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Friday, August 11, 2006

The business end of a Saturn V rocket


The last time I saw this Saturn V rocket, it lay exposed to the elements next to the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building) where Saturn rockets and nowadays, Space Shuttles are stacked for launch before being rolled out to launch complex 39. That was in the early 1980s. Happily, it was moved into a building and restored by the Smithsonian and is a reminder of just what it took to send Apollo astronauts to the Moon in the late 1960s and early 1970s. You can see the first and second stages of this Saturn V rocket stretching into the distance. The Saturn V rocket was 363 feet tall when topped with an Apollo spacecraft and its launch escape tower and the 5 - F-1 rocket engines you see on the left half of this image generated 7.5 million pounds of thrust to get this rocket moving on its journey to the Moon. This image was taken with the kit lens on my 20D at 18mm focal length with an exposure of 1/800 seconds at f/3.5, ISO 800.

4 comments:

Richard said...

Come on Jim. You know the moon landings were faked!
:)

R

Jim said...

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, and JFK was killed by the gunmen on the grassy knoll and not by Oswald; and Roswell was a crashed alien spacecraft rather than a top secret military baloon; and 9/11 was carried out by the U.S. "Gubmit"; and and and....

Anonymous said...

If the Apillo Moon Landings were faked, then I'm GODD!!! You can call me Jhim Godd. Only satan believes the Apollo missions were phonie.

Jim said...

Hey Jhim Godd, I don't think even satan believes Apollo was faked. FYI, and for anyone else who might read this, Richard was just having some fun and definitely doesn't believe Apollo was hoaxed. If anyone finds there way through here and does think it was faked, you might like to read my webpage debunking the hoax claims at: http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/NOT_faked/ - the Apollo Moonlanding hoax hoax crumbles as quickly as any hoax conspiracy claims.