Replies

Silly, there was no new rocket technology that came between the early 60s testing of Saturn V and the Apollo project or Skylab!

About 400,000 engineers and technicians would disagree with you.

On January 10, 1962, NASA announced plans to build the C-5. The three-stage rocket would consist of: the S-IC first stage, with five F-1 engines; the S-II second stage, with five J-2 engines; and the S-IVB third stage, with a single J-2 engine.^[27] The C-5 was designed for a 90,000-pound (41,000 kg) payload capacity to the Moon.^[27]

The C-5 would undergo component testing even before the first model was constructed. The S-IVB third stage would be used as the second stage for the C-1B, which would serve both to demonstrate proof of concept and feasibility for the C-5, but would also provide flight data critical to the development of the C-5.^[27] Rather than undergoing testing for each major component, the C-5 would be tested in an "all-up" fashion, meaning that the first test flight of the rocket would include complete versions of all three stages. By testing all components at once, far fewer test flights would be required before a crewed launch.^[28]

The C-5 was confirmed as NASA's choice for the Apollo program in early 1963, and was named the Saturn V.^[27] The C-1 became the Saturn I and C-1B became Saturn IB. Von Braun headed a team at the MSFC to build a vehicle capable of launching a crewed spacecraft to the Moon.^[19]

^T^{he first flight of a}^{Saturn V rocket was an unmanned flight in 1967, and subsequently 12 more rockets were launched between 1967 and 1973, carrying Apollo missions and the Skylab space station. Each rocket took different amounts of time to make, but the first one took about five years of research and development.}

I have to wonder whether you're deliberately being opaque, even as you attempt to enlist 400,000 ephemerous engineers to your cause, representing that they agree with your copy and paste. Even that C&P seems to miss my point completely.

We agree that Saturn V lifted all the Apollo craft and Skylab, but von Braun said in early 1961 that we don't have rocket technology that could go to the moon even while he knew better than anyone on the planet that we already had Saturn V technology that only lacked testing. He was saying it would take something far more than Saturn V's testing to be able to go to the moon. Yet, by the time all the Apollo missions had flown, only Saturn V was available as a heavy lifting vehicle and Saturn V didn't manifest the technology that could go to the moon.

Like a good nazi, Wernher was well versed on when to keep his mouth shut.