Sign in to follow this  
VaBeachGuy

Dr. Werner von Braun

Recommended Posts

Dr. Werner von Braun

 

From 1961 to 1972 the United States space program had one main goal, land men on the moon and return them back to the Earth safely. The stories of the men and their missions are well known. The images they took while in space and on the moon are some of the most spectacular photo's ever taken. But what got them there and who designed it? Without the Saturn V rocket those men would have never made it out of Earth orbit.

 

S72-55482.jpg

 

Saturn V, including the Apollo spacecraft was 363 feet tall and fully loaded, the vehicle weighed more then 6 million pounds.

 

If you car gets 15 miles to the gallon, you could drive 18 million miles or around the world about 400 times on the propellants required for the Apollo/Saturn lunar landing mission. The Saturn V launch vehicle contains 5.6 million pounds of propellant (or 960,000 gallons).

 

The engines of the Saturn V launch vehicle that will propel the Apollo spacecraft to the moon have combined horsepower equivalent to 543 jet fighters.

 

The first stage has five F-1 engines, each one of which will produce 1.5 million pounds of thrust for a combined thrust of 7.5 million pounds. The F-1's fuel pumps push fuel with the force of 30 diesel locomotives.

 

The five F-1 engines equal 160,000,000 horsepower, about double the amount of potential hydroelectric power that would be available at any given moment if all the moving waters of North America were channeled through turbines.

 

The tanks which hold the cryogenic (ultra-cold) liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen on the Apollo spacecraft come close to being the only leak-free vessels ever built. If an automobile tire leaked at the same rate that these tanks do, it would take the tire 32,400,000 years to go flat.

 

Who created this massive rocket? Dr. Werner von Braun.

 

vb_bio1.gif

 

Wernher von Braun (1912–1977) was one of the most important rocket developers and champions of space exploration during the period between the 1930s and the 1970s. As a youth he became enamored with the possibilities of space exploration by reading the science fiction of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, and from the science fact writings of Hermann Oberth, whose 1923 classic study, Die Rakete zu den Planetenräumen (By Rocket to Space), prompted young von Braun to master calculus and trigonometry so he could understand the physics of rocketry. From his teenage years, von Braun had held a keen interest in space flight, becoming involved in the German rocket society, Verein fur Raumschiffarht (VfR), as early as 1929. As a means of furthering his desire to build large and capable rockets, in 1932 he went to work for the German army to develop ballistic missiles. While engaged in this work, von Braun received a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering on July 27, 1934.

 

The photo below shows Dr. von Braun with a broken arm surrendering to U.S. Army intelligence officers at the end of World War II.

 

surren.gif

 

Click for Spoiler:

Von Braun is well known as the leader of what has been called the “rocket team” which developed the V–2 ballistic missile for the Nazis during World War II. The V–2s were manufactured at a forced labor factory called Mittelwerk. Scholars are still reassessing his role in these controversial activities.

 

The brainchild of von Braun’s rocket team operating at a secret laboratory at Peenemünde on the Baltic coast, the V–2 rocket was the immediate antecedent of those used in space exploration programs in the United States and the Soviet Union. A liquid propellant missile extending some 46 feet in length and weighing 27,000 pounds, the V-2 flew at speeds in excess of 3,500 miles per hour and delivered a 2,200-pound warhead to a target 500 miles away. First flown in October 1942, it was employed against targets in Europe beginning in September 1944. By the beginning of 1945, it was obvious to von Braun that Germany would not achieve victory against the Allies, and he began planning for the postwar era.

 

 

Before the Allied capture of the V–2 rocket complex, von Braun engineered the surrender of 500 of his top rocket scientists, along with plans and test vehicles, to the Americans. For fifteen years after World War II, von Braun worked with the U.S. Army in the development of ballistic missiles. As part of a military operation called Project Paperclip, he and his rocket team were scooped up from defeated Germany and sent to America where they were installed at Fort Bliss, Texas. There they worked on rockets for the U.S. Army, launching them at White Sands Proving Ground, New Mexico. In 1950 von Braun’s team moved to the Redstone Arsenal near Huntsville, Ala., where they built the Army’s Jupiter ballistic missile.

