John F. Kennedy Space Center Saturn-V Center

The Saturn-V Center

Saturn-V Center Local Copy

The Saturn-V Center at the John F. Kennedy Space Center is one of the most extraordinary places you will ever get to see. It brings home to any visitor the sheer magnitude of the events which took place at Cape Canaveral in the 1960's leading up to Neil Armstrong's walk on the surface of the moon.

The pictures here do not really do the place justice, but are impressive enough. To actually get the chance to see the center is a wonderful experience.

The center is the mid-way point on either the Cape Canaveral: Then And Now or the NASA: Up Close tours from the main Visitors Complex.

Entrance

After the two/three hour tour, your coach sets you down at the entrance to the Saturn-V Center and you enter the main foyer.

Introduction

In here, there is a five-minute film introduced by John Conrad, Apollo Launch Controller. The film tells the history of NASA from its first launches in response to Russia's Sputnik satellite, through the Mercury and Gemini missions to the Apollo 1 fire in 1967. You are then invited to proceed next-door to another theatre.

Apollo 8 - Launch Control - 21 December 1968

Lunar Landing Theatre

In the next theatre is the fully reconstructed firing room used for the Apollo 8 mission. All the consoles, tables and chairs on display are the ones actually used to launch the very first Saturn-V rocket carrying men to orbit the moon.

The auditorium darkens and John Conrad again introduces another interesting film about that first manned launch of such a behemoth.

Control Desk

Control Desk

Control Desk

Control Desk

Control Desk

Control Desk

You are then taken through that full launch sequence from the firing room perspective. As you hear the mission controller's voices, their actual desk is spotlit to give you an idea of where the voice was coming from on that day.

Although it is only a film, it certainly achieves a high degree of anxiety as the wall-mounted clock slowly ticks down to zero. The film above the control center shows the events out at the pad as the fueling is completed almost right up to the moment of launch.

And then the room lights up as if from the bright light streaming in from the windows above. You can almost believe that the light and rumbling are coming from a great rocket launching only a few miles away - and you're not far wrong either.

Once the launch sequence is through, James A. Lovell, pilot of Apollo 8 and later the Commander of Apollo 13 concludes the film by asking you to leave the theatre by a different set of doors where we'll find something very special indeed.

Saturn V

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Saturn-V F-1 Engine 1024x768

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You leave the theatre and enter a vast hangar-like room. Centerpiece in here is a real Saturn-V rocket - all 102 meters of it.

Laid out on its side, with the 5 vast main engines facing you as you enter. The sheer magnitude of it takes your breath away.

It takes you about 3 whole minutes just to walk the length of this fantastic machine. There are no words to describe just how vast it appears. The five engines are each large enough to swallow a large group of people.

First Stage 1024x768

First Stage 1024x768

The first stage is wider than most houses, and at least three times longer. To think that men strapped themselves atop this tank of high explosive and let it hurl them away from Earth towards the Moon is simply staggering.

Second Stage J-2 Engines 1024x768

Second Stage J-2 Engines 1024x768

The rocket just goes on and on. You pass the joint between the first and second stages, where the joining ring has been removed. You get to see a clear view of the five smaller engines powering the second stage, and you can see back into the depths of stage 1 where the enormous fuel tank is located.

Walking under the rocket, you get a real feeling for just how large and heavy it is - and this one is totally empty. It is hard to imagine what it must have been like to work on one of these, stood-up on the launch tower pointing towards the sky.

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Apollo Capsule & Escape Tower 1024x768

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At the top of the second stage is the joining ring between that and the upper stages where the Lunar Lander, Command & Service Modules are all located.

At the very end of the full rocket is the Escape Tower, which would have allowed the astronauts of a Saturn-V a means of escaping from the rocket in a dangerous situation

Command & Service Modules

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Service Module Engine 1024x768

Immediately below the Command & Service Modules held aloft are a pair of modules on display at ground-level for you to examine in closer detail.

These particular Command & Service Modules were actually sat atop a Saturn 1-B rocket during the Skylab project and were employed as a stand-by emergency escape capsule should astronauts aboard the space station ever need rescuing. Thankfully, it was never required and is now a museum piece here

Apollo/Soyuz Capsule

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Apollo/Soyuz Capsule 1024x768

Apollo/Soyuz Capsule 1024x768

Apollo/Soyuz Capsule 1024x768

Apollo/Soyuz Capsule 1024x768

The real Apollo/Soyuz capsule is also on display at this end of the complex. It is sealed in a thick Perspex mould, but you can peer inside to get an idea of how little space the three-man crew had to operate in during their long missions to the Moon and back.

It was in a Capsule, very similar to this one, that the third crew-member would remain whilst his two colleagues would fly-off in a Lunar Lander to land on the surface of the Moon. I wonder what it was like to be left all alone for perhaps days, orbiting another world inhabited by only two of your friends many miles below you with your home many thousands of miles away. Those few astronauts in this position were the most isolated people there have ever been.

Lunar Lander

Lunar Lander 1024x768

Lunar Lander 1024x768

There is a Lunar Lander hanging above the Moon Rock Cafe - so named because there is a real moon-rock on display for patrons to see - not just for its astronomical prices.

One of these landers, named "Eagle is the craft Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin flew down to the surface of the Moon on 20 July, 1969 at exactly 16:17 (EDT) leading to the oft-quoted: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.". With those words the crew of Apollo 11 made history.

