MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE, MEDFORD. OREGON
THURSDAY. MAY 18. 1383
B. 3
docket's Birthplace Described as Disorderly Scene
By ALVIN B. WEBB Jr,
United Press International
Huntsville, Ala. - (UPD -The
birth place o the rocket
that will hurl U. S. astron
auts to the moon resembles a
combination of used sets from
the movie "Cleopatra" and a
year's supply of untidy base
ments. You stand on a low hill
overlooking the entire disor
derly scene- and you find It
difficult to imagine a more
unlikely starting place for the
most daring and exciting ad
venture ever undertaken by
man:
-Inside a yawning hangar,
bits and pieces of metal in
nearly every conceivable
shape lay helter-skelter on the
floor. Lacking floor space
they hang from the ceiling or
protrude from the walls.
-Out in a shallow valley,
four massive concrete pillars
jut from the red clay ground
like left-overs from some
Pharoah's pyramid project.
-On the side of a grassy
hill, an odd-looking contrap
tion intermittently bellows in
a loud, low moan akin to the
sound of an aging cow that
hasn't been milked in a week.
This is the Marshall Space
Flight center (MSFQ-the cha
otic cradle for the fantastic
machine that Is supposed to
send three-man teams of as
tronaut to the moon in 1968.
The space center is nestled
in Jhe rolling hills of green
grass and red clay outside
Huntsville, at the top of the
"space crescent" that runs
from Houston, Tex., where
astronauts are trained, to the
firing pads of Cape Canaver
al, Fla., where they will blast
off for the moon.
The importance of MSFC's
role in the multi-billion-dollar
scheme of lunar things is un
derscored by the fact that its
chief is Dr. Wernher von
Braun, the famed ex-German
scientist who, probably more
than any man alive, is respon
sible for making America
space-conscious.
Von Braun' spearheads the
bustling center's drive toward
a single goal - to develop "a
very fine and potent space
transportation system" that
will be suitable for a decade
of U. S. exploration.
Someone else here had a
more flowery description of
MSFC's job - "to find a way
for man to get to heaven with
out dying.
The immensity of the tasks
can be envisioned if you will
let your imagination run ram
pant for a minute, and vis
ualize a string of horses 200,
000 miles long.
Distill Horsepower
Now consider the problem
of distilling the horsepower
from all those horses and
squeezing it into a stack of
metallic cylinders 350 feet
high and 33 feet across the
base.
The result is the rocket
', called simply Saturn-5- the
mighty "space wheels" that
will propel three-man U. S.
teams to the moon.
And suddenly, the five
years between now and then
seem terribly short.
Among some high officials
who seem almost pathologic
ally conscious of their posi
tions in the U. S. space busi
ness, the luxurious office has
come to be a sort of status
symbol. The loftier the posi
tion,, the more ornate the so
called "working quarters."
The office of Wernher von
Braun is impressive in its
modesty. It is a key to the
philosophy of operating the
1,600 acre Marshall Space
Flight center, from the top
man down through the
wrench-wielding ranks:
All Hard Work
Forget the frills. Only hard
work will buy success.
In this respect, the some
what austere set-up of the
Marshall Space Flight center
differs from some other fed
eral space agency installations
such as Houston (where plush
offices abound) and Cape Can
averal (where buildings such
as Mercury control center
I come with landscaping).
But one doesn't argue with
success. Von Braun knows
what success is and, more im
portantly, he knows how to
get It. History is his witness.
The powerfully-built rocket
wizard and his small team of
expatriate German scientists
and technicians first stunned
the world in the latter part of
World War II when they built
and perfected the terrifying
V-2 rocket in the dying gasps
of Adolf Hitler's third reich.
At the war's end, they
moved to White Sands, N.M.,
for peaceful V-2 shots that
produced knowledge import-
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CORNER JACKSONVILLE HIWAY AND LOZIER LANE
ant to spaco research even
to today. Then, In the 1950s
they moved to Huntaville as
ihe core of America's tore
most rocket team - first un
der the U. S. army, then un
der the National Aeronautics
and Space administration.
