On May 18, 2002 at the Grand in Long Beach over 300 past members of the North American Aviation Saturn S-II Design, Production and Quality teams met to take a sentimental journey back to 1962 and the challenges of America's premier space adventure.
The idea was born during a few days of R&R last year in Laughlin Nevada by Al Otto, John Gutsmiedl and lots of supporters.
The luncheon program featured guest speakers Al Martin (Test Operations), Bill Dean (Program Manager), Dick Schwartz (Program Manager), and Hal Raiklin (Program Manager), who shared some of their insights and memories of the project. A Short highlight film on the S-II and J-2 was also shown. The primary event was the rekindling the embers of friendship and memories of the exciting challenges of preparing to send men to the moon. "We aren't doing this because it is easy but because it is hard!" Those where the words of John F. Kennedy and as Al Martin said " That's why we did it"
Bill Dean introduced Ralph Rudd who headed up production and was later President of the North American Los Angeles Division. He remarked at no matter how early he would come into the office Ralph was always there before him. This was the nature of S-II team members.

The Saturn S-II was the second stage NASA's Apollo moon-landing rocket - The giant Saturn V. The most powerful hydrogen-fueled booster ever produced, the Saturn S-II was used for Apollo manned lunar missions and helped power three Americans to the moon. The S-II was developed and manufactured by North American Space Division at Seal Beach, California in what is now the U.S. Navy Weapons Station. Program technical direction was provided by the NADSA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville Alabama.
The S-II is 81.5 feet high and 33 feet in diameter. It weighed 80,000 pounds empty and 1,025,000 pounds loaded.
It is remarkable that 40 years later so many of the "Spaceforce" that gave America it greatest achievement in history are still with us to share their stories and honor the legacy of these space pioneers.

NASA Plant 1:
Timeline

S-II Program Team

Downey:
Space Race Center

Downey History

Downey Eagle
Archive

The Saturn V dates back to the C-5 design of 1961. The smaller and less powerful C-2, C-3 and C-4 designed were abandoned, but in 1962, NASA approved the development of the Saturn V to fufill John Kennedy's goal of landing a man on the Moon by 1970. The Saturn V was the largest rocket ever built at 363 feet and 6.4 million Lbs.
The first stage was the Boeing S-IC, which was powered by five Rocketdyne F-1 engines burning kerosene and liquid oxygen. Producing 1.5 million Lbs. of thrust each, the F-1s were the most powerful single-chamber engines ever built. The F-1 was just a scaled up conventional kerosene oxygen engine. But the scaling up process proved more difficult than expected. The engines suffered unstable combustion, in one case destroying an engine on a ground test. Rocketdyne and NASA struggled for four years before a fuel injection system was created that would not only burn smoothly, but would even recover from an explosion in the combustion chamber.
The North American S-II second stage proved equally challenging.
Five Rocketdyne J-2 engines burned liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen stored in thi s stage. Problems with precision welding of the monstrous stage and insulation for its liquid hydrogen tank threatened to delay the whole Apollo program. They were only solved after a reorganization at North American.
The third stage of the Saturn V was the McDonnell-Douglass S-IVB stage powered by a single J-1. Attached to the top of the cylindrical stage was the IBM Instrument unit, containing the guidance system for the entire rocket.
The Saturn V's Apollo payload comprised the Grumman Lunar Module (LM) concealed at launch in a tapered adapter section. Above this were the SErvice MOdule (SM) and Command Module (CM, hidden under the Boost Protective Cover at launch), both built by North American. The spire of Lockheed's Launch Escape System (LES) topped off the stack.

The Legacy of Project Apollo

"Finally, the Apollo program, while an enormous achievement, left a divided legacy for NASA and the aerospace community. The perceived "golden age" of Apollo created for the agency an expectation that the direction of any major space goal from the president would always bring NASA a broad consensus of support and provide it with the resources and license to dispense them as it saw fit. Something most NASA officials did not understand at the time of the Moon landing in 1969, however, was that Apollo had not been a normal situation and would not be repeated. The Apollo decision was, therefore, an anomaly in the national decision-making process. The dilemma of the "golden age" of Apollo has been difficult to overcome, but moving beyond the Apollo program to embrace future opportunities has been an important goal of the agency's leadership in the recent past. Exploration of the Solar System and the universe remains as enticing a goal and as important an objective for humanity as it ever has been. Project Apollo was an important early step in that ongoing process of exploration."

The Legacy of Project Apollo

Part 2: The Golden Age of Apollo
The creation of MSFC by transferring Army assets on Redstone Arsenal to NASA did not involve any physical relocation. The personnel, buildings and facilities simply became the property of NASA. The 4,000 or so personnel in the Rocket Team were then mostly American, although the original German team members were still in most of the key laboratory and management positions. The team brought with them all the space related projects, such as the Saturn program that had been initiated at ABMA by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) as early as the autumn of 1958. This team began reporting to NASA headquarters in Washington DC on July 1, 1960. This split with the Army was permanent. The Army went its own way developing short-range, but high technology battlefield weapons. Huntsville now had two important industries, the Army research and development program that would play an important role in the limited wars to come, and a major NASA center with a mandate to overtake the Soviets in space.
Money began to flow into the new center almost immediately and the pace began to quicken. Shiny white vehicles with the blue NASA logo began to appear everywhere. It was like we had received a shot of adrenaline and the pulse of the whole organization began to surge. Signs of expansion and ground breaking were soon evident. A modern new office building began to rise on the hill to overlook the austere and sprawling laboratory buildings that we had inherited from the Army.
This ten-story MSFC headquarters building would be designated 4200, but employees began calling it "the von Braun Hilton. Continued here...

"Huntsville and the von Braun Rocket Team ã 2003 Placide D. Nicaise