 

 

In 1960, his rocket development center transferred from the Army to the newly established NASA and received a mandate to build the giant Saturn rockets. Accordingly, von Braun became director of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the superbooster that would propel Americans to the Moon.

 

 

Von Braun also became one of the most prominent spokesmen of space exploration in the United States during the 1950s. In 1970, NASA leadership asked von Braun to move to Washington, D.C., to head up the strategic planning effort for the agency. He left his home in Huntsville, Ala., but in less than two years he decided to retire from NASA and work for Fairchild Industries of Germantown, Md. He died in Alexandria, Va., on June 16, 1977.

 

Biography copied from From http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/vonbraun/bio.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

Saturn V photos and information from http://www.apollosaturn.com/

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks VBG! That is a very interesting article, and I like the photos. I remember many of the space launches, particularly the first lunar landing. I even built a Revell model of the Saturn V, though I don't have it any longer.

 

:)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As most people here know I am fascinated by everything concerning the Apollo program, I've always found Dr. von Braun's story to be a very interesting one and I've always been in awe of the Saturn V rocket.

 

Just imagine something as tall as a football field rumbling to life and flying high into space.

 

Many people don't know that a lot of the rocket scientists from the Apollo program, such as Dr. von Braun were the same scientists that worked on the V1 and V2 rockets for Germany in WW II.

 

In looking back at the times, 1961 to 1972 and taking into consideration the mission of Apollo I know that Saturn V and the LOR (Lunar Orbit Rendezvous) were the only way to make it to the moon by the end of the decade. In thinking about it though I wish they had been able to follow Werner von Braun's plan of EOR (Earth Orbit Rendezvous). His plan was to launch several smaller rockets into earth orbit which would rendezvous at an orbiting space station. There the pieces of the moon landing vehicle would be assembled and launched from orbit to the moon. There was even a plan for a reusable Space Shuttle (These plans date back to about 1960).

 

Had we followed that plan we would have had everything in place, according to Dr. von Braun, for a manned Mars landing mission by the early 1980's. Of course if we had followed that plan we may have never landed on the moon because we would have likely missed Kennedy's mark of completing the first moon landing by the end of the 1960's. Had that happened then public and governmental support would have likely fallen away and NASA may not even be what it is today.

 

So in looking at the whole picture it really does look like we are taking a step backwards now with the Shuttle and International Space station but in reality we're only filling in a piece of the overall puzzle that we leaped over in order to fulfill a political goal set by President Kennedy in 1961.

 

As you can tell, if you've read this far, this is a topic that I am completely fascinated by lol.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
, I've always found Dr. von Braun's story to be a very interesting one and I've always been in awe of the Saturn V rocket.

...if you've read this far, this is a topic that I am completely fascinated by lol.

Speaking of Dr. von Braun, have you seen the movie "October Sky"? It's about a young man named Homer who, with some friends, built homemade ( no Estes) rockets. They were later dubbed "The Rocket Boys." In the story , you find out that Homer had admired Dr. von Braun, and later met him at a national science fair. Homer ends up working with the space shuttle program.

 

 

:)

 

 

:)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I thought this would go with this thread, it gives you a sense of just exactly how big a Saturn V rocket is. Here's a video of a trip I made to the Kennedy Space Center in 1997. It only shows the engines of the Saturn V but from this you can a feeling of how massive it really is.

 

http://www.startrekfans.net/pics/apollo11/saturnv.ram

 

Here also is a photo that shows it in relation to other objects. On the left is the Space Shuttle as it is configured at launch time, next to that is the the Saturn V then the statue of liberty and on the far right is a standard size American football field - 120 yards (360 feet).

 

015.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this