posted 12-30-2002 10:49 PM               

I know they were meant to be discarded, but one would think that some of those Saturn V first stages must have survived somehow.

I guess they would be on the bottom of the sea, but didn't the vast ocean cough up Liberty Bell 7. I think it could be coaxed to cough up some part of a Saturn V?

posted 12-30-2002 11:30 PM               

Parker made these pens to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of the US space agency we know today as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA. The pens were made from the Atlas booster rocket which sent Colonel John H. Glenn on his historic flight, man's first, to orbit our planet on February 20, 1962.

While booster rockets normal burn up during their return descent through the atmosphere, a piece survived reentry and landed in Africa. This piece was later returned to NASA who identified it.

posted 12-31-2002 07:08 PM               

I think finding one would depend on a few things though. The first reason is being that the S-1C stage propelled the entire Saturn V rocket up to a height of 42 miles. The plunge from 42 miles would probably destroy the stage upon impact. Water is non-compressible, so an object of the S-1C's construction would probably explode (implode) on impact, since it's construction is from aluminum and the tanks were made to contain ultra cold liquids. It would be the world's largest thermos bottle slamming into the ocean. Quite a bang.

If the first stage maintained any structural intergrity it would sink to the bottom of the ocean. Now where would it come down?

Since we know that it would be approximately 230 miles down range at separation and the S-1C maintained a forward ballistic motion, then it would probably land approximately 400 miles down range (give or take). That would put the stage well beyond the Blake Plateau and into the deep water.

Chances are the stage would disintegrate on contact with the ocean surface and the debris would flutter to the bottom based upon the prevailing wind direction and ocean currents. The debris field would be large and thinly dispersed.

Now if the fuel tanks did not implode upon impact, then the plunge to the bottom would crush the tanks as the external psi built up on the downward journey. At 16,000 feet in depth the psi is about 6000 pounds per square inch. The tanks' collapse would probably flatten the entire stage at that point (unless there was a way for water to get inside the tank and neutralize the external pressure caused by the increased psi at depth). This, again, would probably mean that the stage would disintegrate and, again, leave a debris field.

Now it's time to take into account, Time. It's been 30 years. That is enough time for corrosion to take place as well as some slit build up. So what would be down there by now? A ROV would probably find flattened bits of wreckage covered in silt strewn over a large area of the deep ocean off the Continental Shelf.

Finally, the cost of salvage. The recovery for the Liberty Bell 7 cost the Kansas Cosmosphere about $500,000 and they weren't the only sponsors (the Discovery Channel was a major player too). The recovery of the LB7 as with many wrecks involved statistical analysis of the potential search area, then hiring a magnetic anomaly detector (MAG) or a side scan sonar to do a search pattern over the area (a back and forth pattern called mowing the lawn). A boring process that I have done several times up here looking for new wrecks. Then taking the contacts and trying to recognize the best targets from rock outcrops. Only then do you send down either an ROV (I Think Mike Quinn knows this much better, since he works with them) or divers (in shallower waters). It's a long arduous chore. For the S-1C, the distance from shore and the depth involved would make it a very expensive and sometimes dangerous process.

The search and possible retrieval of an S-1C would probably not be economically viable in light of what might be left.

posted 12-31-2002 11:39 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Robert Pearlman:
While booster rockets normal burn up during their return descent through the atmosphere, a piece survived reentry and landed in Africa. This piece was later returned to NASA who identified it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Larry McGlynn:
The search and possible retrieval of an S-1C would probably not be economically viable in light of what might be left.

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Still, who knows what the future could hold in progress in this area? Maybe someday in our life time?

posted 12-31-2002 11:58 PM               

I did some figuring on this some time ago due to some interest expressed by the man who funded my Atlantic Target operation (the 1810 sailing ship found during the LB7 search). Max Ary is now in the heart of oil country in Oklahoma and I know he'd like to see at least one of them recovered. I told him to find the money and we can take a crack at it. It's always the money.

I concluded that the S-1C boosters from Apollo 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, and 16 landed in roughly a 5 x 11 nautical mile area. The biggest unknown was how the boosters were tracked. After checking some documentation, I believe they were not really tracked at all; I think they used estimated theoretical impact locations based on flight models. However, if the boosters were fitted with C or S band radar xponders, then the location would be fairly accurate.

Granted, all of the boosters would have been reduced to wreckage with some large intact pieces, depending upon how they impacted the ocean. I would imagine they were tumbling during descent, as that seems to be what happens to these things once all the fuel is spent and they lose guidance. I imagine that many of the F-1 engine bells would have survived and at least some of them should be recognizable and capable of being recovered. Overall, the paint on the boosters should be intact as would be any lettering, as was the case on Liberty Bell 7. In addition, there will be long debris fields for each booster, with the heavier parts nearest the impact point and lighter wreckage farther down current.

These days, using a standard kevlar recovery line, we can lift about 16,000 lbs from those depths, which would be in the range of around 16 to 17,000 feet down in the Atlantic. On a related topic, I do remember that we did find an intact Redstone during the Challenger search (I did not personally see it - that's how it was identified on our target list). Too bad it's still there as it was only in a few hundred feet of water.

posted 01-01-2003 11:28 AM               

Finding an F-1 engine bell would be wonderful, but after the LB7 recovery, is it really that sexy to the people who have the money to put together an expedition.

The big thing on any of these salvages is "show me the money."

As for the Gemini V booster, does anyone know what happened to other Titan II first stages? This one is remarkably intact and must have been floating on the surface, since it would have wound up 450 miles down range. So it's landing must have been perfect otherwise it should have sunk in deep ocean. We did not have sufficient technology to find such an item, as we do now, back in 1965.

posted 10-22-2007 06:55 PM               

The theoretical free-flight trajectory data for the discarded S-IC and S-II stages were based on initial conditions obtained from the final postflight trajectory at separation. Some radar prints from an aircraft in the recovery area represented the only data available on the discarded S-IC stage. These radar prints can be correlated with a theoretical free-flight trajectory. They agree best with a free-flight which assumes a 90 degree angle-of-attack. Therefore, this case is used as the S-IC stage trajectory. Visual observation and the radar prints prove that the S-IC stage lost its structural integrity before impact. [emphasis added]

posted 11-20-2007 11:38 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Ed beck:
The old gallery of flight at the Kennedy Space Center had in its entrance hallway a flown flight control vane from Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 flight. That is from inside the rocket engine itself, not an outside control surface.

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