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From: Hudson, MA
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From: Texas * Earth
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posted 08-20-2017 10:49 PM            

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Guessing that is going to a Rocketdyne testing facility in Simi Valley, California; maybe the Santa Susana Field Lab?

From the looks of that terrain it is definitely nowhere near Florida.

Posts: 678
From: Hudson, MA
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From: staffordshire England
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From: Austin, Texas
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posted 08-24-2017 07:45 AM               

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Could be at this location on 23 north west of Santa Susana.

34.339624° -118.900947°

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From: hitchin, herts, UK
Registered: Oct 2003

posted 08-24-2017 08:51 AM            

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Personally I have only seen this photo once before, in the book "Moon Race" by Deborah Cadbury, where it has a caption indicating that it is heading for Kennedy. This is not correct and I believe that it shows Santa Susana Field Laboratory where three different Saturn V second stages were tested, the Battleship stage, the Common Bulkhead Test Tank and the S-II-TS-B stage.

The method of transportation of the stages from the construction site at NAA's Seal Beach facility to SSFL was to ship the stages from the Seal Beach Naval Docks to Port Hueneme and from there by truck overland to SSFL. The three stages made this journey in August 1964, June 1965 and October 1967 respectively. From a visual perspective it is hard to tell from the photograph which of those stages it is but maybe there is some documentary evidence that someone has.

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From: Hudson, MA
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posted 08-25-2017 10:19 PM            

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Thank you to all that replied.

What I found odd — and why I thought it might not even be a Saturn stage — was the "segmented" structure visible at the top of the stage. I had not seen that before on an S-II.

Alan Lawrie — I have read your Saturn books and they are superb! Thank you.

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From: Germantown, WI USA
Registered: Jan 2004

posted 12-23-2017 05:17 PM               

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While paging through some issues of "Skyline" (the North American Aviation company magazine), looking for something else, I found this photo. The caption and a paragraph from the accompanying article confirm what capcom and Alan Lawrie mentioned above:

Challenging problem of moving large rocket segments before launch is demonstrated by Space and Information System Division's Saturn S-II common-bulkhead test tank on high road to Santa Susana test facility.

There was another journey, shorter, but more demanding in patience from the Space Division transportation specialists. It concerned the movement of a test vehicle that journeyed by water from Seal Beach 60 miles northward to Port Hueneme, then over 50 miles of Ventura County roads and California freeways into Rocketdyne's mountain testing site, the Santa Susana Field Laboratory.

This was in 1965's Volume 23 Number 3 issue of "Skyline" (i.e., published third quarter 1965). The photo actually shows the aft end of the stage; the forward end has a standard forward hoisting frame and stage erecting sling, without the doughnut-shaped work platform.

The article did not mention what the unusual concentric rings were.

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