Saturn V anecdote

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MartG

Original Poster:

20,622 posts

203 months

Saturday 12th October 2019
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Halmyre said:
MartG said:
The Sun should leave the science reporting to other news sites...

What Saturn V ever looked like that?
Lego ?

MartG

Original Poster:

20,622 posts

203 months

Friday 1st November 2019
quotequote all
From J Harvey LeBlanc:

Some of the “hi tech” tools I used as Design Engineer on the Saturn V Rocket, used to get men to the moon in the 1960s!! Note, no electronic computers! lol. Our Design Engineering work areas, at North American Aviation, were made up of several huge Drawing Rooms to accommodate several hundred engineers. We all had a drafting machine, a florescent light, a wooden stool, a 10” slide rule and pocket protector with about ten pencils! We came to work carrying our coffee in a thermos and our lunch in a metal lunch box (like the black one shown behind the first guy in the next photo.) We did our analysis with the slide rules and the drawings were made on paper utilizing the drafting machines. Few of us had drafting machines at the beginning of the program. The company loaned us new machines and took a dollar or so out of our paychecks until they were paid for! I was making $585 per month!! We were full of enthusiasm and ready to design the Saturn V Rocket and Apollo Capsule. We didn't need no stinking computers! I now think about the advances that have been made during the 50+ years since then in computer technology, including Computer Aided Design software, and realize how much easier our jobs would be today!

The building got very hot in the summer since we had no AC. There were 6 ft. high fans strategically located near the supervisor's areas. The rest of us just dealt with the heat. Occasionally birds would fly into these areas. Each night we made sure to cover our drawings to keep them from dropping their bombs on our drawings. But we were going to the moon!!!




MartG

Original Poster:

20,622 posts

203 months

Friday 8th November 2019
quotequote all
Distantly related...

"From 1964-1968 there was a show called "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," which featured a vehicle called "The Flying Sub."

Though fictional, things like that have always been interesting to the military, and the design of the Flying Sub 1 ("FS1") seemed more plausible than most. Somewhere along the line, someone thought, "What the hell, why not?" and talked someone somewhere in the Pentagon to springing for some wind tunnel tests to see if the thing would work at all. ( It's the military, so it took a while for all the paperwork to go through, )

But in 1971, 3 years after the show ended, they actually built a large aeronautical model and began testing at Arnold AFB in Tennessee.

Entirely predictably, it didn't work at all.

Just the same, it's (A) cool and (B) one of only two times I'm aware of where a government agency actually experimented with science fiction TV vehicles ( The other being the Star Fury from Babylon5 ) to see if they'd actually work.

Here's an actual picture of the tests being done."




MartG

Original Poster:

20,622 posts

203 months

Friday 22nd November 2019
quotequote all
From J Harvey LeBlanc

How to Destroy a Rocket-----In an earlier post, I described how I had designed the Pneumatic Servicing Systems for the S-II stage of the Saturn-V. A set of this hardware had been provided to the Kennedy Space Center as well as the Mississippi Test Facility (MTF), now called Stennis. In 1966, we had shipped the S-II-T test stage to MTF for a series of static firing test. During one of the test a fire had developed in one of the J-2 engines. Three days later, checks were underway to determine the cause of a leak that had resulted in the fire.
At the time of the accident, the S-II-T was being pressurized for a leak check by the second shift Complex Coordinator, who was not a Certified Test Conductor. He was authorized to conduct only routine pressurizations up to 8 psig. The purpose of the test was to attempt to pressurize down to one of the J-2 engines at 8 psig, so that a leak check of the engine pre-valve could be performed with a soap solution.
During the first shift, the pressure sensing line had been disconnected from the LH2 tank causing the pressure indicators on the control panel to become inoperative. The second shift Complex Coordinator was not aware of this and started to pressurize the tank for the test. He made five attempts to pressurize the tank, but received no pressure indication on the control panel, because the instrumentation was not connected. Believing that the LH2 tank relief valve was failed open, he then authorized the closing of a facility blocking valve downstream of the tank relief valve. Not a smart thing to do!! In fact, this stage relief capability had worked on the first four pressurization cycles, protecting the tank. However, he believed the tank pressure to be 0 psig (as that is what his control panel indicated). On the fifth cycle, with the control panel still reading zero, the pressure in the tank actually continued to rise as there was no relief valve allowed to open…….until S-II-T exploded!
This happened on May 28, 1966. I was attending a Memorial Day weekend pool party when I received a panic call saying that the LH2 Tank Pressurization System I designed, had just blown the S-II-T Stage!!!! Panic Time!!!
I was on the next flight from California to Mississippi to determine what had really happened. After a complete review of all the data and the flawed test procedure that had been used it became quite evident that my design was not to blame.
These lessons learned from this accident were utilized to implement the following changes:
• Procedures for test engineers updated to ensure that all operations were completely detailed.
• Special instructions prepared, so that when one shift handed over to another the complete test configuration was fully understood.
• Only trained and authorized test engineers allowed to perform specific tests.




