Note: Only forum leaders may delete posts.
*HTML is ON *UBB Code is ON Smilies Legend
Smilies Legend
[b]Space Cover #666: The First Launch of Our First Moon Rocket[/b] With the launch of the Artemis I mission using our newest moon rocket just around the corner I thought I would highlight the first launch of the Saturn V, our first moon rocket. When President Kennedy challenged NASA and the United States to put a man on the moon before the end of the 1960's we had no idea how it would be accomplished. The list of items needing to be developed was huge. We needed engines, boosters, spacecrafts, lunar landers and ground support equipment just to name a few. The Saturn booster was developed in incremental steps starting with the S-1 booster and the H-1 engine. This led to the Saturn-1B booster and finally the Saturn V booster with the mighty F-1 engines on the first stage to lift the 363 ft tall rocket. NASA also built the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) to assemble the various stages and other components of the Saturn V as well as the crawler transport to take the rocket out to the launch pad. Finally Launch Complex 39 was constructed with two launch pads to launch the Saturn V on its way to the moon. Following the incremental development of the Saturn booster comprising of 10 test flights and then the first 3 Apollo launches using the Saturn 1B to test the S-IVB upper stage and the Apollo spacecraft, all of the work finally came together for the launch of Apollo 4 which is also known as AS-501. Apollo 4 was the first all up test of the Saturn V booster as well as all of the launch support equipment at Launch Complex-39. The cover pictured commemorates the launch of Apollo 4/AS-501 as the first rocket able to take men to the moon. Postmarked at Cape Canaveral, the cover has the popular Space Craft Covers/Carl Swanson cachet. It is interesting to note that the cachet includes many of the support pieces for Launch Complex-39 including both launch pads, the VAB, the LCC and even the crawlerway path that would lead to the never-built Pad-39C. Many covers were produced for the Apollo 4 launch. Show us some of your favorites!
Contact Us | The Source for Space History & Artifacts
Copyright 1999-2024 collectSPACE. All rights reserved.