Saturn 5 Blueprints Safely in Storage

space.com ^ | 13 March 2000 | By Michael Paine

[Dead Dog]

Saturn 5 Blueprints Safely in Storage

A NASA official has denied a claim made by a book author that blueprints for the mighty Saturn 5 rocket used to push Apollo astronauts to the moon were lost.

The denial came in response to a recent story in SPACE.com that reported on a claim John Lewis made in his 1996 book, Mining the Sky, that he went looking for the Saturn 5 blueprints a few years ago and concluded, incredibly, they had been "lost."

Paul Shawcross, from NASA's Office of Inspector General, came to the agency's defense in comments published on CCNet -- a scholarly electronic newsletter covering the threat of asteroids and comets. Shawcross said the Saturn 5 blueprints are held at the Marshall Space Flight Center on microfilm.

"There is no point in even contemplating trying to rebuild the Saturn 5 ... The real problem is the hundreds of thousands of parts that are simply not manufactured any more."

"The Federal Archives in East Point, Georgia, also has 2,900 cubic feet of Saturn documents," he said. "Rocketdyne has in its archives dozens of volumes from its Knowledge Retention Program. This effort was initiated in the late '60s to document every facet of F 1 and J 2 engine production to assist in any future restart."

Shawcross cautioned that rebuilding a Saturn 5 would require more than good blueprints.

"The problem in recreating the Saturn 5 is not finding the drawings, it is finding vendors who can supply mid-1960's vintage hardware," he wrote, "and the fact that the launch pads and vehicle assembly buildings have been converted to space shuttle use, so you have no place to launch from.

"By the time you redesign to accommodate available hardware and re-modify the launch pads, you may as well have started from scratch with a clean sheet design," he wrote.

In years past, rumors have abounded that in the 1970s the White House or Congress had the Saturn 5 plans destroyed "to prevent the technology from falling into the wrong hands".

That seems doubtful -- it would be a formidable terrorist group that decided to build a Saturn 5 to wreak havoc on the world, or build a lunar base. Also, by the1970s, the Soviets apparently had given up on the race to the moon.

Geoffrey Hughes from the Rotary Rocket Company supported Shawcross's view.

"There is no point in even contemplating trying to rebuild the Saturn 5," he said. "Having a complete set of Saturn 5 blueprints would do us no good whatsoever. True, we would still be able to bend the big pieces of metal fairly easily. But they are not the problem.

"The real problem is the hundreds of thousands of other parts, some as apparently insignificant as a bolt or a washer, that are simply not manufactured any more. Everything would have to be redone. So a simple rebuild would be impossible. The only real answer would be to start from scratch and build anew using modern parts and processes. Yet another immense challenge!"

It turns out that NASA is taking on that challenge, but not necessarily to chase asteroids.

Engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center are working on designs for a new giant launch vehicle called Magnum. It would use a curious mix of Russian rocket engines -- derived from the abandoned Soviet Energia rocket program -- and newly developed strap-on, liquid-fueled boosters that would first be tested out on space shuttles.

The Magnum would use the space shuttle launch facilities at Cape Canaveral and could launch 80 tons (81,280 kilograms) of payload into low Earth orbit (LEO). This compares with around 20 tons (20,320 kilograms) for the piloted space shuttle, and for un-piloted vehicles like the U.S.' Titan 4-B and the European Space Agency's Ariane 5. Its lift capacity, however, would be less than the 100 tons (101,600 kilograms) that the Saturn 5 and Energia could manage.

[Dead Dog]

It's just a 337 form and new WB.

[RightWhale]

new pseudo Saturn 5 could put 130-150 tons in LEO

Sounds reasonable. If it's like the Atlas V with the hot Russian motors, it won't lift ponderously off the pad, either, but move smartly.

[Orangedog]

I've always wanted to get a good, full size blueprints of the Saturn V or the V2 to frame and hand on the wall of my den. I originally wanted to frame a set of blueprints of "the gadget" that was set off during the Manhattan Project, but I knew that was too much to ask for.

