https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8VL_mV5B98
Spacecraft films has the most spacecraft films - Mercury/Gemini and Apollo programs and other such stuff. I bought the Apollo 11 over a decade ago. I meant to get more; but, well, looks like I get to see some here on youtube!
This first Saturn rocket episode has some interesting things to say about the pre-Saturn V Saturn rockets. I thought the whole satelite they put in orbit to measure micro-meteorites was new for me. Also, they used the Saturn 1's and ll's to launch the crews to the 1970s space-station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaYMzhABF6s
This second episode shows the Saturn V or course. It mostly stressed that they needed to innovate machine tools to make such a larger vehicle. The simple act of scaling makes the old machine tools obsolete. I've seen this before. This one Navy friend use to take me around to see all kinds of machine tools that he used and learned how to use. We would go to work at a Navy old aircraft hanger to fix old aircraft for the Midway museum aircraft carrier. I remember walking past this one prop plane engine which was like two meters in diameter, and I said to him, you can't make this with those little machine tools!
This documentary doesn't cover the design philosophy of the Saturn V. Well, they did a little bit; they mention that Werner Von Braun wanted a two stage which would couple with other second stages already put in orbit to go to both the Moon and Mars. He also suggested using nuclear power reduce flight times to Mars. But, this one guy pointed out how to get a last small stage land on the Moon. I"m not explaining this very well. Kind of like how they use rocket stages to more efficiently get into orbit, this one guy generalised that. Because of this, what lands on the Moon is the minimum weight vehicle, instead of a rather substantial spacecraft.
It's noted that Neal Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had less than minute left of fuel to land on the Moon. This was because of the staged design, instead of launching stages into orbit, and combining them in orbit and then rocketing out of orbit. Instead of having a large vehicle, you have a minimum size vehicle just barely get there!
- Some of the other things about the Saturn V and Apollo program is the use of ultrasound and x-rays to measure structural defects.
- One could perhaps point out that the computers revolution of shrinking to smaller dimensions was just starting around this time.
- I'd like to further note that the engine pressures of the Saturn V F-1 engines were like 70 atmospheres. SpaceX Raptor engine is 300.