MartG

Original Poster:

20,622 posts

203 months

Wednesday 4th December 2019
quotequote all
Extreme slomo of Atlas Centaur AC-5 launch failure in 1956. Ignition is at 1 min

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHAn5IIYYlU&fe...

MartG

Original Poster:

20,622 posts

203 months

Thursday 5th December 2019
quotequote all


Top down view into a pair of XRS2200 linear aerospike engines. These are derived from the J-2 used on the Saturn V second and third stages. They were half scale prototypes for the RS2200 on the Venture Star. The pair would power the X-33 half scale test vehicle for the Venture Star, but the X-33 never flew before its cancellation.

2fast748

1,091 posts

194 months

Thursday 19th December 2019
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Just a heads up that BBC iPlayer has Chasing the Moon available at the moment which is an interesting look at the Gemini & Apollo era of space exploration.

Fonz

361 posts

183 months

Thursday 19th December 2019
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Thank you for the heads up.

bitchstewie

50,781 posts

209 months

Sunday 22nd December 2019
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May be already on the thread but

Debugging a live saturn V

yikes

MartG

Original Poster:

20,622 posts

203 months

Sunday 22nd December 2019
quotequote all
Thanks for the link !

MartG

Original Poster:

20,622 posts

203 months

Friday 24th January 2020
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The Nimbus B weather satellite carried a SNAP-19 RTG in 1968. Its launch vehicle suffered a malfunction and had to be destroyed. The remains of the RTG were later found on the floor of the Pacific. The RTG heat source was in such good condition that after some refurbishment it was later flown on Nimbus 3.



Remains of the Nimbus B satellite on the seabed - the RTG is the cylindrical object

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Friday 24th January 2020
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What was the launch vehicle?

MartG

Original Poster:

20,622 posts

203 months

Friday 24th January 2020
quotequote all
Eric Mc said:
What was the launch vehicle?
Thor-Agena

Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Friday 24th January 2020
quotequote all
Thanks. Blast from the past.

MartG

Original Poster:

20,622 posts

203 months

Saturday 25th January 2020
quotequote all
Poster from back when non-ballistic recovery was in vogue...


Eric Mc

121,779 posts

264 months

Sunday 26th January 2020
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Probably drawn by a Martin employee.

anonymous-user

53 months

Sunday 26th January 2020
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MartG said:
From J Harvey LeBlanc

How to Destroy a Rocket-----In an earlier post, I described how I had designed the Pneumatic Servicing Systems for the S-II stage of the Saturn-V. A set of this hardware had been provided to the Kennedy Space Center as well as the Mississippi Test Facility (MTF), now called Stennis. In 1966, we had shipped the S-II-T test stage to MTF for a series of static firing test. During one of the test a fire had developed in one of the J-2 engines. Three days later, checks were underway to determine the cause of a leak that had resulted in the fire.
At the time of the accident, the S-II-T was being pressurized for a leak check by the second shift Complex Coordinator, who was not a Certified Test Conductor. He was authorized to conduct only routine pressurizations up to 8 psig. The purpose of the test was to attempt to pressurize down to one of the J-2 engines at 8 psig, so that a leak check of the engine pre-valve could be performed with a soap solution.
During the first shift, the pressure sensing line had been disconnected from the LH2 tank causing the pressure indicators on the control panel to become inoperative. The second shift Complex Coordinator was not aware of this and started to pressurize the tank for the test. He made five attempts to pressurize the tank, but received no pressure indication on the control panel, because the instrumentation was not connected. Believing that the LH2 tank relief valve was failed open, he then authorized the closing of a facility blocking valve downstream of the tank relief valve. Not a smart thing to do!! In fact, this stage relief capability had worked on the first four pressurization cycles, protecting the tank. However, he believed the tank pressure to be 0 psig (as that is what his control panel indicated). On the fifth cycle, with the control panel still reading zero, the pressure in the tank actually continued to rise as there was no relief valve allowed to open…….until S-II-T exploded!
This happened on May 28, 1966. I was attending a Memorial Day weekend pool party when I received a panic call saying that the LH2 Tank Pressurization System I designed, had just blown the S-II-T Stage!!!! Panic Time!!!
I was on the next flight from California to Mississippi to determine what had really happened. After a complete review of all the data and the flawed test procedure that had been used it became quite evident that my design was not to blame.
These lessons learned from this accident were utilized to implement the following changes:
• Procedures for test engineers updated to ensure that all operations were completely detailed.
• Special instructions prepared, so that when one shift handed over to another the complete test configuration was fully understood.
• Only trained and authorized test engineers allowed to perform specific tests.



