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Old 07-January-2008, 04:17 PM
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Default When they broke a Saturn V
How Tennis Shoes and Tug-of-War Toppled the Mighty Saturn V

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The year was 1966 and NASA was testing its first fully-assembled, 36-story tall Saturn V moon rocket at its launch facilities in Florida. Despite the threat posed by a hurricane and a ruptured fuel line, the trials with the sky-scraping booster had gone well and it came time to separate the Saturn into its five stages in the voluminous Vertical Assembly Building that had been erected for that very purpose.

But NASA engineers had another idea: though the 363-foot (110-meter) tall rocket had been analytically designed to be structurally stable, they saw the opportunity to gather some real world data about how the booster would react to vibrations imparted by wind and other outside forces.

So, they proposed to set the Saturn swaying. And what better way to do that than to exert force on the tower by having one group lie on their backs and push with their feet while another pulled a rope tied to the opposite side?

Really, what possibly could go wrong?
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Old 07-January-2008, 06:33 PM
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Interesting story, but I got lost along the way.

space.com referred to a longer article on collectspace.com which referenced a videoclip on NASASpaceflight.com.
That's where it ended...I cant find the videoclip.
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Old 07-January-2008, 08:01 PM
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space.com referred to a longer article on collectspace.com which referenced a videoclip on NASASpaceflight.com.
That's where it ended...I cant find the videoclip.
(Others, I advise going directly to the CollectSpace.com article: How tennis shoes and tug-of-war toppled the mighty Saturn V because the Space.com article seemed to just present an excerpt of it.)

The video is within that article, the 3rd image, people on their butts pushing with their feet, captioned: "Click above to play (Quicktime, 5.5mb)". The image is right below the text "the video was seen as humorous."
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Old 07-January-2008, 08:07 PM
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Originally Posted by 01101001 View Post
The video is within that article, the 3rd image, people on their butts pushing with their feet, captioned: "Click above to play (Quicktime, 5.5mb)".
I must have ignored it at first because my cursor didn't change (being that it's imbedded rather than a link)
I get sound, but no picture.
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Old 07-January-2008, 09:02 PM
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Originally Posted by NEOWatcher View Post
I must have ignored it at first because my cursor didn't change (being that it's imbedded rather than a link)
I get sound, but no picture.
I don't think you missed much. Like I described it, sitting people, with their feet, rocked the part of the big white cylinder you could see. Cut to people doing similar by pulling on a rope to same effect. Cut to people on butts, still pushing. Tilt up past next tower level to see escape tower moving. Cut to people on rope. They stop. Cylinder keeps swaying. The end. Not a lot to see.
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Old 07-January-2008, 09:35 PM
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Yep. And it didn't show anything falling down or breaking. The music was pretty annoying too.
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Old 07-January-2008, 11:26 PM
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Really, what possibly could go wrong?
Every time you say those words, something very bad happens...
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Old 07-January-2008, 11:44 PM
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The first Saturn V rocket was never destined to launch to the Moon, let alone leave the ground.
Surely it should have been 'The first Saturn V was never destined to leave the ground, let alone launch to the Moon.'
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