Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles Book

(This review is of the EPUB version, which I created myself.)

The greatest strength of this book is its focus'it deals with the Saturn launch vehicles and very little else. As the title suggests it's also fairly technical and doesn't cater to the casual reader, so some basic knowledge of how rockets work is probably required.

The stories of the engines and stages are the most fascinating, with many accounts of new problems and their eventual solutions. Most surprising to me was the challenges associated with liquid hydrogen. At −253°C (20K), if the fuel tanks or fuel lines aren't properly insulated, it will liquefy air and solidify liquid oxygen, both of which are bad news. Another bit of scary hydrogen trivia:

There was an added, perverse character about leaks that produced hydrogen fires'in daylight, the flame was invisible. It was possible to inadvertently blunder into the searing flame. … But how to detect an invisible fire? … SACTO had a special examination crew, outfitted with protective clothing and equipped with brooms. The men "walked down" the stage, from the top scaffolding to the bottom, extending their brooms ahead of them. If the broom suddenly sprouted into flame, the men knew they had discovered a hydrogen leak. Still, accidents could happen, even when extra precaution was taken.


On the non-technical side, I was surprised to learn how many different private contractors were involved. I had imagined that the Saturn V was built by NASA itself, but actually each stage was built by a different contractor, who in turn had many sub-contractors. The one area where there doesn't seem to have be much competition is rocket engines, all of which were built by Rocketdyne, who also went on to build the SSME.

Next, I'm going to read Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft to learn more about the payload of the Saturn V, the CM and LM.