Saturn rocket

The unmanned Saturn rocket, shortly after takeoff on January 22, 15 8. The combination of oxygen and hydrogen creates enough energy to lift the rocket into space. NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION (NASA). 

Helium is extensively used for filling balloons as it is a much safer gas than hydrogen. One of the recent largest uses for helium has been for pressuring liquid fuel rockets. A Saturn booster, like the type used on the Apollo lunar missions, required about 13 million fts of helium for a firing, plus more for checkouts. 

A final, somewhat variable outlet for large-scale liquid oxygen is as oxidant in rocket fuels for space exploration, satellite launching and space shuttles. For example, in the Apollo mission to the moon (1979), each Saturn 5 launch rocket used 1270 m (i.e. 1.25 million litres or 1450 tonnes) of liquid oxygen in Stage 1, where it oxidized the kerosene fuel (195 000 1, or about 550 tonnes) in the almost unbelievably short time of 2.5 min. Stages 2 and 3 had 315 and 76.3 m of liquid O2 respectively, and the fuel was liquid FI2. 

Since liquid hydrogen has the greatest energy content per unit weight of any fuel, NASA used liquid hydrogen as the primary fuel for the Saturn 5 moon rockets and the Space Shuttle. 

Post-WWII. After WWII most LP R D shifted from Germany to the USA and the USSR. Technical progress since 1945 in LP for rockets can be characterized by a host of minor improvements rather than major advances, and some spectacular applications of LP in rockets for military use and for space exploration, eg, in ICBM s (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles) and in USA USSR Moon, Mars Venus shots . Thus the major developments since WWII have been primarily in the application of existing, though improved, propulsion systems to such highly publicized rockets as Sputnik, Vanguard, Soyuz, Saturn, Vostok, Apollo, Explorer, etc... 

Farber (Ref 31) points out that LP rocket destruct systems (specifically Saturn V) can initiate dangerous secondary explosions in the discharged fuel/oxidant mixture... 

Liquid hydrogen has been used as a fuel in the U.S. space program for many years. Hydrogen powered the Saturn V rocket that carried the first astronauts to the moon, and it fuels the rocket engines of the space shuttle (Figure 14.14a). 

It should be noted that NASA used the same parallel development technique that was used to find a method to separate uranium isotopes. Rocket engines using liquid oxygen and hydrocarbon fuel had been tested and used in systems producing 25 thousand kilograms thrust. For Apollo Saturn 5 first... 

Alway, Peter (1996). Retro Rockets Experimental Rockets 1926-1941. Ann Arbor, All Saturn Press. 

Alway, Peter (1999). Rockets of the World, 3rd edition. Ann Arbor, MI Saturn Press. 

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