One Small Step...

One Small Step...

How Huntsville’s Role in the Space Program Resulted in a Giant Leap Forward

by PAT AMMONS photographs by NASA and BRENT BOYD

Photograph taken on the moon of astronaut Buzz Aldrin’s boot and boot print. Crewmate, Neil Armstrong, was, however, the first man to step onto the moon’s surface and offered these words, “that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Scan this code with your smart phone to view original NASA footage of the Apollo 11 launch, landing and moon walk. (approx. 7 min. in length)

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COVERSTORY

Apollo 11 Crew: (left to right) Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin

Rocket engines designed in Huntsville propel the Saturn V and Apollo 11 crew toward the moon.

You can see “The Rocket” from all over Huntsville. You see it from Monte Sano to the east, from the Bridge Street shopping complex to the west and from points north and south. It stands as a towering symbol of the role this town played in one of America’s greatest achievements, landing human beings on the moon 50 years ago this year.

Before astronauts could travel through the vacuum of space and before they could use their small landing craft to touch down on the moon, they had to have the power behind them to climb out of the Earth’s gravity. They needed a rocket bigger and more powerful than any ever built, and it needed to work perfectly.

The job went to a team of German and American engineers and craftsmen under the direction of Dr. Wernher von Braun. Together, they used the knowledge of design and propulsion honed from the development of the V2 rocket Germany used in World War II as the foundation for future space exploration.

But why did all this happen in Huntsville? Two words—RedstoneArsenal. With thousands of acres of land and access to the Tennessee River, the U.S. Army installation proved the perfect place to research, build and test rockets.

When von Braun and his team of

At the center and heart of the Apollo Program remained the watchful eye of Dr. Wernher von Braun. Shown after the successful launch of Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969.

about 120 rocket engineers came to the U.S. after World War II, they were first sent to Fort Bliss, Texas, to develop ballistic missiles for the U.S. Army. In 1950, the group was transferred to Alabama, putting Huntsville on its trajectory to becoming the Rocket City.

Huntsville hasn’t always been the center for exploration. When the rocket team arrived, it was town of 16,437, best known for watercress and cotton. Within a decade, however, hundreds of American engineers moved to the area to become part of the team as it transitioned from missiles to rockets. In 1958, Explorer 1, America’s first orbiting satellite, launched atop a Huntsville-designed Jupiter C, a modified Redstone rocket. In 1960, at the height of the space race with the Soviet Union, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center was created with Wernher von Braun as its first director. He continued to lead the development of America’s first rockets, including the Mercury Redstone that sent Alan Shepard on his historic suborbital flight in 1961.

With President John F. Kennedy’s mandate to get to the moon, Huntsville’s engineers began work on the Saturn V, a rocket more powerful than any beforeit. The exhaust from its five F-1 engines could create a wave of force never seen— or felt—before. When Marshall Space Flight Center tested all five F-1’s for the first time in 1965, it created a vibration so powerful it broke windows in Decatur 30

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TOP: Lunar Module “Eagle” composite by Ed Hengeveld

RIGHT: Astronaut Buzz Aldrin poses for a portrait and captures astronaut Neil Armstrong’s reflection in his gold visor.

BELOW: The Apollo logo redesigned to reflect Huntsville’s role in the historic era.

miles away and could be felt 100 miles away.

Huntsville’s Saturn V lifted off on July 16, 1969, and the residents danced in the street when astronaut Neil Armstrong made his monumental first step on the moon. Marshall engineers developed 32 Saturn rockets in all, including the seven that sent Apollo astronauts to the moon.

Marshall Space Flight Center also managed the lunar rover program, creating a vehicle used for the last three Apollo missions to help astronauts travel faster and gather materials on the surface of the moon. And it was Saturn rockets that sent Skylab, America’s first orbiting space station, into space along with the three crews that manned it for a total of 171 hours.

In 1972, President Richard M. Nixon announced a new direction for NASA, a vehicle that could provide a regular ride to space.

Huntsville’s engineers once again developed the propulsion system for the new space shuttle, designing its main engines, solid rocket boosters and external tank.

In the program’s tenure, NASA’s space shuttles traveled more than 542 million miles for more than 1,334 days in space. During that time, shuttle crews recovered and repaired satellites and built the International Space Station where astronauts from 15 countries work in space today. Huntsville also plays an important role in that work, managing the payloads aboard the ISS from the Payload Operations Integration Center located at Marshall Space Flight Center.

Today, Huntsville is home to NASA’s Space Launch System office, which is developing a rocket even more powerful than the Saturn V to take humans back to the moon and on to Mars. It’s the next “giant leap,” just as the Apollo 11 mission and Neil Armstrong’s first step on the moon was 50 years ago.

It’s safe to say Wernher von Braun would applaud today’s efforts to go further, to explore more. He famously told Huntsville residents “don’t hang up your dancing slippers” after the first steps on the moon, and his dream was to land on Mars someday and beyond.

Many of today’s engineers, scientists and technicians are also the

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ABOVE: Moon rock on display to the public inside the Davidson Center at the U. S . Space & Rocket Center.

LEFT: F-1 Engine array on the Saturn V rocket. This massive rocket is the centerpiece of the Davidson Center for Space Exploration.

BELOW: The Apollo 16 command module, similar to the one that splash-landed in the ocean safely returning Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin safely to Earth, is on display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville.

result of another idea of von Braun’s—Space Camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center. He envisioned a program where boys and girls interested in space exploration could study with others who shared their passion. Since it opened in 1982, more than 800,000 young people have proved the ongoing power of von Braun’s idea.

Those Space Camp students have the ultimate classroom to understand the history of space exploration and their potential role in its future. The Rocket Center houses the simulators the early astronauts used to train for the Mercury and Gemini missions. It has the only full-stack space shuttle display in the world and the Apollo 16 capsule that went to the moon and safely returned.

It also has, of course, the Saturn V, both the vertical replica that can be seen from all points in town and the awe-inspiring National Historic Landmark Saturn V in the Davidson Center for Space Exploration. To walk the length of the Saturn V today is an invitation to contemplate the complexity of space travel and the 400,000 men and women who made it possible and the many who are working today to go even farther.

The magnificent Saturn V, all 363 feet of it, still points to the future and Huntsville’s role in getting us there. Upward and onward.

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