Customer Reviews

Saturn (Apogee Books Space Series)

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"Saturn" is what the cover says, but open the book and you find the real name and importance of this book. "Saturn V - the complete manufacturing and test records".

This is what todays' engineers and rocket scientists have been
looking for to assist them in the construction of the next heavy lift booster to get us back to the Moon and Mars, and every fan of the Saturn- Apollo program will HAVE TO HAVE THIS BOOK IN THEIR LIBRARY!

Many of these records were misplaced and presumed lost after Project Apollo, as NASA had not the funds to care and file them. But Alan Lawrie and Robert Godwin searched archives around the United States and England(?) to reconstruct them for
this book. This new publication tells what happened to each and every stage of every Saturn -V launch vehicle ever assembled, even the ones that were not used!

It begins with the rare Saturn V news reference to give the reader a familiarity with the Saturn. Then it documents the facilities and transportation methods, and then the engines themselves and then each vehicle built.

The book goes into the construction, movement, testing, assembly and launch. It goes into the test stands and tells what happened before the fliight versions were built and it details every test firing of every rocket engine for the mighty Moon rocket.
How many people know that the third stage for the first manned flight to the Moon (Apollo-8), exploded on the test stand (S-IVB 503) and had to be replaced (S-IVB 503-N for New construction)? and that Apollo-16's Saturn V first stage
(S1C-11) caught fire on the test stand and took a year to rebuild, and almost delayed the Apollo-11 which was on the launch pad counting down for it's historic mission?

The book sadly concludes with the rare Saturn V payload planners guide that details how Saturn could easily have allowed us to launch probes around the Solar System.

A lesson that we hope is not lost on the new generation.

Every major director and engineer of every major contractor who is planning to build the new launch vehicle will want to buy this book, because they no longer have to go thru the NASA archives digging and hoping to find these nuggets of information
about how we did it before!

The bonus DVD/ROM includes the vehicle records and films of Saturn assembly, and various tests firings.

ERRORS- The color section has a photo of the stacking of the Apollo space craft on the third stage of Apollo-Saturn 500F that is wrongly listed as erection of the launch escape system for Apollo 6 two years before this happened?
S-IVB-DF (pg255) wasn't this kept at JSC until the late 80's as part of the public tour of Skylab?
DVD-Video?ROM disc menu in back- First test firing of S-1C-T at Mississippi testb Facility March 1967? ...or 1965!

AN EXCELLENT BOOK- AND A MUST FOR ALL APOLLO FANS!

Alan Lawrie and Robert Godwin are to be commended for assembling this fine volume on the Saturn V. The Apogee series is the best set of books on space ever assembled, and this volume documents an often overlooked part of the Apollo program, the booster development and history of the Saturn V. Although the earlier Saturns are mentioned in passing, this is essentially devoted to the larger Saturn V.

The book details design and history of all stages and engines by serial number. All stages including test stages and battleships are detailed as are all test runs. The technical data including configuration changes are well documented for all engines and stages, and the history of the test areas and test stands are also addressed.

Despite the fact that a large part of the book is a historical stage by stage accounting, the book is still quite readable and enjoyable to a space enthusiast. Certainly, this is not a book for the casual reader, but the Apollo-phile will love the newly revealed information that has been unearthed for the first time in thirty years.

Also included is a DVD which features even more technical and production data in PDF format, as well as wonderful films of Apollo stage production, testing, and the Apollo 11 launch, the last four minutes of which are synchronized with the MOCR audio recording. The editing of the videos is a bit choppy at times, but the material is so good that I can't imagine any serious complaints.

This is a great volume, and I highly recommend it to anyone with a deep interest in space.

This book appears at a very timely moment: after more than thirty years there's finally a new commitment to go back to the Moon, and to go beyond. Lot's has been lost - or at least misplaced - in those thirty years. What did it take to transform the Saturn V from design into reality? How was it done? What had to be built? What had to be tested? When, where and how was it all done? What worked the first time around, and what didn't?

To answer these questions one would need to search through a mountain of data, which has been archived away in a host of obscure (and sometimes unlikely) places. Fortunately the authors of "Saturn" have performed this Herculean task, and have also managed to produce a surprisingly readable and coherent narrative. They've also managed to unearth some truly unique archived movie footage showing ground transport of the various stages as well as numerous test firings. This is all included on the DVD that accompanies the book. The DVD also contains an excellent movie of the Apollo XI launch - which, for ten minutes, transported me all the way back to 1969, as well as bringing a tear to my eye. [The book's worth the price just for the DVD alone!]

This book is a `must' for all those with an interest in the history of this great - and seminal - engineering achievement. Even more important, it's a `must' for all those who are about to embark on the next great adventure to the Moon and beyond.

Mandatory reading (and viewing) for the next generation of space engineers, as well as space enthusiasts of any generation!

Most highly recommended!

The already impressive and prodigious output of Apogee has been further enhanced by this great volume on the Saturn launch vehicle program. The history of each piece of hardware is detailed along with each mission. As the distance in years between the events and our recollection of them grows, this volume preserves detail that may otherwise have disappeared into government archives or otherwise be lost forever before we return to the moon again.

For everyone who wants to know everything about the history, development, building and testing of the largest and most powerful rocket ever built, the SATURN V, this book is a must have, I would say a scale-setting book. Not only that the reader gets an enourmous never published amount on data, photos, drawings and information, but the author Alan Lawrie has also added a DVD to the book, which contains rare and never seen movies of test firings of the various SATURN V stages and engines (F-1, J-2) from different angles.
You will like these movies which show the raw power of the mighty SATURN V engines, as well as the assembly of the SATURN V in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center.
In the first part of the book all the components of the rocket like engines and stages are explained very detailed, as well as the manufacturing-/ transport-processes and the various facilities to built the SATURN V. In the second part of his book, the author described very detailed and visualized by many photos, each stage from all ever built SATURN V rockets reaching from manufacturing and transport to testings in
chronological order. At the end of the book a payload planners guide of the SATURN V shows the versatility and the potential of this rocket.
After reading this book you will have no more questions left on the SATURN V! You can also find very detailed historic-, testing- and manufacture-data of each engine and each SATURN V stage ever built, on the included DVD. This book closes a big gap in documenting the SATURN V rocket!

