Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1961-10-15
MiIIion-Pound Saturn Rocket
Gets First Test This Week

ards Redstone. This group,
which got its start at the Ger
man rocket base of Peene-
muende In World War II, is
now located at Huntsville, Ala.
1t is headed by Wernher Won
Braun.
At the American Rocket So
ciety meeting in New York
last week, DR.. Won Braun set
the chances of a successful
first flight of Saturn CT at
40 to 80 per cent" He en-
phasized that this was only
a guess, however. Chances for
getting valuable information
from the shot, are "99.995 per
cent" DR.. Won Braun added.
New Launching Pad
One of DR.. Won Braun's as
sociates said half -jokingly a
few days ago that the object
Of the first Saturn test is Ito
get it across the beach and
into the water" The rocket
will be launched from q new
pad at the north end of the
existing Cape Canaveral base,
about a mile west of the At
lantic Ocean.
The test has more specific
detectives, however. The pro-
gram calls for the rocket to
climb to an altitude of about
80 miles before splashing into
the sea about 225 miles east
by-south of Canaveral. The
flight is expected to take about
8 minutes, with the rocket at
tanning a top speed Of $500
miles an hour.
This compares as follows
with Comdr. Shepard's Red
stone flight; Altitude, lis
miles; range, 300 miles; dura-
ton, Is minutes (of which 5
minutes was under parachute);
speed, $500 miles an hour.
The Saturn flight will be
watched closely by the Hunts
vile group. More than 600
channels Of information will
be fed from the rocket and
ground stations into computers
for a complete analysis Of the
flight. Bugs" regarded as al
most certain to show up in the
first shot will be corrected in
subsequent Saturns.
All the information will have
to be obtained while the rocket
is in flight. There will be no
attempt made to recover the
booster from the ocean, and
therefore no opportunity for
an actual autopsy"
The l0-Shot Saturn devel-
opment program. of which this
launching will be the first,
will go about like this:
Two more launchings with
inert upper stages and simu-
lated payloads (the same as
the first shot will be con-
Quoted in 1862 and one in 1868.
Two launchings with an ac-
tive second stage and simu-
lated payload will be held in
1868.
Largest Rocket known
Two launchings with active
second stage and a full-Scale
model Of the Apollo capsule will
be conducted in 1868 and two
in 1864.
For the first four flights, the
rocket will be propelled by
eight HI engines developing
l65, 900 pounds of thrust each
for a total Of about Is million
pounds. Later His will gen.
crate $4,000 pounds thrust
each, aggregating about is
million pounds.
BY comparison the Russians
orbited CoSmonautS Yuri Ga
garin and Gherman Titov in
capsules launched by rockets
believed to develop a total of
750, 1000 to 100000 pounds
thrust. The Russians are not
known to have flown anything
larger than this. and we'll
informed American space ex-
perts say they would almost
certainly know If the Russians
had done so.
One noted rocket authority
diSagrees, however. DR.. Walter
Dornberger, who was DR.. Won
Braun's boss at Peenemuende,
said Friday in New York that
he is practically certain the