Space...the final frontier...
It is time to take a look at the preparations that scientists and engineers from NASA and other subcontractors did to achieve a long standing dream of our civilization - putting a man on the moon.
On the Boeing side of NASA's huge plant at Michoud, La., a full-scale model of the first stage of the great Saturn V moon rocket looms over a glistening floor that is coated with a special material to keep down dust. Green bagged vacuum cleaners prowl constantly and supervisors ride white electric carts. This model has one dummy engine attached. Shooting version will have four such engines on the rim with a fifth mounted in center.
This beam of ionized particles (photo below), flowing through a Hughes Aircraft test chamber from the revolutionary ion engine at the left of the image, one day may propel interplanetary vehicles at speeds up to two million miles per day. Whereas conventional rockets require an enormous store of fuel which is quickly exhausted, the ion engine uses minute quantities that last almost indefinitely.
At Rocketdyne's plant in Canoga Park, Calif., many types of welding are used to make engines for the Saturn V. In the foreground of this double exposure, a tiny flame shoots from the tip of a hypodermic needls. Behind, metal fuses to metal in 10.000-degree heat generated by an electron beam welder.
Before man can be hurled beyond the help of his fellows, all the materials on which he depends must be tested. In a North American lab at Downey, Calif., a technician examines silicon lubricant under vacuum. Behind him, paint samples are subjected to ultraviolet rays like those in space.
On the Chrysler side of NASA's plant at Michoud, La., workmen assemble the mammoth fuel tanks for the Saturn S-1B boosters. Because of a fleck of foreign matter in the rocket's delicate mechanism could cause failure in flight, they take special measures to suppress dust. To enter one of the sealed tanks through the hatchway sittuated just inside the circular openings at upper right, workmen must step first into the plastic "clean room". Once the room has been attached tightly to the end of the tank, it is kept inflated by a constant stream of filtered air. When a man steps through the zippered door the outgoing air blast repels the dust that might otherwise enter with him.
This huge maw, measuring more than nine feet in diameter at the rim, is the firing chamber of America's most powerful engine - the F-1, at Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, Calif., Tubes line the interior to carry the fuel to its ignition point in the background, at once cooling the chamber and preheating the fuel. Five such engines, 1.5 million pounds thrust each, will lift Saturn V.
Twenty years ago this mill was used to make turret fittings for medium tanks. Boeing brought it to the Michoud plant to mill the aluminium rings that give structural strength to the Saturn V.
When the Apollo spacecraft returns from its flight to the moon, it will drop into the sea just as the first Astronaut capsule did. At North America's test pool in Downey, Calif., a model of that capsule (with heat shield striped for easier tracking with camera) is dropped over and over at various angles from a 143-foot tower. Each time it bobs back into position for the Astronauts to escape.
When man sets out for the moon, an extraordinary sensing computer aboard his spaceship will analyze motion and direction and make decisions far beyond his own capacity. This maze of wires links the electronic parts that do this work within the computer. Made at Rayethon in Waltham, Mass. by women whose ancestors worked in the New England weaving industry, the boards contain thousands of connections. The wires are laid on one by one. The brightly colored plastic tubes between the terminal posts are used as guides to help the worker count and will later be removed. Though every circuit of this computer will be checked by other computers, basic verification is still a woman's trained eye.
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