Space: Saturn’s Success

With a scream that was out of this world, a giant rocket last week rose ponderously off its pad at Cape Canaveral, Fla. and, gathering speed, disappeared into the sky. When it splashed into the sea eight minutes later, the Saturn rocket had reached its programed height of 95 miles, scored a remarkable success in its first test flight, given the U.S. a big boost in its race for space against the Soviet Union.

Since the race began with the 1957 firing of Sputnik I, the U.S. has been handicapped by rockets with far less thrust than the Russian models. Forced to work with small payloads, the U.S. skillfully miniaturized instruments, gathered a library of data from space, and prided itself on the “sophistication” of its equipment. But the big, brute-power feats belonged almost exclusively to the U.S.S.R. The rockets that orbited the two Russian astronauts earlier this year had developed an estimated 1,000,000 lbs. of thrust. At the time, the most powerful U.S. rocket in operation was the 400,000-lb. Atlas.

The Saturn fired last week developed a thrust of 1,300,000 Ibs. Conceived in 1958 by Army Rocketeer Wernher von Braun. Saturn is a hybrid of eight 165,000-lb. engines clustered together like a bundle of cigars. As it stood on its Canaveral launching pad, the rocket towered 162 ft. high, weighed 462 tons.

Only the Saturn booster was tested last week; the upper two stages of the rocket were dummies filled with water for ballast. Saturn is scheduled to make its first operational flight in 1964, will have enough power to orbit a ten-ton satellite around the earth or dump a four-ton load of instruments on the moon. By 1966, an advanced model Saturn, boosted by two 1,500,000-lb. North American F-1 engines, is programed to put a three-man spacecraft called Apollo into orbit around the moon. In the meantime, the U.S. hopes to start landing instruments on the moon next year with an improved version of the Atlas missile; it will have a liquid hydrogen engine in its second stage, match the power of Russia’s 1,000,000-lb. rockets. By 1967, the U.S. hopes to land men on the moon with the Nova, a rocket still under study that may end up being powered by clusters of F-1 engines.

Last week’s successful firing of the Saturn booster—given only a 30% chance of success by the scientists themselves—was a major accomplishment. But many U.S. scientists are convinced that the Russians are already testing rockets far more powerful than their present 1,000,000-lb. monsters. For both Russia and the U.S., the race for space has only just begun.