I guess this test actually provided some interesting structural data on the tank! ie what gross overpressure it could survive without failing, and where it failed when it did. In the days before FEA, that would have been very useful real world data on the tanks structuals!

Halmyre

11,148 posts

138 months

Monday 27th January 2020
quotequote all
MartG said:
Poster from back when non-ballistic recovery was in vogue...

I suppose it would be churlish to point out that the reusable recovery system has killed more people than the one-shot method.

I'm mildly astonished to find that there have been only five fatal incidents (excluding training accidents and the like) in 60 years of space flight.

shirt

22,508 posts

200 months

Monday 27th January 2020
quotequote all
MartG said:
From J Harvey leBlanc

Meeting Dr. Wernher von Braun-----
During the early 1960’s I was taken by my Supervisor and Manager to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL. for a major presentation on some of our proposed design concepts for Saturn S-II hardware. I was just a young junior Design Engineer and had a very small part in the presentation, but I was mainly taken along for the experience.
The briefing was to be presented to Dr. Wernher von Braun the Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center and his entire top management team. Dr. von Braun had been the leader of the German Nazis team that developed the V-2 ballistic missiles used to bomb England during World War II. At the end of the war Dr. von Braun and about 500 of his top scientists were brought to the U.S. to lead this country’s missile development. He later became NASA’s chief architect of the Saturn V launch vehicle, the super booster that would propel Americans to the Moon.
Those were the days prior to viewgraphs and Power Point presentations. Briefings were hand drawn on flip charts mounted on an easel in front of the room. I was told that we would go into the actual conference room the night before to go thru a dry run and make whatever changes were required to the briefing. We soon found changes that needed to be made to the charts and I was given a bottle of quick drying White Out liquid to erase the areas that needed to be fixed. As was normally the case with this old version of White Out, the white liquid would dry onto the cap and it was very difficult to open. Being a young resourceful engineer I decided the best way to loosen the bottle cap was to hit it against the conference room chair I was sitting on. I was really surprised when the neck of what turned out to be a glass bottle, broke and spilled white liquid all over the chair and bright blue carpet in Dr. von Braun’s conference room! I ran to the nearby restroom for paper towels to clean the mess, but by the time I returned I was horrified to find that the fast drying liquid had turned to a solid!! The entire briefing team tried their best to clean the mess, but it was impossible. The stain was permanent and the chair and carpet were ruined.
I got very little sleep that night and was too upset about my major mishap the night before to eat breakfast in the morning. I just knew I was going to be fired or worse by this ex-Nazis leader!
I was sitting in the conference room, shaking, when Dr. von Braun walked in for the briefing. He immediately spotted the giant stain on his chair and carpet and just looked around the room for what seemed like an hour. He then said in his heavy German accent “Vot is this?” I had such a guilty feeling and red face, that I felt sure he knew I was the culprit.
A couple of years later, Dr. von Braun was visiting our plant in Downey, CA. and made his normal walking tour of the Design Engineering area. He liked to walk around and stop at random engineers and have them explain what they were working on. Our design area was made up of several huge rooms full of engineers and our drawing boards. My drawing board happened to be along the main aisle he was using, and I panicked when I saw he was coming toward me. He looked at me, then stopped at my drawing board, looked at my drawing, and said “Vot is this?” My mind immediately went back to the White Out incident and I will never know if he recognized me and my red face as the culprit that ruined his carpet, or he just picked me at random!
i bet the hours just fly by when harvey is telling stories....

Gary C

12,313 posts

178 months

Monday 27th January 2020
quotequote all
bhstewie said:
May be already on the thread but

Debugging a live saturn V

yikes
Crikey !

That was an amazing read,

Cyrogenic storage is a spooky place with relief valves popping and thats only liquid CO2 or N2 where I work, inside a fuelling S5, wow.