- Year
- 1980
- By
- Bilstein, Roger E.
- Section
- NASA — General & Institutional
- Shelf
- L9
- Catalog
- Catalog F · NASA Missions
NASA SP-4206 in the NASA History Series, published by the Scientific and Technical Information Branch, Washington, D.C., 1980. This is the hardcover first edition; the collection also holds a softcover copy, shelved alongside it. Dedicated “To Wernher von Braun, 1912–1977, and the men and women who built the Saturn.”
Foreword by William R. Lucas, Director of the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center, dated June 1979, comparing the Saturn program’s scope and vision to the Panama Canal and the Manhattan Project, and noting its flawless flight record of 32 launches (10 Saturn I, Saturn IB, and Saturn V vehicles combined) without a single failure, carrying 27 men around the Moon and 12 onto its surface, and going on to lift Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project crew.
In his preface, dated June 1979, Bilstein explains the book as a technological rather than narrative history, organized topically into seven parts—Prologue; The Saturn Building Blocks; Fire, Smoke, and Thunder: The Engines; Building the Saturn V; Coordination: Men and Machines; Step by Step; and Epilogue—with eight appendixes covering a Saturn V schematic, the prelaunch-launch sequence, flight history, R&D funding history, contractors, the location of surviving Saturn hardware, and NASA/MSFC personnel rosters.
The acknowledgments credit Dr. Rudolph Hermann and the University of Alabama in Huntsville’s Research Institute for the origins of the project, Frederick I. Ordway III and David L. Christensen for documentation, John Stuart Beltz and Mitchell R. Sharpe of Marshall Space Flight Center for working papers and research, Johnson Space Center Historian James M. Grimwood for hosting the project in its final phase, and Dr. Eugene M. Emme, archivist Lee Saegesser, Dr. Monte D. Wright, and Dr. Frank W. Anderson, Jr., of the NASA History Office for guidance and editing.
