

Moon Rocket Scrubbed and Blown Dry 305
loid_void writes "Reutersis is reporting that a giant Apollo moon rocket that never got off the ground is about to get a face-lift after years of rusting away in the Texas heat and humidity at the Johnson Space Center.
Workers will construct a shelter for the Saturn V rocket and give it the equivalent of a "blow dry" in the first steps to preserve the relic of NASA's golden age, said Allan Needell, Apollo program curator for the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.
The 363-foot-long behemoth has lain on its side in front of JSC since 1977, a favorite sight of tourists, but also a victim of the elements.
Instead of launching astronauts to the moon as it was built to do, it has become a slowly fading hulk of peeling paint and corroded metal where birds live and plants sprout, Needell said on Wednesday during a visit to the rocket.
"There's a lot of biology growing on there," he said, pointing out streaks of algae staining the rocket's white skin."
Sink it as an artificial reef? (Score:4, Interesting)
How cool would it be to sink a Saturn V rocket as an artificial reef!
Re:Sink it as an artificial reef? (Score:2, Interesting)
Sink it nose up in 300' deep water.
Re:Sink it as an artificial reef? (Score:3, Insightful)
No because most people don't realize how massive of an accomplishment it was to get to the moon.
All of that rocket, fuel, and oxygen to carry the LM, and CSM, which are small in comparison.
Re:Sink it as an artificial reef? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sink it as an artificial reef? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Sink it as an artificial reef? (Score:2)
Re:Sink it as an artificial reef? (Score:3, Interesting)
There are actually 4 unlaunched Saturn V rockets. One is on display at the Kennedy Center, One at the US Space and Rocket Center Huntsville, Alabama and one at Johnson and I understand one more exists elsewhere. These were all built and ready for launch when Americans decided to save money going to pay for their "Welfare State" of the 1970's etc.
If you want to see how big these are, come to the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama and there you can see lying down on such rocket and a model s
Re:Sink it as an artificial reef? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sink it as an artificial reef? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sink it as an artificial reef? (Score:2)
Re:Sink it as an artificial reef? (Score:3, Insightful)
You say this because... why? There's almost as many (somewhat) complete Saturn V rockets as ships? So many that it's hard to come up with contructive uses for them, maybe?
Re:Sink it as an artificial reef? (Score:3, Insightful)
About as cool as seeing how far it could be shoved up your ass without k-y.
Jump back! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Jump back! (Score:2)
Re:Jump back! (Score:4, Funny)
What a waste (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What a waste (Score:5, Insightful)
Going to the moon may have been the greatest single physical achievement of the human race. There are only three remaining examples of the engine that took us there. This is one of them. I say, let's keep it.
Re:What a waste (Score:5, Insightful)
And we'll we're at it, let's tear down the Washington Monument and make a Parking Garage there! No need to waste all that space and stone when we could make something useful of it...
Re:What a waste (Score:5, Insightful)
But you're right, there's no sense in remembering things from the past. We should have melted down the Spirit of St. Louis, it has no place taking up space in a building.
In fact, that whole Smithsonian thing is such a waste! All that valuable real estate, wasted by useless relics of the past.
"Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it's mistakes." - paraphrased from someone famous.
Re:What a waste (Score:5, Insightful)
Years later when I was attending Embry-Riddle in Daytona Beach, I flew down to Titusville to see a friend. I went by the KSC during the evening (before the post 9-11 lock down), here in that night, I could almost feel the power, it was almost as moving as when I was a kid.
Without the past, people have nothing to aspire to, for most people what's in the books is simply writing, it's no more real than Lord of the Rings, but if you put a kid in the rocket park down there, history comes alive, here is what you are reading about, not just in words, but in towering moments to the men that rode them.
It inspired me, I would gladly pay for them to be around to inspire future generations.
What a waste, indeed. (Score:3, Insightful)
Call me sentimental, but she looked like a giant failure of human exploration to me.
Half Empty Much? (Score:2)
So not all the Saturns got launched. I feel sad for this particular rocket, since its sole purpose in life was never realized, but the project itself was still successful--giantly so!