[Frank_Discussion]

The 8086 argument is a special case. Tooling up for electronics is different from nuts and bolt structures, simply because the processes, materials, and base technology has evolved so rapidly. Some processes have been left completely behind.

Materials and Processes have improved a great deal since the 60's, but a surprising number of older processes are still used, so there would be little retooling in that respect. As a matter of fact, a lot of those previous exotic processes/materials from the past are standard repertoire now.

Yes, we would have to build all-new jigs and fixtures for restarting a Saturn V production line, but we'd do the same for something completely new.

[Axenolith]

Heck yea, there never was a Saturn 5 "with report"...

[wjcsux]

Doing a WB on a single engine Cessna is a lot simpler than on the Free World's largest rocket.

[Frank_Discussion]

*quiver*

What you said. D*mn.

"Like, what am I doing sitting here when there are rockets to be built."

Yeah, buddy, I'm right there with you.

[RightWhale]

good, full size blueprints of the Saturn V or the V2

That would be a lot of paper. You probably don't want the loftsman drawings, since they really are full scale. Ordinary engineerng drawings would be on 32X40 paper or something similar. A full set of drawings of the initial mechanicals would probably fill your den. Then the electrical, and then the logical one-wire, and then the truckloads of amended drawings. You'll need a room 40 X 40 and two clerks on roller skates.

[Orangedog]

Did you feel it? That was thousands of dead Cold War Warriors turning over in their graves!

No more than the WW2 warriors did when we started our space program. After all, Von Braun wasn't from Idaho. We won the war and appropriated the German's scientists and technology. It was just a little less messy this time around with the Russians.

[Dead Dog]

No argument, however, it's just a rocket. It's not like it is something complicated. Like the shuttle. All were talking about doing are about 10K STCs...and now FAA to deal with!

[orionblamblam]

>Aerospace is a small industry, so that data is still around,

Ummm... not too likely. Archives are fairly regularly purged... or not maintained. When companies merge, quite often archives are simply disappeared. Boeing is one of the few aerospace corporate archives worthy of the name. On the other hand, Northrop *used* to have a hell of an archive, as did Grumman. Then Northrop management changed, and they got rid of the archive. Then they acquired Grumman, and disposed of *their* archive.

Archives are legal liabilities. If you make a design error, or note a flaw, or somethign, and record it in an archive, and then ten years later a plane goes down because of that problem... someone might well find evidence that you knew of the flaw years ago, but didn't fix it... and sue you silly. Easier to just ditch the archive.

And then there's the fact that archives take up floorspace, and archivists are on the payroll.

[Dead Dog]

This will Lift your kilts, and jog your memory.

Nova, 250 Tons to LEO!

[RightWhale]

archives take up floorspace

Not anymore. It's nothing but a rack of CD drives. Just another box in the server room. Granted, scanning from paper to image file is labor-intensive, but that can be contracted out, probably to Bangladesh or Moldova.

[RightWhale]

As space rockets should be. Large.

[demlosers]

Archives are legal liabilities. If you make a design error, or note a flaw, or somethign, and record it in an archive, and then ten years later a plane goes down because of that problem... someone might well find evidence that you knew of the flaw years ago, but didn't fix it... and sue you silly.

Another good reason for tort reform.

[Orangedog]

A full set of drawings of the initial mechanicals would probably fill your den.

Well, maybe a full set to pick a couple of good ones from, suitable for framing.

[Frank_Discussion]

I'm only 34 years old, so Nova is before my time, but I've read about it. Weren't they worried about the actual force of launch hurting people and structures MILES away? LOL! it would have been grand to watch, I bet!

[RightWhale]

There would be a cover sheet, kind of a table of contents page. It would show the main systems groups and from there you would go to drawing subsets. The contents sheet wouldn't be anything you could build from, no dimensions or parts labelled, but it would do for display. The company logo would be on it, and a title block.

[RightWhale]

http://www.apollosaturn.com/modeling/dwsatv.htm

Not the original: probably better for most purposes aside from actually building a full-scale Saturn V.

[eddie willers]

set of blueprints of "the gadget" that was set off during the Manhattan Project,

You got the other half of the Jello box?