Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Apollo 50 Countdown: 5...4...

"We have liftoff."

The Saturn V rocket that launched the Apollo 11 mission into orbit is defined as a "super-heavy launch vehicle" - 363 feet tall, and weighing in at 6,540,000 pounds.


It took about five hours to move the rocket over the four miles from the gigantic Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Kennedy to Launch Pad 39A on the back of a crawler-transporter, one of two, the largest self-propelled land vehicles in existence.

 

The first stage is equipped with five F-1 rocket engines, which utilized 203,400 gallons of kerosene and 318,000 gallons of liquid oxygen to create 7.5 million pounds of thrust.

 

The Saturn V took about two years to build, and cost $110 million dollars - that's about $696 million in current cash*.

It was used once for about 20 minutes, and then thrown away.

- Sid

* To add some perspective, that's actually a little bit less than the box office for an MCU Spider-Man film.

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