And even this sad, unfulfilled engine of discovery can still find a purpose: to remain here on Earth, to stand as a monument to human exploration, and inspire in all who visit the sense of
Re:What a waste, indeed. (Score:3, Insightful)
wbs.
Re:What a waste (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What a waste (Score:2)
But think about stuff 200-300 years in the future. What happens if a freak explosion, huricane, earthquake, etc. shreads through KSC or MSC and ruins one of the Saturn Vs? Over 10 years, not too likely, but over hundreds? Would you really want the one at JSC to be the only one that escaped destruction, yet somebody melted it down to cut costs?
Re:What a waste (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree! And all those stupid dinosaur bones cluttering up our museums...toss em! And all those damned paintings in the Looo-ver--digitize the damn things and burn em. Waste of space!
Re:What a waste (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that it was not used 30 years ago is wasteful, but recycling it now would be even more of a waste.
JSC's Relics (Score:2)
Most of the public will never see all of JSC's relics. The center is a small museum in itself. Tucked away in various display cases at different locations are relics and images from NASA's history. Rocket Park is the most publicly-accessable and visible example (with the historical Mission Control being a close second). However, there are also everything from space suits to models of early Shuttle designs used in anechoic chamber tests on display in buildings only accessable b
Re:What a waste (Score:2)
wbs.
NASA's golden age? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:NASA's golden age? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:NASA's golden age? (Score:3, Informative)
Thank goodness for kids like you, because I've lost hope of ever seeing space. As a kid, the goal of space travel for us all seemed so close. We were sending men to the moon all the time, so how long would it take until we could all go?
As a kid, I grew up wanting to work at NASA like my dad. He worked at JSC (used to be "Manned" Space Center before being renamed after LBJ) from 1963 until 1990. I worked in and around JSC and Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Al. for 15 years, and, believe me,
Re:NASA's golden age? (Score:2)
wbs.
Re:NASA's golden age? (Score:2)
Oh yeah! Pieces of Eight! Mmmm!
BTM
Re:NASA's golden age? (Score:2)
Re:NASA's golden age?We just need more people to c (Score:2)
We need goals. I want to live my life trying to do something big for humanity. Too many people these days see their job as a necessary evil to getting a paycheck.
Re:NASA's golden age? (Score:5, Interesting)
The 60s/70s are definately the infancy of humanity in space. They hopefully are *not* the only golden age of humanity in space.
They may, however, be the golden age of NASA, when NASA could do no wrong.
It all depends on the next 20 years, I'd say. Will NASA continue to be the only road to space, or will National Geographic or the Discovery Channel be able to mount their own space missions? I mean, the last space IMAX film made 50 million. That doesn't buy you much now, but if launch costs are down, you might be able to fund a mission just for the IMAX film.
It's really an open question for me if the government, academia, or private industry is best suited to really explore space. Each one has their drawbacks, but so far the government has been in the driver's seat.
So yeah, there's probably room for a even-more-golden age in the future (call it the palladium age
Our current Babylon-5-esque best hope for space is probably the garage hacking of Scaled COmposites and Armadillo Aerospace.
Re:NASA's golden age? (Score:2)
It was also a time period when NASA was properly funded and (mostly) ran by the guys with sliderules in their pockets. Today's NASA has the potential. But it'll take funding and a major overhaul. I don't see how either will happen.
Re:NASA's golden age? (Score:4, Insightful)
The real thing that limits space exploration is pretty much cost per pound to orbit. Because it's so damn expensive, you have to make all kinds of nasty comprimizes.
The problem is that the shuttle never lived up to its promise. It takes far too many people to keep it going and far too expensive.
The best solution is to retire the shuttle sooner rather than later, stop spaceflight for a few years, and develop something new. However, in doing so, you run the decided risk of being a budget cut target in Congress (And Congressional budget issues is what made the shuttle suck in the first place) and the entire manned space program shut down.
It doesn't help that the Russians can't keep the ISS going forever with just Soyuz and Progress capsules and that they are, in general, not the best of partners. So if the shuttle is out for another few years, it's highly likely that the ISS will end up like Skylab, which ends up with another hunk of money wasted.
