The race to land man on the moon in the 1960s was a wild time for engineers, who were working at the edge of what was possible to try and fly a rocket the size of a 25-story building to our nearest astronomical body. While the science was groundbreaking, the testing process wasn’t always as cutting-edge.
Engineers at NASA spent years developing the Saturn V rocket to take man to the surface of the moon. Rocket scientists spent around five years designing, building and testing the 363-foot tall rocket ahead of its first flight on November 9, 1967. Prior to that flight, NASA assembled a test rocket that brought together all the stages of the Saturn V rocket for testing at its Kennedy Space Center in early 1996.
The test rocket, called the SA-500F, comprised the same components assembled by Boeing, North American Aviation and Douglas Aircraft but without the engines required to lift off from planet Earth. NASA used this rocket to check and test all the processes it had in place to assemble, transport and prepare the real rocket for launch, reports Popular Science.
One such test that engineers carried out with SA-500F was to check that the craft could survive life in Florida, where it would lift off from the Cape Kennedy launch pads:
Unfortunately, Florida isn’t necessarily the best climate in which to have massive rockets sitting on a launch pad in preparation for a mission. Florida is known, among other things, for its hurricanes.
On June 8, 1966, SA-500F was on the launch pad where it had been undergoing fuel loading tests when Hurricane Alma rolled through. Ground crews were ordered to move the rocket back into the Vertical Assembly Building (VAB) for safekeeping. Two days later, it was rolled back onto the pad where it stayed until October 14.
Perhaps inspired by the close call with the hurricane, NASA engineers opted to do a very manual test of the full rocket’s structural integrity and elasticity. In short, what would happen if it was on the launch pad and struck by strong winds?
Instead of designing a new test rig that could inflict all kinds of wind, rain and other dramatic weather events on the Saturn V rockets, NASA took a more rustic approach to rocket science. The agency called on its engineers to shake the SA-500F as hard as they could and it’s those tests that you can see in the video shared by CinePost below.
To shake the 25-story rocket, workers at the base of the Saturn V rocket would push at the bottom of the craft with their feet. At the same time, engineers lassoed the top of the rocket and pulled at it with all their might to try and get the craft to shake.
It worked and the sway of the rocket was measured by engineers who calculated the natural frequency of the craft. This helped scientists figure out just how much strain the rocket could take and how strong it was when all bolted together.
The test revealed a small weakness with the launch system rocket, which was dislodged at the top by all the shaking. Thankfully, it didn’t land on anyone and allowed NASA to investigate a fix for the weakness.
A more high-tech approach to this test is now used by airplane manufacturers around the world to see how far wings can flex in flight.
