At 7:00 AM Eastern Time on November 9th, 1967, 5 F-1 rocket engines, each one alone producing 1 and a half million lbs of thrust, roared to life, beginning the first flight of the most powerful machine ever built by humanity – the Saturn V rocket.
The Saturn V was the machine that, if everything would go as planned, would get humanity to the Moon. The individual systems had been tested – each of the 3 main stages tested on Earth, strapped to the ground and fired under simulated conditions, but until now no complete booster, let alone the 1st or 2nd stages alone, had flown.
The Saturn V was a massive machine, 363 feet tall, weighing in, when fueled, at 6 and a half million lbs. The vehicle consisted of 3 stages, known as the S-IC, the S-II, and the S-IVB. The S-IC used 5 F-1 engines producing, together a total of 7 and a half million lbs of thrust. These engines were fueled by RP-1, a refined kerosene, and liquid oxygen. After burning for 2 and half minutes, at a altitude of 30 miles, it had done its job and was expended.
The S-II was a different, unique beast. The same diameter as the 1st stage, 33 feet, it was shorter but still powerful on its own. Its 5 J-2 engines produced together one million lbs of thrust and were fueled by liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, fuels which are incredibly efficient at high altitudes and in space. This stage pushed the remainder of the craft up close to, but not quite up to, orbital velocity. After about 6 minutes it too would finish its job and be expended.
The final Stage of the Saturn V, the S-IVB, had flown before as the upper stage for the Saturn IB . It used a single J-2 using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and burned for a few minutes to put itself and Apollo into Earth orbit. A few hours later it would fire again, a property designed into the Saturn V version, and send the Apollo craft to the moon.
All of this is what Apollo 4 was to test – how did the machine behave. Could it make it to space? How would Apollo fair on its flight on this incredibly powerful machine? Beyond the Saturn V itself, this mission was also to test many improvements to the Apollo Command Module implemented following the Apollo 1 fire – notably, the design of the heat shield at lunar return velocities.
It’s also worth noting Apollo 4 would be the first flight using the official Apollo numbering system, and the first flight since the Apollo 1 fire back in January of 1967, 10 months earlier. It’s success would show that we could recover, and would work as a good start in getting back to our goal of landing on the Moon before the end of the decade.
We’ll take a look at the mission itself later – now, though, I’ll leave you with the launch itself. First, the CBS feed (with Walter Cronkite’s legendary commentary) , followed by NBC, and lastly, a much longer cut of the CBS audio, with video and art insertions, where useful, for those who want to follow the whole launch.
More to come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WYQcpKRaAY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cke5ly4mZo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_4
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V
Oh, one last note, this article is scheduled to publish at the same moment Apollo 4 lifted off the pad.