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The sign accompanying the Saturn V model.

It reads


A Towering Achievement

A Giant Model

The Saturn V rocket is the most powerful launch vehicle ever successfully flown. The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center team developed the vehicle from the ground up for the Apollo lunar missions. To this day, it reamins the only vehicle ever to have carried astronauts beyond low Earth orbit, safely carrying all Apollo missions from the Earth to the Moon. Although the final launch of the Saturn V was in 1973, this rocket continues to inspire people today.

Steve Eves launched this 1:10 scale model in Maryland on April 25, 2009. It flew to a height of 4,441 feet (1,354 meters) and safely parachuted to land on its tail.

  Saturn V 1:10 Saturn V 1:1
Height 36 ft (11 m) 363 ft (110.6 m)
Maximum diameter 61.5 in (154.94 cm) 33 ft (10.1 m)
Mass 1648 lb (748 kg) 6,200,000 lb (2,800,000 kg)
Thrust at launch 367,000 lb (1,632,497 N) 7,648,000 lb (34,020,000 N)


The "Thrust at launch" figure appears to be in error; contemporary reports indicate that the total impulse was 181,000 Newton-seconds. With the reported engine burn times, that averages out to about 8,000 pounds of thrust during the first four seconds of flight, although Eves himself said in an interview that the rocket had "about 10,000 pounds" of thrust. It's uncertain as to what the actual thrust was at the moment of launch, although my nephew (an aerospace engineer) looked up the data sheet for the commercially-available engines, extrapolated that information to the larger motor, and estimated thrust at launch to be in the low to mid-11,000 pound range.

 
Sign accompanying the 1:10 Saturn V model in the Apollo:  When We Went to the Moon exhibit
Time picture taken Wed Nov 6 11:03:20 2019
Location picture taken Apollo: When We Went to the Moon Exhibit
Space Hall
"Old" Museum
U.S. Space & Rocket Center
Huntsville, AL
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