I was a senior in college the summer of 1969 and worked at the Mississippi test facility (also known as the John C. Stennis Space Center). A test of the Saturn first stage was done in June and I got to walk under it in the test stand. Then a group of us got to sit in a bleacher reviewing stand and watch the test. It was closer than anyone would get to an actual launch. It felt like a very loud earthquake. I'm now 71 and it was a great experience. Thirty years later I talked to a guy at a business dinner of four people and he was also one of the students in the reviewing stand. I also lived in Bay St. Louis, MS at the time and the test center was many miles from the town.

Outstanding article !! As a teenager I will never forget visiting Huntsville during a test firing of the Saturn 5 engines. They would literally shake the entire city. If folks are interested in seeing and crawling under around and through the Saturn 5, visit the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

I was fortunate enough to witness several launches of the saturn 5, with one being on the cape about 3.5 miles from the pad at a general viewing area. The experience to say was breathtaking. You look at the launch pad and see what looks like the size of a telephone pole on the horizon, it lights up and lifts off and you basically go ho-hum. Then you see the palmetto scrubs start to move as the movement is coming towards you closer and closer. All of a sudden the wind picks up to about 30 miles per hour and the ground starts to shake hard. It is as that point that you go damn!!!!, as you could appreciate the power of the machine that you just saw take off.
The other impressive launch was the one at night. The flame from the rocket extended out about 25 degrees of the sky and you could clearly see the staging events. You were able to follow the second stage till it disappeared over the horizon. This is from Miami!

"The end of an era" How true and probably the high point of the USA's space age. The USA seems to be more interested in adding to the nuclear weapons cache and building warships (and gutting education funding) as opposed to exploring the universe. However, all is not lost. China will successfully carry on the exploration of the heavens with all its benefits and financial gains.

I see at least one error in this piece. The article states that the Saturn V was "...not only the largest liquid-fueled rocket, but the largest flying machine ever built..." However, as one example, the German dirigible Hindenburg was over 800 feet long and 135 feet in diameter, which would dwarf the Saturn V. Of course, the Saturn V was much more massive than the Hindenburg...

The tech now exists to build a space elevator. That would facilitate building a city in near-zero gravity with a rocket/launch company. If private, it would avoid most of the politics and bureaucracy, e.g., all the corruption lobbyists & politicians engender. The tax-extorted wouldn't be robbed to pay for it. The incentives would be to spend wisely or go bust. Mistakes would be paid for by the mistake makers, not the public, e.g., no unseen bailouts. This is how honest progress is made. I can foresee competing projects at both polls, in a non-govt. world. But it would take an enlightened entrepreneur, or two.

What a great article, thanks for sharing.

Great article! I was a kid growing up in the 60's and followed the space program from Mercury through Apollo. We look back today, with our hand held computers, and are in awe how men with slide rules, and a computer so simple, even a smartwatch is more powerful, not only took off, but landed and returned 6 crews from the surface of the moon. The only sad part, was instead of continuing to develop the Saturn & the F1 engines, it was all scrapped for the flying "dump truck" called the Shuttle.

1. The original S1 was designed for the Army. It was originally just to be a test stand vehicle to test the concept. The Army cancelled it and it went with Von Braun and his team to NASA. Then it was expanded into a 4 vehicle test and all would be launched. The first one was launched in March of 1961. 2. Kennedy made the go to the moon speech at Rice University in Texas. He brought it up again in the State of the Union speech. 3. The pogo event happened to the S1-C first stage 10 seconds before staging. The fix was to put accumulators in the hydraulic system to damp out surging and it never occurred again.
Rick Girard

Absolutely excellent article. However, the author is unaware that a Saturn first stage S1C also still exists at the Michoud Assembly Plant in eastern New Orleans. It is next to the road and there are parking spaces next to it. I have stopped a number of times to gaze in wonder at this magnificent beast. I was at LSU & LSU Law School 1960-68, so I had to ring-side seat to many of the developments. On one occasion in 1965 while in Slidell LA, I heard the thunderous roar of a test at a distance of about 8 miles. By 1969, I was in New Orleans & woke my 11 month old daughter & held her in front of the TV to watch the Moon Landing. What a shame that our sense of vision and purpose evaporated in the 1970's. I had friends who worked in the Shuttle program who all agreed that NASA had become little more than a political beauracracy. As it has remained.