Saturn 5 Launch

[bomelia]

Actually, a model, 1/10 scale (36 feet tall), 10 years in the making, $10,000 in fuel alone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHnk6ulSNSo

Too cool.

Mike

[bomelia]

...oh, btw, its not a Chrylser.

[trularin]

Excellent video.

1/10 scale is huge!

[Joe Wicked]

Nice. I did a little model rocketry (very little) and it was a lot of fun. I just have too many irons in the fire so to speak to do a lot of what I like to. Not enough money to spread around.

[Dan40]

Would anyone else call the cameraman standing by the rocket at launch, foolish?

[bomelia]

Originally Posted by Dan40

Would anyone else call the cameraman standing by the rocket at launch, foolish?

I SO agree with you. I have a friend who has this same hobby (well, used to until his first kid came along) and he told me the guy was further away than he looks (the rocket is 36 feet tall!). However, if you watch the launch, it looks like the smoke cloud is just engulfing him has the rocket clears the gantry. My friend did tell me that protocol for a rocket of that size would be well over a thousand (more like 2-3) standoff distance. But the crowd is no where near that distance away. If you look closely, you can see debris falling very near or into the crowd. They are all so very lucky that it all went well.

Mike

[bomelia]

Another thing that is interesting is the chute at the bottom of the rocket. I gotta believe he was trying to land the thing on its side, but it landed straight up! Maybe that WAS the goal. Least damage possible orientation. Maybe the bottom chute was to stop the bottom from nutating (gyrating). There WERE two chutes at the top which would seem to create an imbalance. I would love to hear the theory behind this. It is so amazing that it landed like it did! BTW, most of my rocketeer friends were positive that the complicated chute and separation system would not work. Too many complicated interactions. They were wrong! As for the engine, it was a "one off" so test data was very limited (due to cost as I understand it).

Mike

[Ronbo]

The last Saturn V is in a building down at Kennedy. Huntsville has most of another (the last two Apollo missions to the moon were cut). They had to move it indoors about 10yrs ago as the weather was taking it's toll on it. Truely massive scale of that stuff. The crawlers are about 5 stories high and have a surface area of almost two acres.

When I was at Redstone in Alabama we saw the testing station for the engines, there were 7 water pumps for cooling. 5 were needed for a Saturn stage one engine (two reserve). By comparison the Shuttle main engine needs two pumps. The platform was anchored several hundred feet into the mountain and during tests seismic instruments registered earthquakes in ten surrounding states. Housewifes in Huntsville compained about broken dishes, stuff knocked off walls and shattered windows after each test.

The Russians built two, even larger rockets. Both blew up on the pad.

[Silverback51]

How many people dream of doing something and how many actually do it?

Congratulations to Steve Eves for being a man that follows through on his dreams.