In 1962, when the Soviet Union put a man in space for the first time, American President Kennedy, wounded in self-esteem, made a declaration. It was that the United States would land a man on the moon within ten years. But when that announcement was made, America's first man had not even reached space. Accurately reaching the moon 300,000 km away, without nuclear disparity, landing a human, and safely returning it is the greatest technological challenge of all time.
The backbone of the project is a launch vehicle, or rocket, that can launch the 40-ton Apollo probe 300,000 kilometers to the moon. Without this rocket, nothing else matters.
The function of a rocket is to deliver an object or payload attached to the tip to a specified height and speed. Once the rocket ignites, it must burn hundreds of tons of fuel in several stages within minutes, breaking through gravity and air resistance and reaching space. As the tip payload drops by tons of weight every second, the tip payload sits still. The biggest challenge is maintaining the pressure on this payload at a low rocket weight as it approaches the final stages. That's where super powerful engines come in. That's how America developed the cryogenic engine in the sixties. Heavier payloads are launched on the power of this engine, which uses liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen.
Saturn 5 is the rocket that will provide the velocity and momentum needed to propel the 40-ton Apollo probe first into a 140-kilometer parking orbit and from there to the Moon.
One hundred and ten meters, or the height of a thirty-six-story building. The rocket consists of a first stage using five A1 cryogenic engines using refined kerosene fuel and liquid oxygen, a second stage using five cryogenic J2 engines using liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and a third stage using one J2 cryogenic engine. That is eleven engines including six cryogenic engines. Five engines each in the first and second stages must work together. In doing so, the coordination between the engines and the fuel delivery must be perfect. Otherwise the rocket will turn into a huge fireball. So many engines, including cryogenic engines, have never worked together except on a Saturn rocket to date. It is a combination of extraordinary skill, technique and hard work. America won it. That's how they plucked the arrow.
While saying this, it would not be right not to mention a great genius who worked behind it.
Their V2 rockets were a German weapon most feared by the Allies during World War- II. Germany had fired over a thousand V2 rockets at the city of London alone. Wernher von Braun was the scientist behind this technological excellence that Germany acquired before other countries began to dream of missiles and rockets. After the war, the United States acquired Brown, along with more than 1,500 rocket scientists, from occupied Germany. These people later worked as the backbone of NASA. This Wernher von Braun is the father of the Saturn rocket, the backbone of the Apollo project. That is, this great achievement achieved by man does not belong only to one country called America. As Neil Armstrong said when he set foot on the moon, 'One foot for a man, one giant leap for mankind.'