 A visit to Johnson Space Center's Rocket Park |
 Oak trees provide welcome shade on a hot July day |
 We first come across the Mercury-Redstone and the much larger Little Joe II |
 The massive Saturn V rocket is now housed in a climate controlled building |
 The Mercury-Redstone put Al Shepard and Gus Grissom into sub-orbital flight in 1961 View Cape Canaveral Launch Pad |
 Little Joe II qualified the command module launch escape system at White Sands Missile Range, NM from 1963 to 1966 over five launches |
 Five J-2 Engines powered the Saturn 2nd stage & one restartable J-2 powered the 3rd stage |
 A modern J-2X will power the upper stages for the Ares I and Ares V for the new Constellation Program |
 Eight H-1 engines powered the 1st stage of the Saturn 1B for Apollo 7 & three Skylab crew launches |
 Five large F-1 (foreground) engines powered the first stage of the Saturn V rocket |
 The Saturn V rocket, on display outdoors since 1977, was enclosed in this building in 2004 |
 First view of the mighty Saturn V inside its protective building |
 The first stage of the Saturn V (S-IC) |
 Five F-1 Engines lifted the first stage |
 Each F-1 engine developed 1,500,000 lbs of thrust |
 The five F-1's burned 30,000 lbs of propellent/second |
 The F-1's operated 2.5 minutes & lifted the Saturn V to an altitude of 41 miles and speed of 6000 mph |
 Saturn V's launches: Two unmanned missions: Apollo 4 & 6; Ten manned missions: Apollo 8 through 17; and to boost Skylab into orbit |
 Five J-2 engines put the 2nd stage into circular orbit around the earth |
 One restartable J-2 engine sent the 3rd stage to the moon and circularized its lunar orbit |
 The 82ft long spacecraft section tops off the stack |
 The Lunar Module was contained in the aft skirt |
 The Service Module & Command Module return to earth but only the CM returns intact |
 The entire stack has been refurbished with a new coat of paint, other than the command module |
 Closeup of spacing between the CM & SM |
 Nice & shiny Saturn V second stage |
 Refurbished Saturn V third stage |
 Spacing between the 2nd and 1st stages |
 View of the Saturn V's 2nd stage five J-2's soon to be duplicated on the 2nd stage of the new Ares V rocket |
 The tour ends back at the 1st stage with the massive USA painted on the side |
 2001 photo of the Saturn V rocket exposed to the elements before enclosed within the building | |