[AR] Re: Apollo (was Re: SSTO)
- From: Henry Vanderbilt <hvanderbilt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2018 09:26:21 -0700
On 2/19/2018 7:46 AM, John Dom wrote:
Were multiple Saturn V launches considered inadequate for building the ISS
and why? Was Saturn only a Moon rocket?
Station would no doubt have been designed very differently for launch in
Saturn 5 sized chunks, but the point is moot: Saturn had been retired
for over twenty years by first Station module launch, its production and
support base long gone.
Politically speaking, the US bits of ISS were going to be designed for
and launched via Shuttle, period.
After Apollo it became NASA 's prime objective to build the Shuttle as the
Saturn V follow-up. The administration threw away their Apollo toy like kids
do with toys they got bored of.
It is my impression that by the time Apollo was succeeding, there was a
strong faction within NASA that wanted to prove that Americans could
design the next big NASA ship just fine by themselves.
Von Braun being pushed to the sidelines in 1970 was a part of this, and
Shuttle (and dysfunctional MSFC as we've known it ever since) was the
final result.
(I expect my colleague Henry could add considerable perspective here.)
Henry V
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