Re: VonBraun and his crew



Len wrote:
In Saturn/Apollo days, those of us at the Los Angeles
sister division of North American observed that 1 percent
of a dedicated core seemed to get things done in spite of
the other 99 percent. We rejoiced, like others, when the
system actually worked well enough to put men on the
moon (Apollo I over-management debacle put aside).
However, I remember one specific comment that it
would really be an incredible disaster, if this management
model actually become accepted as a good management
model.

This sounds a lot like what happened in regards to the B-2 bomber if descriptions of that program's convoluted inner workings are accurate.
Earth rendezvous using Saturn I's could have been
done by expanding existing manufacturing and operations
activities. This approach not only would have been easier,
it would have been sustainable and logical.

Saturn 1 was a awfully large and complex rocket for the payload it could carry into orbit. The von Braun team always looked at it (especially the strange tankage design of the first stage and its eight engines) as a pretty hasty lash-up to get something that could put a good-sized payload into orbit in a hurry.
In their heart-of-hearts what they probably wanted for a Saturn 1 first stage was something along the lines of a super-sized Jupiter with a single F-1 engine on its base.
Although the "cluster's last stand" grouping of the eight Jupiter-derived engines was not in itself a fundamentally flawed concept - although it meant a lot of plumbing, the propellant tankage (nine tanks total) was a lot more bulky and heavy than a conventional cylindrical tankage layout would have been.
Also, Saturn1B couldn't even carry a fully fueled CSM into orbit, much less a fully fueled CSM/LM combo.
So now, besides the launchings to refuel the S-IVB stage for TLI, you are also moving hypergolic fuels around in orbit to tank up the SM and LM... and there's going to be at least one orbital test of the CSM/LM combo in orbit before a Moon mission, so that's two more launches there...and a orbital flight of the CSM around the Moon ala' Apollo 8 - two more launches minimum.
That's around four or five launchings total for a fully tanked up CSM/LM combo heading for the Moon.
I'll be optimistic, and let them get the whole works put together in orbit and fully tanked up with four Saturn-1B launches -one to get the CSM up there, another with the LM, another to top up the hypergolics on the two spacecraft, and another to tank up the S-IVB stage, although that seems likely to take two launches in reality.
So our seven manned lunar landing missions take a total of _twenty-eight_ Saturn 1B launches, plus another ten launches to replicate the tests done on the Apollo 7-10 missions (7 takes one, 8 takes at least two, 9 takes three, 10 takes four)
So now you are up to at least thirty-eight launches total using LOR. And if even one of the four launches fails for some reason on the lunar landing missions that whole mission gets scrubbed unless you have other Saturn 1Bs standing by to replace the payload the failed rocket was carrying. in fairly short order. This launch rate and redundancy requirement means several Saturn 1B pads with rockets on them being stacked nearly simultaneously, requiring one hell of a lot of infrastructure to accomplish. In fact, you may need eight Saturn 1B pads, all with rockets on them at once, if you want to salvage a particular mission which has had one component fail during launch.
Try the direct ascent route and land the CSM on the Moon atop a new descent stage, and things get even worse. That's a lot heavier, and it's going to be difficult to break the lunar spacecraft down into components small enough to be taken into orbit by Saturn 1B's. Then you are probably talking something along the lines of around sixty to seventy launches total, and Cape Kennedy is covered with Saturn-1B pads to make sure all the components can be in orbit with redundancy for assembling the lunar spacecraft...as each mission is going to take at least eight launches, so you end up with sixteen pads.
Besides, considering all the trouble we had getting the CSM and LM built and operating on schedule, the big direct descent lander probably would not have been ready to go by 1969.
The way we did it - building the Saturn V, was the simplest, fastest, and cheapest way of getting to the Moon ahead of the Russians.

Pat
.

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