This is the launch of Apollo 11, July 16th 1969. It's Camera E-8 which shows the
base of the Saturn V vehicle. It's done on 16 millimeter film at 500 frames per second.
Now this particular camera was started at 5 seconds prior to liftoff.
Now at this speed what you're going to see in this full 8 minutes and 22 seconds is
about 30 seconds worth of actual time. Here 'Ignition Sequence Start' is already
started and the kerosene and liquid oxygen is mixing. The F-1 engines were
started by bursting a hypergolic cartridge which spun up the turbines to
start driving the propellants into the engine. Now you're seeing that
liquid oxygen and kerosene mixing and billowing up in the initial stage of starting up
those engines. Now when it reached full thrust and started to get thrust from
those five engines, 7½ million pounds, you see how it sucks all the material
back down underneath the vehicle, and that was because now all of that
material is going at a tremendous speed and being pushed out into the flame trench
and it just sucks all of that material back down.
On the right you see two tail service masts.
There's a third one on the other side of the vehicle and around the
vehicle you also see four hold down arms. Now the vehicle sat on those hold down arms.
There was a mechanism inside there that held it on to the launch pad until liftoff.
At T-minus-0 those would release after they got the proper signal
from the engines that all five engines were running properly.
It would release and as soon as it released, those tail service arms would move and all the mechanisms would go up into a hood
underneath those hoods, so that they would be protected from the exhaust of the engines
You see ice coming down now off the vehicle. You know that the Space Shuttle was real concerned
about debris coming off the External Tank which is insulated and the reason
for that is the Thermal Protection System on the space shuttle which sits on the side is very delicate and
can't be hit by that much but the Saturn V had no such problem so the Saturn V's liquid oxygen tank on the first stage
wasn't insulated so you get a lot of ice coming off of it when it hits the vibration. Now you see liftoff has
happened. The tail service masts are pulling back up into the hoods.
The F-1 engines are coming up and you see that dark band of gas that's coming out of
those engines all around and then you'll see it get to the really bright part.
Now that cool gas... it's cooler gas is the reason it's dark. That's coming from the turbine exhaust. And the turbine exhaust
is put around... is dumped into the engine around the inside of that nozzle so it
would be cooler and would act as something of an insulator on that nozzle extension so it wouldn't get too hot.
That central gas is what's coming out of the engine injector where the
liquid oxygen and the kerosene is being mixed together coming out of that injector.
Now on the tail service masts and on the hold down arms, in fact even over here on
the left hand side in the corner of the tower you see a white material, whitish
material that it's painted. That is actually a material that was designed to
burn and char in trying to protect the launch installation
so that it would get a minimum of damaged from a Saturn V launch.
They painted these particular tail service masts and hold
down arm covers and the corners of this tower with this ablative kind of paint
and this material was designed to burn and char so that it would burn and the
underlying material would be insulated and stay safe. You'll see that happening
in just a moment. Now you're seeing that the water deluge system's definitely been
activated and you're seeing a lot of that flash into steam and come up
against the quartz mirror that the camera is housed in. Now remember I was
talking about that white material. It's aflame now as it's getting hit by the
engine exhaust and it was designed to do that. You'll see it's already starting to char.
You see the third tail service mast over on the other side. There were
three total. And you see at least three of the four hold down arms. You see the
hoods now and the hold down arms have closed over so they're protecting that
mechanism that held the vehicle down. And you see that although that material
that's in the exhaust is now afire on its own. Now look how instantaneously all
of the water that's dumped into this area, and there was a lot of water dumped
into this area, is instantly flashing to steam it's very very hot there right now
and as that tower over here on the left you see it's starting to burn as well so
you're starting to get enormous heat coming off of it. In fact there are some
cameras where you'll get a view of these launches and the grass around the pad,
typically you would have a number of grass fires right around the pad because
the heat would move all the way off of the pad to us to a high enough degree to
light a good deal of the grass around the launch pad. There are usually several grass
fires that you see after on some of these cameras. Now you see that white material really burning now including
over here on the tower you see the water deluge system is full on. At this point
the vehicle would have cleared the tower but the exhaust from those five F-1
engines was long enough to still being impinging on the launch pad and even
at this point all of the white area you see which is aflame is that char material. There's an enormous amount of
water being poured down into the flame trench and then down through the
hole as well as you see some nozzles here on the base of the mobile launcher that are dumping water right onto the
mobile launcher and at this point there's also water coming from above in order to shield that tower so there is
an awful lot of water coming down onto the pad now. Now you'll start to see a
lot of this water and debris, as the vehicle has moved away, start to swirl
around some of it getting on the quartz window of the camera. You're seeing the the burning of the insulation materials
start to go away and you're also seeing a good deal of the steam coming off.
It's not being blown away the way it was by the exhaust and you're getting a better idea of just how much water is being
dumped onto this and still it's so hot that it's flashing a good bit of it into steam.
Now pretty much all of the char is done. There's no longer impingement going
on from the vehicle. The vehicle has moved up away from the tower and has
started its trajectory out over the ocean. You still see a good bit of debris occurring. Now this this launch happened
at 9:32 in the morning, so it's really pretty bright here, but the camera
exposure was set so as to be able to see as much detail
as it could while the engines were being started and moving up so it starts
to get a little bit darker after the engines are out. You're starting to see a
lot more of the water coming down on top of the window in the housing.
So this was the launch of Apollo 11, the first manned lunar landing from the corner of the
tower and the mobile launch platform.
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