Evening star., 1961-08-16
First Step to Moon Begins on Barge;
Saturn Booster Is FIooted to Florida

Aug. 16 (AP).-The first Sat-
urn booster, forerunner of a
vehicle which may some day
carry man around the moon
at $4,000 miles an hour, has
reached its launching area or
a turtle-slow barge from Ala
bama.
The barge tied up at a special
dock in the Banana River here
yesterday after travelling a
2,200-mile circuitous route
from Saturn's birthplace in
Huntsville, Ala. On the Today
trip it averaged nine miles an
hour, traversing the Tennessee,
Ohio and Mississippi Rivers,
Gulf of Mexico, Florida
straits, Atlantic Ocean and In
land Waterway.
DR.. Kurt Debus, director of
launching operations for the
National Aeronautics and
Space Administration, said of
the arrival:
THE magnitude of our OPP
Grafton to send a man to the
moon is jumping at this time"
DR.. Dehus said the United
States still has good chance
to beat Russia to the moon with
an astronaut "if everything
goes we'll"
Requires CheckOut
The former German rocket
expert said the first Saturn
will require several weeks of
extensive checkout on the pad
before it is committed to flight.
It is hoped the monster can be
fired in October with dummy
upper stages.
DR.. Debus reported Saturn
vehicles will be able to send
a three-man spaceship around
the moon, but are not capable
of landing them there and re-
turning them to earth. This
will be done by the later Nova
rocket.
But" DR.. Debus commented,
Saturn will lay the basic
groundwork for Nova"
AS workmen gingerly ur-
loaded the S2-foot Saturn first
stage from the barge, it was
clear why an old-time water
going craft had to be used to
help start man on his voyage
to the moon. The rocket is
Just too big to be transported
by air, rail or highway.
Weighs 50 Tons
The Saturn is brute, a new
dimension in power. The first
stage weighs so tons; when
fueled it will top 500 tons. 1t
is 81 feet in diameter and is
composed of eight TO inch
tanks, alternately liquid Oxy-
gen and high-powered kero-
sene, fastened about a central
105-inch tank for liquid oxy-
gen.
The eight engines will swal-
low truckloadS of propellant in
minutes and translate it into
massive thrust of Is million
pounds-the equivalent Of 80
million horsepower and four
times more powerful than any
rocket flown by the United
States.
The rockets used to boost
the Russian cosmonaut into
orbit are estimated to have
about / million pounds Of
thrust.
The first few Saturn flights
will be Of the first stage only,
with water-filled upper stages
to simulate weight of future
tests. The launching pad has a
mammoth service tower 80 feet
tall.
Scheduled for 1854
The first complete Saturn
vehicle, the 1S5-foot CT model,
is scheduled to be ready in
1864 to put the three-man
Apollo capsule into earth orbit,
to land 5000 pounds of instru-
ments on the moon, or to hurl
a 2,500-pound space probe to
Mars or Venus.
The Space Agency also is
developing an advanced C-3
model, whose three stages will
generate up to 4 million pounds
Of thrust. This vehicle, more
than 200 feet tall, is slated to
be ready in 1866 or 1867 to
place so tons in earth orbit,
propel the manned Apollo
spacecraft around the moon
and bring it back, or send 12-
ton packages on a one-way ride
to Mars or Venus.