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Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, November 8, 2010 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Alan Lawrie

"Secrets of the Saturn V Moon Rocket"

ABSTRACT -- In May 1961 President John F Kennedy set America the bold target of designing, manufacturing, testing and flying a manned spacecraft to the moon’s surface and back within eight and a half years. A new, powerful, rocket would be needed to transport the Apollo spacecraft a quarter of a million miles to the moon. New materials, new technologies and new processes would be required. A network of facilities would be constructed across America to build, test and transport the hardware. An army of dedicated engineers and support staff would be mobilized to perform Herculean tasks in order to meet the goal that was arguably the greatest achievement of the 20th Century.

The mighty Saturn V rocket was born. During the decade of the 1960s it rose from the drawing boards in record time to become the most powerful and most reliable rocket ever. However, the details of the problems that were encountered and how they were overcome were never released at the time.

This situation can now be corrected and in this talk the inside story of the Saturn V is revealed with details of the various failures and ultimate successes highlighted.

SPEAKER -- Alan Lawrie has a BSc in Mechanical Engineering and a Post Graduate Diploma in Astronomy and Astronautics. He has spent his entire professional career (30 years) in the spacecraft industry, working for a number of companies in Europe. Most of this time has been spent as a satellite propulsion system design engineer and procurement manager, working on telecommunications satellites and scientific missions. He currently works for EADS Astrium in the UK.

Alan has spent several years researching the manufacturing and testing history of the Saturn V and Saturn I/IB rockets and has two books published on this subject.

He has written and presented a number of AIAA and ESA papers, and has had articles published in a number of magazines. He is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society.




Engineering Colloquium home page: https://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov