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It succeeded because the Saturn V had enough heavy-lifting capablity that we could do the entire mission with one launch vehicle for the complete round-trip. I
by RichardCA 4y ago
It succeeded because the Saturn V had enough heavy-lifting capablity that we could do the entire mission with one launch vehicle for the complete round-trip.
It was the power of the Saturn V being sufficient to get us out of the Earth's gravity well, plus the cleverness of the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous mission plan that allowed us to pull it off. Once those two things were worked out and understood, the rest was just a matter of executing. But it was pure happenstance that the laws of Physics and the Earth/Moon orbital mechcanics lined up to make it possible.
- nradov 4y agoAnd the Saturn V only had enough lifting capacity because the Air Force had issued a requirement to Rocketdyne back in 1955 for an engine powerful enough to deliver the huge H-bombs in use at the time. Within a few years, nuclear weapons researchers had figured out how to build lighter weapons so the huge F-1 engine was no longer needed for ICBMs, but fortunately it was ready for use in the Apollo program. The USSR had nothing comparable.
- m4rtink 4y agoWell, the USSR did something similar - for a while you could only really sell a new space rocket by branding it as an ICBM. Even the bloody 700 ton UR-500 which became the Proton eventually piggybacked on this, marked on paper as a 50-100 megaton warhead ICBM! But looks like the Americans were thinking even bigger. :-)