The problem is, NASA wasn't paid to do things *right* it was paid to do things *fast* and *cheap*. So most of the chances to make the space program more of a long-term thing were passed up, even when they were properly funded and run by the guys with sliderules.
Re:NASA's golden age? (Score:2)
Having said that, the golden age of NASA was probably about 1967 to 197x? Just before and after we walked on the moon.
How can I define this range? Because that's when even the lowliest NASA geek had status second to none, except for the astronauts; And status will get you laid.
Re:NASA's golden age? (Score:2)
A golden age [wikipedia.org] is period in a field of endeavour where great tasks were accomplished. The term originated from early Greek and Roman poets who used to refer to a time when mankind lived in a utopia and was pure.
First men in space, first men on the moon, first probes to other planets: Great tasks.
A golden age is a time that came before ours in which things were better. Men were real men, women were real women, and small fury creatures f
Beware of self-fulfilling prophecies (Score:2, Insightful)
As I've said in more than a few other space related threads, I became an engineer because of Apollo. Despite my mild depression, the space program has instilled in me a sense of optimism and purpose I just can't shake. As long as there are bright people with big dreams, we're in for greater days, I promise.
On a more personal note, if you're young, remember that your life i
Re:glory days behind us (Score:2)
Especially the technology minded/geeky/typical slashdot readers. Many of us are in fields that will have a strong effect on the future. Lets hope that effect is positive for humanity.
Kansas Cosmosphere (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Kansas Cosmosphere (Score:5, Interesting)
This is Johnson freaking Space CENTER for crying out loud - yet the items they had on display at the visitor's center weren't much better than the items in the Hall Of Space at the Cosmosphere - in many ways KSC has them beat (KSC's Redstone rocket is in better shape, KSC has an SR-71 in addition to the T-38, KSC has the original Apollo "White Room").
Look, JSC *is* NASA - KSC is a private sector organization in the middle of Kansas (more or less).
It just doesn't seem right for me to be walking around JSC's visitor center saying "Yawn. Ho-hum. Got anything better?"
Re:Kansas Cosmosphere (Score:2)
Reno residents still get in free? I might have to stop in my next trip back 'home'
Re:Kansas Cosmosphere (Score:2)
I told CleverNickName about the KSC - he was looking for things to do on his next trip into Tulsa for a SF con (posted in his Journal), and I told him a detour north would be a good idea. Now, the question is, will Wil do it?
Re:Kansas Cosmosphere (Score:2)
Only bad thing about KSC is when Ary left. Without him, KSC wouldn't have hardly anything
Re:Kansas Cosmosphere (Score:2)
Hold on, are you talking about the same [nasa.gov] KSC that I'm thinking of? That already has an actual saturn V rocket [kennedyspacecenter.com] on display inside of an air-conditioned building together with the actual launch control room equipment? Note that the KSC I'm talking about is in Florida [kennedyspacecenter.com], not in Kansas, not even more or less...
Re:Kansas Cosmosphere (Score:5, Funny)
Having suffered through several cross-Kansas drives during Summer vacation trips as a kid, I can tell you there is just about nothing *but* space in Kansas.
Re:Kansas Cosmosphere (Score:2)
I-70 towards Hays sucks though. I know it'll get modded down, blah blah, but someone's gotta take a stand. =P
Re:Kansas Cosmosphere (Score:2)
For what it's worth, Ohio's two famous astronauts (Neil Armstrong and John Glenn) are both from rural areas.
An important piece of history (Score:5, Insightful)
Although I've lived in the US for a few years now, I've never had the opportunity to go see some of this stuff. Seeing this thing cleaned up and in a permanent display will definitely be worth the price of admission.
Re:An important piece of history (Score:4, Informative)
Side note: If you stay in the Cocoa Beach area overnight, make sure you book yourself on the big casino cruise boat for that evening. Even if you don't gamble, it's free, fun, and the buffet rocks.
