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Saturn V Preservation Efforts
PizzaFace writes "Saturn V: The rocket that took man to the moon remains a totem of its time and a magnificent memento of youthful superpower. Yet Slashdot reported a year ago on the neglect suffered by the Saturn V rockets that were not launched into space. Some progress is being made toward preserving these awesome vehicles. The Kennedy Space Center has already brought its Saturn in from the rain; Houston and Huntsville are putting shelters up this year and working on funding for restoration and more permanent indoor exhibits. These gigantic masterpieces of 20th century engineering deserve a visit - maybe a pilgrimage."
Maybe you see bigger freight trains than I do, but the Saturn rockets are HUGE. I've lived in Florida all my life, and I've been to Kennedy several times, and lying on their side, they're still freakishly tall. You look at the boosters from the Shuttle and then the boosters from the Saturn, and it's just amazing how huge these things are.
:)
It makes you wonder whatever happened to solving aerospace problems with brute force.
[insert witty sig here]
As one of the many thousand people who work at Johnson Space Center, I have watched them enclose our Saturn V over the past few months. All of us are quite appalled.
Where I once came to work next to a giant reminder of NASA's past accomplishments (or rather, left for lunch by it, as I usually come in via the back gate), now I only see a big, white, ugly building. Where once tourists could stand back in awe as they took in the rocket's size, now they have to peer through windows at it.
A permanent building housing our Saturn V will surely protect it better from the elements... but it wrecks the whole reason for having it there in the first place.
A better preservation program would have three steps:
1. Commit the money needed to re-paint it once every 10 years.
2. Inspect it once a year for structural problems; repair those as they arise.
3. Do something worth doing and go someplace worth going, so that our most impressive accomplishment is not a 30 year old rocket.
Sure the rocket is impressive, the most powerful machine every created.
But standing still its just a great big tube. Having seen the one at Kennedy, its just not that impressive as a static thing. When it was running then sure, what a beast.
But what about the tech that REALLY got man to the moon. Saturn V is just a big WWII rocket, the thing that made the difference was the IBM computing "power" that directed the thing.
I'd love to see the old mission control re-built with the original style technology, and simulate the information going into it. Imagine a school trip where you had to solve the same problem as for Apollo 13, or making the error over-ride decision of Apollo 11.
It wouldn't even really matter if it was just running on one PC behind the scene as long as you got the experience of how limited the power was.
Firing a rocket is grease monkey impressive. Getting it to hit the moon is the achievement.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The Saturn V rockets deserved to be launched into space, not converted to lawn ornaments to become luxury housing for gnomes.
bkd
I wouldn't waste your time. I'm interested because I was around when man went to the moon, but my children aren't. To them it is history, just something to be read in books, learned by rote, like the dates of WWII.
Most of us here on Slashdot weren't around back then. I wasn't, but I think it's amazing still.
"Why did you turn these amazing machines into lawn ornaments?" might have been a good question to ask. I've never understood the politics of that.
Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
Sorry to be pedantic, but the Saturn V can not "go to the Moon and come back". It just shoves a few tons of payload out of Earth orbit. Most of the Saturn V ends up in the ocean. What actually went to the moon was the command module and lunar excursion module. All that came back to Earth was the command module. I think there was an incident a few years ago where the Space Shuttle, while on orbit, came quite close (in astronomical terms) to a spent third stage of a Saturn V.
Brian Smith "Jokers and aces, bruisy and blackfern" - Steve Kilbey, Day of the Dead.
Hmm...so you didn't take the time necessary to connect your children with history. Obviously, it's not your fault...they've got the darn Nintendo.
I'm glad you weren't my parent.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Absolutely right!
But lordygawdamighty, you shouldda seen them babies FLY!
Is it fascism yet?