The Saturn I (pronounced "Saturn one") was the United States' first heavy-lift dedicated space launcher, a rocket designed specifically to launch large payloads into low Earth orbit. Most of the rocket's power came from a clustered lower stage consisting of tanks taken from older rocket designs and strapped together to make a single large booster, leading critics to jokingly refer to it as "Cluster's Last Stand". However, its design proved sound and very flexible. Its major successes were launching the Pegasus satellites and flight verification of the Apollo Command and Service Module aerodynamics in the launch phase. Originally intended as a near-universal military booster during the 1960s, it served only for a brief period and only with NASA; ten Saturn Is were flown before it was replaced by the derivative Saturn IB, which featured a more powerful upper stage and improved instrumentation.
President John F. Kennedy identified the Saturn I, and the SA-5 launch in particular, as being the point where US lift capability would surpass the Soviets, after being behind since Sputnik. That was last mentioned in a speech he gave at Brooks AFB in San Antonio on the day before he was assassinated. He never lived to see this capability realized.
Read more about Saturn I: Saturn I Launches
Famous quotes containing the word saturn:
“It is marvelous indeed to watch on television the rings of Saturn close; and to speculate on what we may yet find at galaxy’s edge. But in the process, we have lost the human element; not to mention the high hope of those quaint days when flight would create “one world.” Instead of one world, we have “star wars,” and a future in which dumb dented human toys will drift mindlessly about the cosmos long after our small planet’s dead.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)