Re:An important piece of history (Score:3, Interesting)
Currently there are three Saturn Vs on display:
* At the Johnson Space Center made up of first stage of SA-514, the second stage from SA-515 and the third stage from SA-513
* At the Kennedy Space Center made up of S-IC-T and the second and third stages from SA-514
* At the US Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama made up of S-IC-D
Let's make it into a diner! (Score:5, Funny)
not a waste- good for morale and education (Score:5, Insightful)
And to those who have called it a waste of resources, I have only this to say. All the money in the world won't be of any use if we don't create another generation of engineers and scientists. I've personally seen the look in a kid's eyes when they get up close to something enormous and meaningful. You just can't buy that.
I partially agree......... (Score:2)
I agree that we need projects and items which inspire the current generation to believe that will still have the ability to get out and explore. I also believe that it is the likes of daring private projects such as Scaled Composites [scaledcomposites.com] who best serve this need.
Re:not a waste- good for morale and education (Score:2)
In our districts, the kids have to take turns checking out, and studying from, the horrendously outdated textbooks the school does have.
A textbook. You just can buy that.
Re:not a waste- good for morale and education (Score:2)
Sigh. What can one do? Oh, that's right. Vote.
Re:not a waste- good for morale and education (Score:2)
Larry
Re:not a waste- good for morale and education (Score:2)
Re:not a waste- good for morale and education (Score:2)
I think we just found Michael Jackson's Slashdot ID!!! *rimshot*
YES! (Score:5, Interesting)
I drive past it several times a week (down Saturn Drive for the locals), and it just makes me sick to see it in the shape it's in. Thank God it's finally going to be taken care of and treated as the treasure it is. The pictures don't do justice to the damage being done to the ship.
By the way, as a teenager, I was horrified to hear that they were going to display it on its side. I thought for sure that it was going to be displayed upright. What a dweeb I was (am?). Yeah, that would be great: make it so you could only see the bottom. And then there's the problems it would cause with low-flying aircraft, (lots of them, including those annoying advertizement-pulling planes). Oh, and we get hurricanes down here in these parts.
Thank God? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:YES! (Score:3, Informative)
Quite a sight when flying in. You you weren't that much of a dweeb for thinking they would do the same with that rocket.
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great pick-up line... (Score:3, Insightful)
Am I the only one who sees this as a great pick up line? .]
[. .
Random gal: *SLAP*
This is why us geeks can't get chicks. Our definition of a "great" pickup line is the one that generates the hardest slap. :)
Novel use for old rocket (Score:3, Funny)
One in Huntsville, too (Score:4, Informative)
Plastic (Score:2, Funny)
do something useful (Score:3, Interesting)
NASA does excellent unmanned science, but the moon shot, cool as it was, wasn't good science or space policy.
Good thing private efforts are starting to pick up the slack. [xprize.org]
I must add that the most awe-inspiring thing to me is that all the construction, design and launch was done on slide rules [hpmuseum.org].
Re:do something useful (Score:2)
We know a lot more about it because of the manned landings than we did because of all of the *unmanned* probes. When's the last time you heard about any real results from anybody *but* the apollo astronauts and the folks who analized the stuff they brought back.
Although I'd definately agree it wasn't especially good space policy.
I'm not surprised about the whole slide rule thing, really. Longer calculations mean that you get it 85% right and robust instead of t
Saturn V Engines (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was at Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Al., they used to test the SSME (Space Shuttle Main Engines) at a test stand a few miles from my building. I was amazed at the power and noise of the SSMEs until an oldtimer told me what it was like when they tested one of the Saturn V engines: He said your coffee cup would literally bounce off of the desk, and forget talking on the phone during a test fire. And that was just the one engine. Imagine what it was like when they all fired at the same time...
Re:Saturn V Engines (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Saturn V Engines (Score:3, Informative)
The shuttle's main engines [arizona.edu] produce a maximum of 488,000 pounds of thrust. The Saturn V main engines [si.edu] produced a total of 7.5 million pounds of thrust, or 1.5 million pounds per engine. So it looks like each engine on the Saturn V was about 3 times as powerful as each of the main engines on the shuttle.
Oh, the solid rocket boosters [nasa.gov] on the shuttle each produce 3.3 million pounds of thrust.
rusting? (Score:2)
rusty titanium?