Gormani on Job
From here, the talented Ger
mans generated the power lor
America's thrust into the
space age:
-They designed and built
the nation's first ballistic mis
sile, the Redstone a rocket
so reliable it was entrusted
with the job of sending the
first U.S. astronaut, Alan B.
Shepard Jr., on a sub-orbital
flight on May S, 1961.
-From the Redstone, they
built up a more powerful
rocket called Jupiter-C and
used It to launch America's
first satellite, Explorer-1, into
orbit Jan. 31, 1958.
-They paced the Marshall
center's design and develop
ment of the mighty Saturn-1,
this nation's first "super-booster"-a
rocket Von Braun
himself believes is twice as
powerful as any Russian
rocket, .
On a long wooden table at
the rear of von Braun's office
stand models of these and
other U. S. rockets. The mod
el of the Pershing missile is
about six inches tall. The Saturn-1
model stands a Iittla
over three feet. The "real
life" versions all have flown
for the United States.
On. Hasn't Flown
All, that is, except one -the
model at the extreme right of ,
the table.
This is the Saturn-5. .
The model is so tall a hole
had to be cut in the celling of
Wernher von Braun's offica
before it could be stood up
right. ' . i
Two years ago, President
Kennedy made the landing of
men on the moon a national
goal for this decade. The ma
chinery for the monumental
task is being forged within a
metallic cave at the Marshall
Space Flight center.
This is the assembly build
ing. It looks like a gigantic
repair garage - except tnai
everything seems doubled and
redoubled In size. The ma
chinery and parts that fill all
but tne wanting space oi mi
107,000-square-foot floor re
semble nothing ever belore
seen.
This Is the raw material for
the Saiurn-5 Moonrocket.
Citing Ready
"We are in the process of
tooling up for Saturn-9," said
a space agency . spokesman.
His hand flashed a confident,
180-degree sweep. "The hard
ware is just beginning- to pile
in."
Piling- In, rolling In, lying
In from all parts of the coun
try, the "hardware," indeed, is
getting to be a massive stack.
The Marshall center's task is
to make a Saturn-5 rocket
from it.
Its scientists and technici
ans have about 1,000 days to
do it. The first Saturn-5 must
make its suborbital' ballistic
flieht from Cane Canaveral
early in 1966, If a manned
lunar landing is to meet ins
current target date In 1968.
The assembly building nas
been used to build America's
present "rage" rocket, the
Salurn-I. But pans ror ino
last four Saturn-1 boosters al
ready are being assembled,
and after that production will
shift to the Chrysler Corp.
plant at Mlchoud, La.
Saturn-1 generates i.s mil
lion oounds of thrust. Tha''
Salurn-5 will turn out 7.5 mil
lion pounds of thrust - a five
fold increase.
Or out It another way. sat
urn-1 could shoot your fam
ily automobile to the moon.
Toward The Stirs
Saturn-5 could send It clear
out of the solar system to
ward the stars.
Your car tops a slight hill.
and your eyes tell you that
the spectacular sights of tha
space age are not necessarily
confined to missiles and ma-
chinery and men flying into
orbits.
There. Jutting from . the
ever-present red clay, stand
four curved, monolithic
blocks of concrete as awesome
in their own stolid, silent way
as any rocket that ever blazed
from Cape Canaveral.
They look like part oi a set
from a Biblical movie or
grandiose proportions, In a
way, they are a stage - for the
first performance of tha
mighty Saturn-5 rocket.
These concrete pillars, an
chored 40 feet Into the ground
nd rising another 70 lect
above the surface, form tha
base for a test stand that will
rise 400 feet Into the Ala
bama sky by mid-1964.
To Roar In '84
On this platform, the five-
barreled booster for the Saturn-5
will utter Its first thun
derous sound next year. In
late summer of 1964, the roar
of a single one the five 1.5
million-pound thrust engines
will echo across the green hill
sides.
And by October of 1964, all
five engines will be tired up
In unison while the 33-foot-diameter
frame is latched ta
the test stand.