They only tested the gas generator.
A fuel-burning engine which job is it to power the pumps for the rocket engine.
Just that thing is humongous.
Video would be nice.
Quoting: Keneh Here's one: [
link to www.usnews.com]
I heard they had to destroy all the blueprints and everything from the Saturn rockets in order to get funding for the space shuttle.
Quoting: Keneh You heard wrong.
In 1968 (yes, before the first Apollo landing) NASA stopped ordering Saturn Vs, the last of the 15 was finished in 1970.
In 1969 the president was advised on a number of options for the post-Apollo programme
Nixon leaned towards the "develop LEO infrastructure" option.
NASA said that with the proposed funding levels they could not develop and build a space shuttle and at the same time build a space station.
In 1972 Nixon decided to go with the Space Shuttle. (I was a disaster.)
The machinery for manufacturing the Saturn were refurbished to manufacture Space Shuttle parts.
Their operators were retrained.
And Saturn
and STS was never an option.
The design documents that weren't superfluous were converted to micro-fiches and archived.
A lot of it is now at the National Archives.
Maybe they are doing some kind of reverse engineering ?
Quoting: Keneh The F-1 is by far the biggest rocket engine ever build.
It was developed in the late 1950s, so pretty much everyone involved is no longer available for questioning.
The current generation of engineers has no familiarity with them.
And there is only so much you can glean from old design documents and technical reports.
NASA is now trying to develop a new heavy-lift launcher (the SLS) that actually would be more powerful than the Saturn V.
So indeed these youngsters are trying to learn from how the old-timers did it.
