Big shiny metal god reaches sky with flames shooting out of its ass!

That had to be one heavy satellite.

The noise, even that far, was incredible. It was an incredible sight.

What gets me is this is even more powerful.

You could feel it in your chest!

My mom lived near the test site for the main engines. She was 10 miles away and the tests would rattle her windows.

I just hope he doesn't have a flaming ass on stage

rods from god?? they are very heavy...

just have them floating around up there and they would be ready to go ...

Eventually, the orbit will decay as any fuel left burns off.

Literally.

Engineers retired, "institutional knowledge" was lost, tooling scrapped or dispersed.

The Saturn 5 was largely designed on paper, using slide rules to do the math.

It's still the most powerful launch system ever built.

Microfilms of the blueprints and technical specs still exist but it would take a huge effort to recreate something like that. In any case, incorporating modern materials, control systems, etc., into the design would make it a different machine entirely.

Imagine putting fuel injection and a modern ignition system on a 1965 Mustang. You'd still have a car that drove like a 1965 Mustang. There's no comparison between that and a modern car with computer-designed suspension, safety systems, etc. The last time I drove an old Mustang our regular car was a 1984 Toyota Camry. In comparison to the Camry the Mustang felt very rough, unsafe, and unstable. The first time I drove a Mustang, back when I first got my drivers license, I remembered driving the same car and thinking it was awesome.

we could make one starting tomorrow. However, finding vacuum tubes and far weaker alloys might be a problem. In electronics alone, today's version would save several tons simply because of better (and lighter) computing, wiring, and controls.

Not the more common "urban legend" which I was unaware of.

My grandfather was an engineer on the Apollo project. His specialty was making "impossible" parts from titanium. Of course it wasn't impossible because the parts were made. At the time titanium was considered a notoriously difficult material to work with. We didn't know then what we know now.

There was a lot of intuition, experimentation, and gut-feelings involved in the work, not to mention figuring out what the Nazis and the Soviet Union had accomplished.

My grandfather was an officer in the Army Air Force during World War II, he had a high security clearance, and that's probably where he picked up the art. He never flew a plane, which was his romantic notion when he first enlisted years before the war.

So yeah, I'll stand by what I said. We couldn't build another machine like that, nor would we want to.

(yes, they had a blacksmith)

His specialty was making certain parts for the shuttle engine, parts that could not be machined. His favorite metal was titanium, and the guy was brilliant with a hammer, flame and tongs. He also knew his metals. I wonder if the 3D manufacturing can replace what he did.

My dad's an artist. I imagine my grandfather was an artist too, but by circumstances and in his scramble to find a career after the war ended he became an engineer in the aerospace industry.

I have his Apollo 8 appreciation medallion "...carried metal in this medallion to the moon." It's not that valuable on ebay (they made 200,000 of them) but it was valuable to him. He worked some very long days after the Apollo I disaster on the Command Module redesign.

He was most proud of his contributions to the Apollo Program. I suspect his wartime Army Air Force work was a little sketchy. He was the handsome officer in a spiffy uniform, slightly intimidating, who carried the "Get Out of Jail Free" card. He showed up whenever someone deemed critical to the war effort ended up in the slammer for public drunkenness, drug use, homosexual acts, or running naked down some small-town Virginia or Maryland Main Street yelling obscenities in German or Russian.

World War Two was a stressful time. He never talked about that.

my dad served in order to become a citizen. I recently found his discharge papers, he was shocked that they still exist. BUt he could recite them word for word.

He got to witness an atomic bomb explosion up close, from a hole in the ground. Then he got to march across ground zero hours later.The Navy paid for his college education and later he got a union professional job. He's one of the lucky ones -- nuclear fallout resistant.

My dad crossed his fingers and hoped he wouldn't be sent to Korea. He wasn't. Dumb luck. He never left Fort Ord or Camp Roberts.

I adore your titles