FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1969
1969 - 2546.PDF
preserved like sentinels to a few brief years of history— Jupiter C, Thor, Atlas B, Polaris, Minuteman, Titan and Red stone, all leading up to Saturn. And so, as the buses toiled back at 20 m.p.h. through the Florida heat, the three astronauts sped out one thousand times faster through the cold reaches of space on a new voyage of discovery of no less significance than was that of Columbus in a much smaller universe which held even more unknowns. * * * In retrospect, what are the chief impressions left from NASA's invitation to witness the take-off of Apollo 11 on its historic 230,000-mile voyage in 102 hours 42 minutes to the landing on the Moon? First, the extent of the 145,000-acre "space-farm" itself. chosen in 1946 on a spit of land jutting into the Atlantic Ocean between the Banana River and the Indian River near Cape Canaveral, Florida. It is now the heart, and Station One, of the Eastern Test Range of USAF Systems Command, with headquarters at Patrick Air Force Base, south of the cape. This test range is, surprisingly, operated under contract by Pan American Airways, with a sub-contract to the Radio Corporation of America for instrumentation, data gathering and evaluation—as notices frequently remind the visitor. The John F. Kennedy Space Centre on Merritt Island— across the Banana River and north-west of the Cape Ken nedy Air Force Station, contains NASA's launch area, for which another airline—TWA. the largest employer there— provides plant engineering, maintenance and "logistics sup port." This Merritt Island Launch Area (MILA) is dotted with red-painted launch-gantries, and white storage tanks for liquid oxygen, liquid hydrogen and liquid nitrogen. The gantries, like massive oil rigs, rear up on each launch pad, growing J 88 FLIGHT International, 31 July 1969 larger and more complex and more up-to-date from south to north—from LC.12 (Atlas/Agena), through LC.19 (Gemini/ Titan) to LC.37 (Apollo/Saturn). The new Launch Complex 39 is some distance on, away from the line of older sites, and in the north-west corner stands the vast 525ft-high Vehicle Assembly building, allegedly the second largest volumetric structure in the world. It covers eight acres of ground and con tains space to assemble four Apollo/Saturn space vehicles at once. The VAB dominates the site, standing white and solid against the rivers and amid the scrub and sand, with the launch pads, looking like small oases of concrete, stretching away from it southwards. And then there is the paraphernalia of the launches— among them the "blockhouses," some like igloos of sandbags from which the rockets are controlled and monitored. There is, too, the gigantic 2,000-ton, 11,000 h.p. "crawler/ transporter" which moves the 446ft-thigh Apollo/Saturn space vehicles and their mobile launcher on four double-tracked caterpillars at 1 m.p.h. down a I30ft-wide "crawlerway" from the VAB to the two launch sites of Complex 39. And, finally, Pad A of Launch Complex 39. a reinforced concrete "hardsite" of 390 feet by 325 feet, set 48 feet above sea-level so that the five F.l rocket-engines can rest upon a yellow-painted flame-deflector. The Boeing Saturn V first stage is held by the gantry in swing-away arms. On top is the North American Rockwell second stage, and then the McDonnell Douglas third stage, the North American Rockwell Apollo spacecraft and the Grumman Apollo lunar module. On top of it all, the rocket-powered escape tower in case of trouble at launch. - * * * The launch, when it came, was more colourful and more "slow motion" than one had expected. The flame was an orange-yellow of exceeding brightness. The noise, on the other hand, was unexpectedly moderate. From 6,100 yards it seemed to be about the same as the sound of a Vulcan's take-off with reheat when heard from close to the runway. And so. 50 years after Kipling used the words in writing of the airship R-34, we stand again "at the opening verse of a chapter of endless possibilities." "The flame was an orange-yellow of exceeding brightness"
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
