F1 rocket engine with #kuiperforscale (he’s 22.5 inches tall at the shoulder, and this is my ultra wide angle lens.) Thank you @staffordmuseum for allowing Kuiper to visit.
There are FIVE of these on the first stage of the Saturn V (the rocket that’ll propel us to the Moon.)
At 19 ft (5.8m) tall and over 12 ft (3.7m) in diameter, the F1 remains the most powerful liquid fuel, single nozzle rocket engine ever flown. It runs on liquid oxygen and kerosene, and was developed by Rocketdyne in the 1950s. All five of the F1s on the Saturn V are the same, with the exception that the four on the outside can pivot a bit for steering, while the center engine is stationary. In total, the five F1s produce 7.5 million pounds of thrust (33.4 million N.)
We’re running a little short on time, so I’m going to gloss over the rest of the unmanned Apollo missions a bit. In brief:
? The original Apollo 1 mission designation was AS-204. After the tragic fire, NASA changed the mission designation to Apollo 1 to honor the fallen astronauts (at the request of their widows.)
? Apollo 2 and Apollo 3 don’t really exist. NASA briefly considered two options: 1. Give the name Apollo 2 to the next flight after the fire or 2. Retroactively designate unmanned tests AS-202 as Apollo 2 and AS-203 as Apollo 3, then name the next flight Apollo 4. They went with option 2, except they didn’t retroactively designate the test missions; they just went with naming the next mission Apollo 4.
? Apollo 4 launches on November 9, 1967, and is the first unmanned test of our Saturn V rocket (much more on the rocket in a bit.) Complete success.
? Apollo 5 launches on January 22, 1968 (with the Saturn 1B rocket intended for AS-204.) This is the first unmanned test of our lunar module. Success.
? Apollo 6 launches April 4, 1968, and is our second unmanned test of Saturn V (with CSM reentry test.) Partial success, but not many people noticed as this was the same day Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. ☹️
Our first manned Apollo mission after Apollo 1 will be October 11 1968, nearly 20 months later.
Original post: https://www.instagram.com/p/BzoLNcPl-vY/