Re: Scrapping of Saturn-V

Thank you all for the wonderful responses here.

I guess, it's a tough question to answer after 30 years have passed, but
had there been any proposals to save one of the launch pads for Saturn and
leave the other launch pad for Shuttle? Considering that there is another
Shuttle launch facility at Vandenberg, that could be a backup should a
need for backup arise (had it ever?) This way, as hallerb pointed out, the
Saturn could lift the station and the Shuttle could supply it.

Also, as calculations done by Maury suggested here costs per launch are
roughly the same yet Shuttle delivers 50,000 lb to LEO and Saturn-V
delivered 260,000 lb. Going under assumption that NASA was under strict
budget cuts, why did they put all the money into a program that yielded a
vehicle that delivers 1/5th of the weight (under strict size limitations,
too, as compared to Saturn) at the same cost? Had there been 5 times
under-estimation or the REAL reason for Shuttle was not really to supply a
space station? What then, deliver a bomb? Seems hugely over-engineered for
that.

In any case I can't help but wonder why is it so widely accepted that just
the storage of the finished rockets and the essential machinery needed to
build it would be so prohibitively expensive? There is a lot of empty
space in this country that could allow for a large enough warehouse to
carefully store the rockets already paid for. Additionally, I would assume
that the contractors would be willing to sell their Saturn-V production
equipment REALLY cheap provided they needed factory floor space. How many
of them went out of business upon the program completion, by the way? That
would be a real cheap way to acquire the equipment needed. It seems that
airline industry was able to figure out how to park their excess inventory
in Mojave and preserve their investments that way. Not for 30+ years, of
course, but if the rocket existed, there will be payloads for it, I'm
pretty sure.

Also, getting back to the argument about equipment costing nothing without
the people knowing how to operate it. There is no denial that people are
important yet they were not born Saturn-V builders. They had to acquire
the knowledge using manuals that undoubtedly were supplied with the
machinery and now are probably lost. Having some industrial production
background I can attest that it takes a lot of time and effort to make an
accessory for a machine yet its operation can then be carried out by less
experienced personnel in a production of the detail the accessory is
designed to make. Once the accessory is worn out or scraped, as in our
case, you have to start the cycle over. Now you again need all the
experience, time and money which could be tough on your budget indeed.
This is what keeps amazing me: seeming illogical NASA?s choice to abandon
the working production complex in a middle of budget cuts. People do that
when times are good, not as it was carried out in the 70s.

Well, I guess summing it all up, I was venting not about not using the
existing rockets but losing the capability to build and fly them again
when needed, which seems to be right about now. It?s not like it?s not a
noble cause (I?d say much better than military spending), but it seems
kind of silly that now my generation needs to pay for them AGAIN.


Cheers,
D~


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