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Rockets.

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Great timing, dawg! I just finished reading (for maybe the 6th or 7th time) the book "Apollo" by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly Cox. It's amazing enough that people have walked on the Moon, but it's all the more amazing that they did it 37 years ago, after less than 10 years of frantic preparation.

Each engine on that Saturn V (your first photo above) produced nearly 1.6 million pounds of thrust by guzzling a ton of kerosene and two tons of liquid oxygen every second, and there were 5 of those on the first stage. When Rocketdyne started development on that F-1 engine, the most powerful rocket engine in the US inventory was barely a tenth as powerful. Throughout the entire Apollo program, the Saturn V booster had a perfect performance record except for the second unmanned launch, when two engines on the second stage stopped prematurely. I would have loved to see a Saturn V launch live-- our black and white TV set didn't come close to doing it justice.

The Nova booster proposed early in the program would have had 8 F-1 engines in the first stage, and likely would have had to be launched from an island off the Florida coast because of noise and safety considerations.
 
Telyx said:
Great timing, dawg! I just finished reading (for maybe the 6th or
7th time) the book "Apollo" by Charles Murray and Catherine Bly
Cox. It's amazing enough that people have walked on the Moon, but
it's all the more amazing that they did it 37 years ago, after less
than 10 years of frantic preparation.
Click to expand...
Seems great timing indeed. I have been to the Space and Rocket center many times and am always in awe that a human would actually want to get on top of a rocket be sent into space. Takes tons of courage to do that. If you'd like I have many more and of different rockets and can post a new one or two each day!

--
Dawg DX6490
 
Thanks for the picks and the nostalgia they arouse. I'm surprised they call it the rocket center though. I guess since the Redstone rocket is what put Huntsville on the map it makes sense historically. My Dad would correct me when I said rocket, "we make missiles" he'd say. (The Palestinians shoot rockets randomly toward Israel and the Israelis in return launch missiles at specific targets. Big as it is we’d never hit the Moon with a rocket.) I was born in Huntsville and my father helped design the Saturn launch pads so we had to move to Florida when it came time to build the launch site and I didn't get to see the museum. When we lived in Huntsville the closest they had to a museum was a warehouse at Redstone Arsenal filled with models and various forms of prototype nose cones.
 
The F1 engines are awesome. The Saturn booster's first stage was designed to burn for 90 seconds (if I remember correctly) and they tested them in Huntsville. Bolted to a gantry anchored in bedrock Huntsville was the only place that got to experience the Saturn's power for the full duration (at the cape the missile is miles away in seconds). We would get advance word of when a test would commence and learned to watch in a certain direction and pretty much on time would see a huge bright orange flame leap into the sky (diverted by a massive curved concrete ramp), a few seconds later we'd feel the ground rumble (and occasionally a window would break) and in another few seconds the we'd hear the roar which would continue several seconds after the flame diminished, a full minute and a half later.
 
MKellough said:
Thanks for the picks and the nostalgia they arouse. I'm surprised
they call it the rocket center though. I guess since the Redstone
rocket is what put Huntsville on the map it makes sense
historically. My Dad would correct me when I said rocket, "we make
missiles" he'd say. (The Palestinians shoot rockets randomly toward
Israel and the Israelis in return launch missiles at specific
targets. Big as it is we’d never hit the Moon with a rocket.) I was
born in Huntsville and my father helped design the Saturn launch
pads so we had to move to Florida when it came time to build the
launch site and I didn't get to see the museum. When we lived in
Huntsville the closest they had to a museum was a warehouse at
Redstone Arsenal filled with models and various forms of prototype
nose cones.
Click to expand...
I was not here for those days...But I can remember many nights on Sebastian Island at my Grandfather's fishing camp watching the Rockets warm up and then lift off From Cape Canaveral.
--
Dawg DX6490
 
In Florida we lived in one of the northern most suburbs on Merritt Island and ahd a pretty good view of the launches.
 
MKellough said:
In Florida we lived in one of the northern most suburbs on Merritt
Island and ahd a pretty good view of the launches.
Click to expand...
You got to live there. LOL We got to visit twice yearly! Summer and winter! My GrandDad

Pop we called him ran a fishing camp from the 30's till he passed away in the late 60's. The camp was about 3 miles or so north of the Sebastien Inlet. They got a Bridge there now but back then no bridge!
--
Dawg DX6490
 
BigDawg said:
MKellough said:
In Florida we lived in one of the northern most suburbs on Merritt
Island and ahd a pretty good view of the launches.
Click to expand...
You got to live there. LOL We got to visit twice yearly! Summer and
winter! My GrandDad
Pop we called him ran a fishing camp from the 30's till he passed
away in the late 60's. The camp was about 3 miles or so north of
the Sebastien Inlet. They got a Bridge there now but back then no
bridge!
--
Dawg DX6490
Click to expand...
The southern end of Merritt Island is very near Sebastian and is a very different place than the north end (Cape Kennedy, surrounded by a wildlife preserve complete with black panthers). The truly tropical southern end of the island (between the Banana and Indian Rivers, bananas do indeed grow there) is/was populated by old timers like your Grandfather and was a fascinating place. There was a legend that some kind of mysterious creature lived there and with a backdrop of alligators under Spanish moss and tannin tinted marshes something beyond that was a really creepy prospect.
 
Big Dawg

Some day when you are out shooting night photos again please include a photo of:

(Cape Kennedy, surrounded by a wildlife preserve complete with black panthers)

John.....
--
Kodak P850
 
MKellough said:
The southern end of Merritt Island is very near Sebastian and is a
very different place than the north end (Cape Kennedy, surrounded
by a wildlife preserve complete with black panthers). The truly
tropical southern end of the island (between the Banana and Indian
Rivers, bananas do indeed grow there) is/was populated by old
timers like your Grandfather and was a fascinating place. There was
a legend that some kind of mysterious creature lived there and with
a backdrop of alligators under Spanish moss and tannin tinted
marshes something beyond that was a really creepy prospect.
Click to expand...
It was indeed that way on Sebastian Island in the 50's and early 60's. I remember Pop Going Coon hunting every night he could. He was not liked by the power company as he would use his shotgun to shoot Doves from the power lines. LOL
--
Dawg DX6490
 
JpFromOH said:
Big Dawg

Some day when you are out shooting night photos again please
include a photo of:

(Cape Kennedy, surrounded by a wildlife preserve complete with
black panthers)

John.....
--
Kodak P850
Click to expand...
I would if I was down that way again. My grandfather, his sister and twin brothers all retired to the island but all passed away in the mid 60's. My father inherited part of the property there and promptly sold it to build a house here in Thach Alabama. I inherited a portion of that property and am living there today.
--
Dawg DX6490
 
I'm sorry if I seem to post too many Bill. I just shoot so many and the way I learn is from feed back from folks that view them. I can get out of hand some times and don't really mean to. Just glad you approve of the quality...that in a way is the feed back I'm looking for. If something is out of kilter I would really like someone to say so. I have a lot to learn and I'm not getting any younger. LOL
--
Dawg DX6490
 
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