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The Saturn 5 was the largest rocket ever built by the United States. A true monster of a launch vehicle, it generated over 33 million newtons of thrust at liftoff and carried 2.5 million kilograms of fuel and oxidizer. If the Saturn 5 exploded, it could do so with the force of a small atomic bomb, the equivalent of half a kiloton, or about 1/26 the size of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Naturally, this was a significant concern for Apollo program officials. During the course of the Apollo program, NASA officials conducted several studies to evaluate the effects of...

The initial propulsion work in support of NASA’s bid to return to the Moon and go on to Mars will focus primarily on adapting space shuttle systems and developing methane-fueled engines, a technology with which the United States has little experience. The space shuttle main engine and solid rocket boosters are the basis for two new launchers NASA intends to develop, one for lofting an astronaut-carrying capsule known as the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), and a heavy lifter for Moon-bound cargo loads. As currently envisioned, the CEV and other elements of the Moon and Mars exploration architecture would rely on...

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...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Thirty-three years after a mighty Saturn 5 rocket launched the first Apollo astronauts to land on the Moon, the mammoth booster still is flying high -- albeit on a much smaller scale. Standing more than 62 inches (1.6 meters) tall and weighing about three pounds (1.4 kilograms) at launch, the most detailed reproduction of a Saturn 5 readily available today is 1/70th the size and 1/2,166,666th the weight of the original. "It's just a matter of scale as far as the rockets are concerned. The laws of physics don't change," said Tim Van Milligan, president of...