Last week I went to Johnson Space Center as a part of the Texas High School Aerospace Scholars Program, and it was wicked to say the least. However, probably the best part of the entire experience was listening to Norman Chaffee, who helped engineer on the Apollo Service Module, as he gave us a guided tour of the Saturn V rocket at JSC. Put simply, learning about the world's most powerful rocket by a man who helped design it was nerdgasmic.
At any rate, one of the interesting tidbits of info Mr. Chaffee shared with us concerned the microgravity problems faced by the engineers of the Saturn V's upper stages. Once the first and second stages had lodged the rocket into earth orbit (and thus freefall), the liquid hydrogen fuel of the third stage would begin to slosh around and form into spheres (due to surface tension)--this posed a big problem as the engines of the third stage could not use empty space. Ergo, engineers attached small rockets (which probably used solid fuel) to nudge the entire stage forward, which would then force the "floating" hydrogen into the engine (by moving the fuel tank forward instead of the hydrogen back). Kinda cool, huh?
By the way, you know how in the Apollo launch videos the discarded rocket stages suddenly catch fire a couple seconds after jettison? Thanks to Norman Chaffee, I now know why! First off, each stage of the Saturn V rocket (including the Launch Escape System) was separated pyrotechnically (hence the sparks at 0:23 of the staging video). Second, hydrogen burns clear. As a result, you don't see a flame during Apollo staging, but you do see the previous stage burning up for a second before it escapes the heat of the invisible hydrogen flame.
(Bonus: the workers on the barges that transported the hydrogen fuel to Kennedy had to walk around waving brooms in front of themselves just so they didn't walk into an invisible flame.)
To sum it up, the Saturn V rocks, Norman Chaffee is a badass, and NASA kicks ass!
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