Posted on 01/16/2014 5:20:49 AM PST by C19fan
The last Saturn V launch was for the 77 ton (169,950 pounds) Skylab.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab
more:
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/rocketry/home/what-was-the-saturn-v-58.html#.UtxrKxAo7IU
The Saturn V rocket was 111 meters (363 feet) tall, about the height of a 36-story-tall building, and 18 meters (60 feet) taller than the Statue of Liberty. Fully fueled for liftoff, the Saturn V weighed 2.8 million kilograms (6.2 million pounds), the weight of about 400 elephants. The rocket generated 34.5 million newtons (7.6 million pounds) of thrust at launch, creating more power than 85 Hoover Dams. A car that gets 48 kilometers (30 miles) to the gallon could drive around the world around 800 times with the amount of fuel the Saturn V used for a lunar landing mission. It could launch about 118,000 kilograms (130 tons) into Earth orbit. That’s about as much weight as 10 school buses. The Saturn V could launch about 43,500 kilograms (50 tons) to the moon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saturn_V
Payload to LEO, 260,000 pounds (130 tons, 120,000 kg, 120 tonnes)
Von Braun planned to assemble a Mars mission in orbit, using up to 12 Saturn V launches to do it (basically, the entire lunar landing program over again, but using a stage one booster that literally never had an engine failure).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.