Saturn rockets were in development in 1957?
Saturn rockets were in development in 1957?
Close enough. Don't forget that the rocket which launched the Moon landing in 1969 was the Saturn *V*, the fifth in a series of various rockets in the Saturn program, and 1957 was only 12 years before that.
The link says:
August 15, 1958: Wernher von Braun and his team in Huntsville, Ala. received an assignment to develop a heavy launcher, later designated Saturn-1.Von Braun was probably doing design and proposal work for most of a year before he finally got the official go-ahead, so saying that he was working on the program in 1957 isn't implausible. Or at most, the article was just off by a year.
[A bit of Googling later:] Ah, here we go:
The Saturn I was United States' first large clustered rocket. Its tanks were derived from the Jupiter and Redstone missile tanks, and its first stage engines were derived from those of the SM-64 Navaho missile. An earlier version of the H-1 engine was also used by the Thor and Jupiter IRBM's. It was conceived in April 1957 by Dr. Wernher von Braun and the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) clustered launch vehicle for carrying manned and unmanned space payloads with a thrust of 1.5 million lbf (6.7 MN). Initial plans called for 30 research and development flights between 1958 and 1963.The final production run however, resulted in the launch of only 10 Saturn I vehicles. The program along with ABMA personnel were transferred to NASA in 1960. The Saturn I started out in April 1957 as a heavy lift concept called the Juno V by the U.S. Army Ballistic Missile Agency. It was later renamed the Saturn in February 1959.
> Saturn rockets were in development in 1957?
From the book on the Saturn project I never got around to finishing:
The Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA) began studying a concept in April of 1957 for what they termed the "Super-Jupiter." This hypothetical vehicle was intended to have a first stage thrust of 1,500,000 pounds, a giant of its time. Rocketdyne performed several feasibility and design studies for the first stage propulsion system. By September of 1959, several engine layouts for Super-Jupiter were under consideration: 1 F-1 rocket motor of 1,500,000 pounds thrust, four E-1 motors of 400,000 pounds thrust each and eight or nine X-1 motors of 188,000 pounds thrust each. The F-1 engine went on to power the Saturn V vehicles; the X-1 was an early USAF designation for the H-1 engine that powered the Saturn I series, but the E-1 engine did not leave the drawing board. All engines burned RP and LOX.
The basic Super-Jupiter was designed as a 1,500,000 pound thrust vehicle, but trade studies of boosters with thrust levels of 3,000,000 pounds and 6,000,000 pounds were also conducted. Rocketdyne found that while system reliability and performance went up as the engine thrust increased, the smaller engines would be available first. Plans were drawn up for a nine X-1 booster, with the possibility that engines would be discarded during boost (as two booster engines are discarded from the Atlas missile, keeping only the single sustainer). Even so, it was concluded that the F-1 engine was desirable, for boosters of 1,500,000, 3,000,000 and 6,000,000 pounds thrust (it would have been interesting to see a Saturn V class vehicle powered by 24 X-1 engines... a direct analogue to the Soviet N-1).
The Super-Jupiter was to be an all-purpose vehicle, to be used for four missions:
1: Space Exploration
2: Large payload satellites
3: Global reconnaissance
4: Super ICBM
Its baseline configuration was a three stage rocket with a single 1,520,000 pound thrust F-1 engine on the first stage, a single 441,000 pound thrust E-1 on the second and a single 86,500 pound thrust S-4 engine on the third. While drawings of the complete vehicle are lacking, weights are available.
Gross takeoff weight: 1,008,700 pounds
First stage propellant: 657,000 pounds
First stage burnout weight: 351,600 pounds
Second stage takeoff weight: 308,400 pounds
Second stage propellant weight: 197,300 pounds
Second stage burnout weight: 111,100 pounds
Third stage takeoff weight: 95,200 pounds
Third stage propellant weight: 60,800 pounds
Third stage burnout weight: 34,400 pounds
Payload weight: 30,300 pounds
(Payload is that of ICBM missions.)
While development of the Super-Jupiter was highly steeped in the hypothetical, it led directly to the development of another hypothetical, but realistic, vehicle. Starting in December of 1957, the ABMA, under the sponsorship of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), developed the Juno V booster. This followed on the heels of the Sputnik launch of October, 1957, and was a continuation of the Juno booster series. The Juno I was a Redstone rocket carrying an Explorer satellite; the Juno II was a Jupiter missile carrying Explorer-type upper stages; the Juno III was a project like the Juno II with similar, but larger upper stages; the Juno IV was a project for a Jupiter rocket with liquid fueled upper stages.
This vehicle differed in several respects from the Super-Jupiter: complete abandonment of the E-1 engines, different second stage, and a new concept for first stage propellant tankage. The Super-Jupiter seems to have been intended to use large propellant tanks in the first stage, with one each for the liquid oxygen and the RP-1. Early on, the Juno V was proposed with several forms of first stage propellant tankage, including conventional tankage and “clustered” tankage. In the latter concept, existing propellant tanks would be clustered together... namely, a central 105-inch diameter Jupiter IRBM filled with liquid oxygen, surrounded by a cluster of 70-inch diameter Redstone IRBMs, four filled with liquid oxygen and four filled with RP-1.
An early requirement for the Juno V was 1.5 million pounds launch thrust, which was to be provided either by a single F-1 engine or eight H-1 engines.
Fig. 6 Juno V First Stage With Conventional Tanks and Either 1 F-1 or 8 H-1 Engines (ABMA, 1958)
Several different concepts were produced for the Juno V first stage tankage arrangement. The first utilized a single 216 inch diameter tank with an internal bulkhead to keep the LOX and the RP-1 propellants separate. This provided for the smallest and best-optimized design; however, handling such large tanks would be difficult as the only means available for transport would be water routes, and new tooling would be needed to build such a large tank.
The second concept consisted of a central LOX tanks with a concentric RP-1 tank wrapped around it. This reduced several problems of the first design, including slosh and fuel lines running through the LOX tank. However, it would still be just as large as the first concept; and added problems of insulation and double concentric walls meant that it would weigh approximately 20% more than the conventional design.
The third concept used a single Jupiter tanks, filled with LOX, surrounded by eight Redstone tanks, four filled with LOX and four with RP-1. This design would have a 256 inch diameter, but could be easily broken down into components for transport and required no new tooling for the tanks.
The fourth concept used eight Redstone diameter tanks in a circular arrangement, each divided into LOX and RP-1 tankage. While leading to longer tanks than for the previous concept, it allowed for the propellant lines to be run through the central opening.
Preliminary study showed that the third was the most advantageous design for the Juno V, thus setting the stage for the Saturn I.