Nearly 7 hours later, at 22:56:15 (EDT), Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the Moon with his immortal words "Its one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind". It is believed that he meant to say "...for _a_ man...", but with the whole world listening and steping into such an astounding location, I think we can forgive him a slight slip of the tongue!

Lunar Rover

Lunar Rover 1024x768

Lunar Rover 1024x768

Lunar Rover 1024x768

There is also a Lunar Rover buggy replica on display here. The wheels of this one are made of rubber, but for the real thing, they could not use air-inflated tires. The solution was to use a honeycomb of thin Aluminium sheets. They were so light and delicate that they would get damaged if used on Earth due to the increased gravity here.

This replica Rover stands at the entrance to the Lunar Landing Theatre where you can watch a re-creation of the events leading up to the actual landing on the Moon by the crew of the Eagle.

Apollo Mission Badges

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Apollo 7 Badge 1024x768

Apollo 8 Badge 1024x768

Apollo 9 Badge 1024x768

Apollo 10 Badge 1024x768

There is a full display of all of the Mission Badges for every manned Apollo Missions.

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Apollo 12 Badge 1024x768

Apollo 13 Badge 1024x768

Apollo 14 Badge 1024x768

Apollo 15 Badge 1024x768

They are hung above the ground down the entire length of the gigantic Saturn-V rocket.

Each depicts the activities the crews aimed to achieve on their missions, although in the case of Apollo 13 they will be remembered for a far more impressive feat - that of surviving such a disaster.

Information Stands

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F-1 Engine Information 1024x768

Saturn-V F-1 engine 1024x683

Under the badges are a number of displays telling visitors lots of interesting information about the Saturn-V and the Apollo Project.

There is a detailed map of the Moon showing all of the sites where Apollo astronauts landed.

The powerful engines on the first stage of the Saturn-V, the F-1, are also described in detail on a separate board. This is the same engine which was on display in the Rocket Garden back at the main Visitors Complex.

F-1 Engine Information 1024x768

Saturn-V Information 1024x768

Information Board 1024x768

Also here is another board describing just how powerful the Saturn-V is.

However you decide to compare it, it is simply a monster of a craft. It has more power, used more electricity, flies further and faster than anything else in history.

Scale Model 1024x768

Scale Model 1024x768

Scale Model 1024x768

Saturn-V LUT 1024x768

There is also a smaller model of the Saturn-V in its Launch Umbilical Tower (LUT). This tower was the one which supported the huge rocket while it was being transported to one of the launch pads from the VAB.

This tower was also the means personnel used to get access to the rocket on the pad before launch. Small gantries extended from the tower to the rocket allowing people to approach the rocket at various levels including the capsule at the top.

Full Saturn-V 1024x768

As for the Saturn-V itself, this remarkable piece of work to this day, roughly 30 years later, is still the only machine ever built which can take a human to another world.

Its size will simply take your breath away and I can only imagine what it must have been like to witness the launch of such a monster, let alone travel atop it.

Lunar Landing Theatre

In the Lunar Landing Theatre is a fifteen minute film and stage-show recreating the first landing on the Moon on 20th July, 1969.

Lunar Landing Theatre

You are talked through the show by a wide variety of people: Alan B. Shepard Jr; The First American in Space - Mercury Redstone 3, Commander - Apollo 14, James A. Lovell; Pilot - Apollo 8, Commander - Apollo 13, R. Walter Cunningham; Lunar Module Pilot - Apollo 16, Eugene A. Cernan; Commander - Apollo 17 and Neil A. Armstrong; First Man to Walk on the Moon - Apollo 11.

A full-scale Lunar Lander descends during the stage-show, and you see a recreation of the vista at Tranquility Base. At the end of the show the astronauts talk about the future of Lunar Expeditions and how the Moon will play a very big role in the exploration of the solar system and beyond.

The show winds down with the Lunar Lander separating in a pyrotechnic blast and the habitation section lifting off just like happened on the moon.

Mars Rovers

When the show is over, and you leave the theatre, you are brought out into a lobby where some light relief is provided by some remote-control "Mars Rovers".

There's a bit of a crowd, but you can take control of them to explore around an example Mars-scape.

Outside

There is a garden area just outside the Saturn-V building with a patio area for patrons of the cafe to sit in the sunshine while enjoying a bite to eat and a cold drink. The garden has quite a view across the watery marshes in this part of the facility.

LC-39A & LC-39B 1024x768

This garden gives visitors a wonderful view of the whole of Launch Complex 39 where the Space Shuttle is prepared and where the launches take place.

Through the trees of the garden you can clearly see the two Launch Pads, 39A on the right and 39B on the left across the water.

VAB 1024x768

To the very distant right is the cavernous Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) where the orbiters are mated to their External Fuel Tanks and Solid Rocket Boosters before being crawled out to one of the two launch pads.

LC-39B 1024x768

LC-39B 1024x768

LC-39A 1024x768

The night before my visit to the Kennedy Space Center I witnessed the launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-97 taking much-needed solar panels to the International Space Station.

That launch took place from Launch Pad 39B and it is possible to see differences between the two towers which shows that LC-39B is busier than LC-39A at that time.

Leaving

The Saturn-V Center is one of the most memorable places I have ever had the chance to visit. Combined with a Shuttle Launch, it is an exceptional experience and one I will treasure.

Eventually, when you like, you can choose to board a coach to the final part of the tour: The International Space Station Complex where parts of the actual station are on display in a clean-room while they are being prepared for launch in future Space Shuttle missions.

After that, you will be returned to the main Visitors Complex.

Last modified: 2nd July 2001

© Ross B. Tierney, 2001.