 |
|
APT SHOWS HOW ALABAMA HELPED PUT MAN ON THE MOON TUSCALOOSA--Thirty years ago this summer the world was watching when Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon. But his miraculous journey would not have been possible without the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, where thousands of Alabamians designed, tested, and built the most powerful vehicle ever created, the majestic Saturn V rocket. "Thunder In Hunstville," a new documentary on Alabama Public Television, tells the behind-the-scenes story of how Alabamians mobilized to help the nation meet President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 challenge to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. The program airs at 8 p.m., Thursday, July 15, as part of The Alabama Experience documentary series. The program will be re-broadcast at 1:30 p.m., Sunday, July 18. "We didn’t have a long time to start figuring out how to get to the moon," says Alex McCool, a propulsion expert at Marshall. He remembers Kennedy’s speech only a few weeks after the nation’s first astronaut, Alan Shepard, had flown on a Redstone rocket designed at Marshall. "We just put a man in sub-orbital flight. He didn’t even go in orbit. It was up and down, a ballistic flight." But a legendary space scientist was in charge of the Marshall team. Wernher von Braun and other German engineers had been brought to the United States at the end of World War II. The V2 rocket they developed for the German military was an engineering marvel and much more sophisticated than any rocket the Allies had in the works. After five years at Fort Bliss, Texas, von Braun and his team were sent to Huntsville’s Redstone Arsenal. After designing rockets for the US Army, von Braun’s team was transferred to NASA in 1960 and given the responsibility of building a new, powerful rocket. "The concept of going to the moon, what it would take, I have to give a lot of credit to von Braun," says Lee James, who was the Saturn project manager at Marshall. "He knew when to manage and when not to. He knew when to let his people manage. And that’s something not many people know how to do." By 1965, 7,500 people worked for NASA at Marshall and thousands of additional contractors were on site. Huge towers were built so the massive Saturn engines could be test-fired on the ground. When the five new, specially developed F1 engines were ignited, fire and smoke filled the sky, shock waves rolled, and the noise thundered across North Alabama. "It was an awesome feeling. I saw that," recalls James. "It was a terrific thing to see seven-and-half million pounds go off like that. It’s terrific." The Saturn V was 100 times more powerful than the Redstone rocket. When fired, its five engines created a force double that which would be available if all the moving waters of North American were channeled through turbines. Despite the complexity of the huge project--the Saturn V rocket had three million parts--the Alabama workers finished the job well ahead of Kennedy’s deadline and set an incredible launch record. "You think about it, they had all those pieces and they never failed," says James. "We never lost a Saturn. Never lost a Saturn. I think that’s amazing. Millions of parts and no failures." "Thunder In Huntsville" shows that this rocket was not only an engineering achievement, but one that required the skills of Alabama’s welders, machinists, laborers, clerks, and office workers. So, while the entire nation celebrates the 30th anniversary of the moon landing, Alabama can take pride in the vital role it played in humankind’s greatest expedition. "Von Braun jokingly said that we ought to put on a tag on the vehicles "Made in Alabama by Alabamians" because we had done so much of the work and design here at Marshall," says NASA historian Mike Wright. "So he was very interested in seeing that Alabama got credit for the work that was done right here in the state." Press Releases || This Month from CPT&R || The Alabama Experience Order Tapes || The University of Alabama Center for Public Television For more
information: |