SS associates were responsible.
At the end of World War II, the allies had started 'Operation Paperclip’. The mission was to capture these scientists and harness their knowledge of rockets for our own use. They were captured in April 1945 and taken to a backwater in the USA called Huntsville, Alabama. There they were given every resource we had to develop a rocket program. None of them faced trial or consequences of their wartime actions. Von Braun would go on to become the lead designer of the Saturn V.
Even today, the Saturn V remains the tallest, heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever built. Future rockets would be smaller and more efficient, but none rivaled the power of this mammoth launch vehicle.
So lets break down this monster. The rocket had three stages and , interestingly, each stage was built by a different aerospace company.
The first stage was known as S-1C. It weighed over 131 tons and almost all of it was rocket propellant, kerosene and liquid oxygen. It would fire by 5 F1 rocket engines. The nozzles could all move allowing the rocket to be steered. The force generated by the rockets was 7.6 million pounds of thrust. During lift off S1-C would fire for just under 3 minutes lifting the spaceship to an altitude of 42 miles. Then, explosive bolts would jettison the stage and it would fall into the Atlantic ocean never to be used again.
Here is the launch of Apollo 11 with all 5 F1 rockets igniting-
At this point the second stage would fire. It was called the SII, weighed 80,000 pounds and was propelled by five smaller J2 engines. Its job was to propel the spacecraft above the upper atmosphere. The rocket was so high now, the astronauts no longer needed the escape launch vehicle and it was jettisoned.
SII would shut off at 9 minutes and12 seconds after launch. The rocket had now reached space at a hight of 109 miles above the earth. To get really technical, the “Karmen Line” at 62 miles up is considered the beginning of outer space. The International Space Station orbits at 249 miles above the Earth. Satellites can be as much as 22,000 miles above the Earth.
The SII is jettisoned to live forever in orbit around the Earth. Recently an amateur astronomer thought he had discovered a new asteroid. He contacted NASA only to find out he had located one of the SII stages floating around the Earth.
The third stage, known as S-IVB, fires until 11minutes, 39 seconds after launch but it is not jettisoned yet. It is powered by one J2 engine. The SIV-B helps the craft reach a height of 118 miles for a parking orbit.
The ship will orbit the Earth a few times to make sure everything is working. Then the SIV-B will ignite one more time for a 6 minute burn. The phase is the trans lunar injection. The rocket is pushed away from the Earth and towards the Moon. The Moon has to be in just the right position of its orbit or the spaceship will miss it and fly off forever.
All of this was done without the computers we have today. All of it. Think of what that would take.
The SIV-B is now useless. It is jettisoned in space. The panels that house the lunar module are now opened. The Service Module detached, turns around in space, docks with the Lunar Module and pulls it out.
After all of that our Saturn V is gone. The crew just has to land on the moon and make it back alive.
Easy right?
There is an excellent new documentary of the Apollo 11 mission on CNN. The production shows amazing behind the scenes footage and you get a real sense of the scale and challenge of the endeavor.
Want to see how it was made? Here is my time lapse quarantine journey building the rocket of my childhood.
This May will mark an important event for NASA. Two astronauts will leave for the International Space Station. They will do so aboard a Falcon heavy Rocket from Space X.
It will be the first time since the close of the Space Shuttle program that an American crew, aboard and American built rocket will fly to Space. This launch should not go unnoticed.
We are going to go to Mars in the coming years.
I hope I live long enough to see it.
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