Here is a level of detail that has rarely been seen on the subject of the mighty Saturn V. Amoung all the hype of getting people to the moon it was the LEM, Service Module and Command Module that took centre stage because thats where the people sat. The other 365 feet of machine had simply been forgotten.

Finally this important part of the apollo program has been reported in detail. Each stage is described with engineering detail down to the location of data link antennas. The F1 and J2 engines are also described in engineering detail down to the types materials the components are fabricated from. The design, fabrication and testing facillities are also described for all three stages of the Saturn V.

Amazingly most of this material came out of an archieve in England! That's how much NASA divested themselves from the entire project once it was over.

If you are a detail monger then this book must be on your shelf. The attached DVD presents the assembly of the Saturn V at the VAB in Florida and the launch of Apollo 11. The remander of the DVD shows footage of live engine tests at the various facillities (and one really nasty failure).

Very good photographs and diagrams of the production work involved. Also includes photos of the transportation equipment required to move huge rocket parts to the Cape and other testing areas. Text is minimal. The DVD is basic in scope.

I like facts and figures in reference books but this book overloads the reader (me). So much technical info that only a rocket scientist would really understand. If you want to know about ever feature of the saturn V, this is the book for you.

Air and space engineer Alan Lawrie has compiled a very interesting work. In "Saturn V," he and publisher Robert Godwin offer information on the development and manufacturing of the propulsion system that enabled Americans to reach the moon in the 1960s and 1970s. The Saturn V, the most powerful rocket ever built, had capabilities both awesome and awful to witness. Representing the culmination of earlier rocket development and test programs, it stood 363 feet tall. The first stage generated 7.5 million pounds of thrust from five massive engines developed for the system. This engine, known as the F-1, represented some of the most significant engineering accomplishments of the Apollo program, requiring the development of new alloys and different construction techniques to withstand the extreme heat and shock of firing. The second stage presented enormous challenges to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) engineers, very nearly causing the United States to miss its lunar-landing goal. Consisting of five engines burning liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, this stage could deliver 1 million pounds of thrust. It was always behind schedule, requiring constant attention and additional funding to ensure completion. By comparison, both the first and third stages of the Saturn V development program moved forward relatively smoothly.

Representing a triumph of systems management, the Saturn V program required that NASA juggle prime contracts with Boeing for the S-IC, first stage; North American Aviation, S-II, second stage; Douglas Aircraft, S-IVB, third stage; Rocketdyne Division of North American Aviation, J-2 and F-1 engines; and IBM, Saturn instruments. These prime contractors, with more than 250 subcontractors, provided millions of parts for use in the Saturn launch vehicle, all meeting exacting specifications for performance and reliability. The total cost expended on development was massive, amounting to $9.3 billion.

The Saturn V is an important story, deserving serious attention from historians. An official history, Roger E. Bilstein's "Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles" (Washington, DC: NASA, 1980; reprinted in 1996 by NASA and in 2003 by University Press of Florida), offers an exceptionally capable narrative history, and it is the appropriate place to start any serious study of the Saturn V Moon rocket. Lawrie's volume is a compilation of technical data, much of it reprinted from elsewhere and some of it offering an important set of details about the program. The first item reprinted, the "Saturn V News Reference" of August 1967, intended for the media and others seeking detailed information about the program, remains a valuable source 40 years after publication. It has also been available for downloading from the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center on the World Wide Web for many years at http://history.msfc.nasa.gov/saturn_apollo/saturnv_press_kit.html. Lawrie also reprints the "Saturn V Payload Planners Guide," a document from November 1965 intended as a source of detailed knowledge needed by any organization that might launch a payload on a Saturn V. (At the time, NASA anticipated that the Saturn would become the launcher of choice for all manner of spacecraft.) Because of this document's rarity, it is a welcome addition to the volume.

The most useful part of the book is Lawrie's compilation of manufacturing and test records concerning each of the stages built for the Saturn V, as well as for each of the engines constructed for the Moon program. Lawrie's ferreting out of obscure data from a variety of sources to construct this discussion represents a decidedly useful contribution to knowledge about the program. Finally, as is the case with many Apogee publications, Robert Godwin has found and offered on DVD a selection of engine tests, assembly sequences, and manufacturing film to round out the work.

"Saturn V: The Complete Manufacturing and Test Records plus Supplemental Material" is a useful compilation of information about the rocket that carried astronauts to the Moon. It is not, per se, concerned with the Moon landings or any other aspect of the program. Even the discussion of the propulsion system ends with delivery of each stage to the Kennedy Space Center, where it was assembled for launch. This book's greatest value lies in providing technical details about the Saturn V's systems, engines, tests, and manufacturing. It is very much a work aimed at a technical audience that seeks considerable detail about the rocket. As such, it will serve as a useful addition to the literature of the Apollo program.

This is what it was all about. It is so fascinating to read about the research and development, as well as the engineering behind the greatest most powerful machine ever developed by man. The book lays out all the details. There are lots great photos and illustrations that really explain how this complicated machine functions. One interesting aspect is the explanation of how the engines function. You don't find that in too many books about the Saturn V rocket. If the reader is interested in the engineering and pieces and parts of the Saturn launch system, then Saturn is a must read. I strongly recommend this book.