A few years ago as I was going through some old stuff I had recently dug out of storage, I pulled out what turned into an entire bookcase full of old space-related material I had saved when I was a kid: NASA publications, photos as well as lots of magazine and newspaper clippings. In the process of going through material that hadn’t seen the light of day in a couple of decades, I stumbled upon a handful of real gems (see “The Space Shuttle and the Dreams of a Ten Year Old”). Among them was a clipping from the February 10, 1964 issue of Newsweek pictured here. It reported on the first orbital test flight of the then new Saturn I rocket, called SA-5, that was launched a half a century ago on January 29, 1964. And when I found this clipping, I couldn’t help but remember how as a kid I thought that this was the coolest looking rocket ever.

I was only two years old when this flight took place so have no firsthand recollection of this launch. But as a kid, I usually spent time with my family in the summer visiting relatives in Maine and, during the late 1960s to early 1970s, we would frequently stay in my grandparent’s lakeside cabin outside of Bangor for a few days. I have no idea how it got there, but the February 10, 1964 issue of Newsweek was one of a smattering of old publications that occupied a magazine holder in the cabin’s main room. Inhaling anything space-related as a kid, I stumbled upon this article maybe 45 years ago and just thought the SA-5 was the coolest rocket ever. Perhaps one of my artist friends can explain the appeal of this rocket in terms of its proportions, lines, colors… or maybe it is something primeval like all that cool fire belching from its base… I can only imagine what someone like Freud would say… but something about this rocket stuck with me like no other including any of the other Saturn I rockets.

The first four Saturn I flights, SA-1 through SA-4, used the Block I configuration of the rocket. In consisted of a first stage sporting eight early versions of Rocketdyne’s H-1 engine generating a total of 1.3 million pounds (5,800 kilonewtons) of thrust. In the Block I test flights flown from 1961 to 1963, dummy upper stages were carried on suborbital flights filled with ballast including water that was released at high altitude on some flights as part of an experiment called High Water. The flight of SA-5 was the first of the new Block II version of the Saturn I which had a host of improvements including eight uprated H-1 engines that now generated 1.5 million pounds (6,700 kilonewtons) of thrust at lift off and a live second stage designated the S-IV. Unlike the Saturn I first stage, S-I, that burned kerosene and liquid oxygen (LOX), the S-IV stage sported six high performance Pratt & Whitney RL-10 engines that burned liquid hydrogen and LOX to generate 90,000 pounds (400 kilonewtons) of thrust. The new Block II Saturn I was capable of placing about 15 tons (14,000 kilograms) of useful payload into low Earth orbit making it the most powerful rocket of its time beating the previous record holder, the Soviet 8K78 Molniya, by about a factor of two (see “The Largest Launch Vehicles through History“).

As it would turn out, the configuration of the SA-5, consisting of a dummy third stage and nosecone filled with ballast, was unique. The next five flights of the Saturn I launched between May 1964 and July 1965 carried boilerplate models of the Apollo spacecraft then under development (see “The First Apollo Orbital Test Flight“). The last three flights also carried a Pegasus satellite inside the dummy Apollo that were designed to study micrometeoroids in low Earth orbit (see “The Launch of Apollo A-103/Pegasus 1“). Somehow this configuration flown on SA-6 to SA-10 has a totally different aesthetic quality. And after ten successful flights, the Saturn I was retired and replaced by the improved Saturn IB that used an upgraded second stage designated S-IVB which also served as the third stage of the Saturn V. The Saturn IB would fly for almost a decade in support of the Apollo and Skylab programs.

Despite only being flown once and retired in favor of an improved version, there is just something about the SA-5 that still makes it seem like the coolest rocket ever in my mind even after almost half a century.

Follow Drew Ex Machina on Facebook.

Related Reading

“The Largest Launch Vehicles Through History”, Drew Ex Machina, February 19, 2018 [Post]