Saturn (rocket Family)
The Saturn family of American rocket boosters was developed by a team of mostly German rocket scientists led by Wernher von Braun to launch heavy payloads to Earth orbit and beyond. Originally proposed as a military satellite launcher, they were adopted as the launch vehicles for the Apollo moon program. The two most important members of the family were the Saturn IB and the Saturn V.
The predecessor of those two was the Saturn I. President John F. Kennedy identified this booster, and the SA-5 launch in particular, as being the point where US lift capability would surpass the Soviets, after having been behind since Sputnik. This was last mentioned by him in a speech he gave at Brooks AFB in San Antonio on the day before he was assassinated. He never lived to see the capability of any boosters from the Saturn family, started under the Eisenhower administration, realized.
To date, the Saturn V is the only launch vehicle to transport human beings beyond Low Earth Orbit. A total of 24 humans were flown to the Moon in the four-years spanning December 1968 through December 1972.
Read more about Saturn (rocket Family): Project Apollo
Famous quotes containing the word saturn:
“Test of the poet is knowledge of love,
For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove;
Never was poet, of late or of yore,
Who was not tremulous with love-lore.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)