Saturn V Dynamic Test Vehicle, designated SA-500D, is a prototype Saturn V rocket used by NASA to test the performance of the rocket when vibrated to simulate the shaking which subsequent rockets would experience during launch. It was the first full-scale Saturn V completed by the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). Though SA-500D never flew, it was instrumental in the development of the Saturn V rocket which propelled the first men to the Moon as part of the Apollo program. Built under the direction of Dr. Wernher von Braun, it served as the test vehicle for all of the Saturn support facilities at MSFC.
SA-500D is the only Saturn V on display that was used for its intended purpose, and the only one to have been assembled prior to museum display. It is on permanent display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, Huntsville, Alabama.
Read more about Saturn V Dynamic Test Vehicle: Pre-flight Configurations, Development of The Test Article, Dynamic Testing, Public Display
Famous quotes containing the words saturn, dynamic, test and/or vehicle:
“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)
“Knowledge about life is one thing; effective occupation of a place in life, with its dynamic currents passing through your being, is another.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves.”
—Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946)
“You utilitarians, you too love everything useful only as a vehicle of your inclinations—you too really find the noise of its wheels intolerable?”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)