Moonward Bound

Startled by the noise, a flock of geese flapped across the cloudy sky, momentarily breaking their V-formation. Below, pulsating pressure waves beat against the faces and chests of reporters sitting in an open grandstand. In the launch-control center, as plaster dust from the ceiling fell around him and technicians wildly cheered, Wernher von Braun breathed, "Go, baby, go. " And in a portable CBS News studio, Commentator Walter Cronkite pressed his hands against a trembling plate-glass window and, in a voice distorted by excitement and vibration, shouted to a nationwide TV audience: "Oh, my God, our building is shaking . . . part of the roof has come in here!"

On Cape Kennedy's launch pad 39A last week, the cause of all the commotion, America's mighty Saturn 5, spewed brilliant flames and rose majestically on a flight that revitalized the lagging Apollo program and raised hopes that the U.S. may yet land men on the moon before 1970. Generating 7,500,000 Ibs. of thrust and one of the loudest sounds ever produced by man,* the first-stage engines lifted the 3,000-ton, 363-foot-high vehicle to an altitude of 38 miles and a speed of 6,100 m.p.h. only 21 minutes after liftoff. During this stage of the flight, the rocket, taller than the Statue of Liberty, could be seen as far away as Jacksonville, 150 miles distant.

Cutting in after the first stage was jettisoned, the liquid-hydrogen-fueled SII second stage fired flawlessly, providing 1,000,000 Ibs. of thrust and boosting the rocket to an altitude of 115 miles before it, too, was jettisoned. Now it was the turn of the third-stage S-IVB. Firing its engine, it inserted itself, the attached Apollo spacecraft, its service module and the lunar module--a total of 140 tons--into orbit, with an apogee of 119 miles, a perigee of 114 miles. It was an impressive demonstration that, after ten years, the U.S. had finally overtaken and surpassed Russia in brute rocket power. The heaviest loads ever orbited by the Soviets were the 13-ton Protons 1 and 2 in 1965.

Interception Path. During its third orbit, the S-IVB refired its engine, increasing its speed to nearly 23,400 m.p.h. and thrusting farther away from the earth. After the S-IVB was separated and the Apollo service-module engine fired briefly, placing Apollo into an orbit with an apogee of 11,200 miles and a perigee of negative 50 miles--meaning that the craft's path would intercept the earth.

As Apollo began to plunge back toward the earth from its peak altitude, its engine again fired, increasing its speed and ensuring that the craft would plunge into the earth's atmosphere at the 25,000-m.p.h. velocity that will be reached by a returning lunar mission. The maneuver was designed to test Apollo's heat shield against temperatures much higher than those encountered by Gemini and Mercury spacecraft, which re-entered the atmosphere from their orbital missions at about 17,000 m.p.h.

Hurtling down over the western Pacific, the Apollo fired its attitude controls to position itself, and then entered the atmosphere blunt end first. Although the heat-shield temperature rose to 5,051DEG F., the craft survived its plunge and was spotted descending under its three main parachutes by the recovery carrier Bennington. Eight hours and 37 minutes after liftoff, the blackened, 12,000-lb. spacecraft--all that remained of the 3,000-ton monster that left Cape Kennedy that morning--splashed into the Pacific.

Higher Notch. The most enthusiastic advocates of the Saturn and Apollo programs could scarcely believe the perfection of the complex mission, marred only by a sticky valve on the S-IVB. For Rocketeer Von Braun, who called the operation "a textbook launching all the way through," Saturn's flight was a triumphant culmination of his eight years of effort as director of the Marshall Space Flight Center, which supervised the development and production of the immense rocket.

Even as space scientists were crowing over Saturn, another U.S. spacecraft achieved success in a mission designed to support the Apollo program. Settling gently on the moon in the fourth U.S. lunar soft landing, Surveyor 6 began transmitting pictures of the rugged Sinus Medii area, one of the four possible landing sites for the Apollo astronauts.

Although several Saturn-Apollo missions remain to be flown before astronauts actually embark for the moon, last week's near-perfect flight was a giant step in that direction. If the S-IVB engine had fired for 19 additional seconds in earth orbit, a manned Apollo could have reached escape velocity and been on its way to the moon. At a distance of 10,350 miles Apollo astronauts would have separated their command ship from the S-IVB, turned it 180DEG in space, and docked nose-to-nose with the lunar module. After jettisoning the S-IVB and making a mid-course correction about 35,000 miles out, the joined Apollo and lunar module would be on their way, and man would be less than 70 hours away from setting down on the moon.

* Only atmospheric nuclear blasts and two natural events--the Krakatoa volcano eruption of 1883 and the Great Siberian Meteorite in 1908--have produced stronger air waves, according to Lament Geological Observatory.

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