Surely its not made of ferrous metal?
or even got much ferrous metal in it...?
Re:rusting? (Score:2)
insert obligatory dagblamint gubmint statement (Score:2, Funny)
State of the rocket (Score:2)
The rocket is not in good shape - there are holes in it, and the paintwork is cracking and peeling. It was quite sad really. Good they are doing some work on it.
Apollo 18 (Score:5, Interesting)
This was actual flight hardware that was supposed to have gone to the moon for the Apollo 18 mission. When they brought it in, it still had red "Remove before flight" tags hanging from various places.
I am
It's the Definition of "Rock-N-Roll"!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
I could not see the Gantry, so I had to wait 'till it came over the trees. It was a moonless night. The moment it was ignited, and minutes before I saw it, the sky turned an acetylene-yellow and night became as day. Had I been driving on Interstate 95 there is no doubt I could have turned of my lights and drivrn in complete safety at 70+ MP
Someone has to say it... (Score:3, Funny)
Quick! (Score:2)
After reading just the title... (Score:2)
Let it rot (Score:2)
Let is lay, rusting in that field. Lets spend our interest on documenting its decay.
Watch our fleeting focus on expanse slip away, get ruined by moss and tears.
Whats the hurry? Think this is all we have to achieve?
Take pictures of the dustpile. Our great-great-great-great...great grandchildren will find our travels -- and our sense of accomplishment -- amusing.
History is a long time.
Re:hrm... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:hrm... (Score:4, Funny)
These days, it's more like
...
Step 4: Get taken to Guantanamo Bay
Step 5: ????
Step 6: ????
Step 7: ????
Step 8: ????
Step 9: ????
Re:hrm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:hrm... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:hrm... (Score:2)
Re:hrm... (Score:2)
Re:Finally something nasa engineers can do (Score:2)
Maybe they can get corporate sponsors to paint logos on the side to help defer the cost of upkeep? Nothing says 'merica like a big McDonald's M(tm) on the side of an unused million dollar rocket.
Re:My goodness.... (Score:2)
Re:My goodness.... (Score:2)
Re:My goodness.... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Another waste of money (Score:5, Insightful)
No. A whole bunch of contractor companies were hired to design, build, and test parts of it. Companies that hired people. Thousands of skilled people. People that got paid a good salary for a good days work. People that supported tens of thousands of other people by buying food, clothes, cars, houses.
So it didn't get used. The budget and interest ran out. A shame, but not like the money was wasted.
What would you prefer we have done with that money? Collect taxes and merely give it away?
Re:Another waste of money (Score:5, Interesting)
Put simply, the government needs to be able to support people who want to be artists, writers, musicians, hobbyists, explorers, naturalists, scientists, inventors, or any other interest that involves individual dedication and creativity. The product of the work those people do would be public domain, benefitting everyone, without consuming many resources or putting taxpayer's money to poor use. Meanwhile, anyone with a line on a normal form of employment or who wished to retain ownership of their works would follow the normal, self-supported way of life we all try to have today. Anybody could choose which path to take, and the cost of the system is not as high as you think - it doesn't take much money to pay someone a basic income to relax at home and write poetry. And by supporting people's interests we would be encouraging people to follow them, rather than paying based on the number of children a welfare family can crank out, as we do today.
Until recently, Oxford, Cambridge and other universities in the UK were completely free for citizens to attend. Graduates of those institutions could go on to hold a post with the government, researching various things for a moderate income for all their lives. This is the way things should be, not requiring students to pay hundreds of thousand of dollars to feed the over-inflated salaries of university administrators and who then must accept positions that often encourage them to bend their ethics for the purposes of a greedy individual or corporation.
The government _SHOULD_ be "wasting" millions of dollars paying people to do things like develop a space program. It has benefited us all and cost us much less than the 'war on terror', which has left us only with degraded individual freedoms, dead men and women from mostly lower-income families and more millions into the bank accounts of the businessmen who engineered the whole thing. Thank you, Cheney.
-Elentar
Re:Another waste of money (Score:2)
I don't think this part of our system is so bad. I do agree with you tha
Re:Another waste of money (Score:2, Interesting)