i escape

November 9, 1967, T-minus 8.9 seconds: Thousands of gallons of kerosene and liquid oxygen begin coursing through the giant center F1 rocket engine: The Saturn V's ignition sequence has begun. Next, two outer engines are lit, followed 300 milliseconds later by the other two, ignited in pairs to avoid toppling the 364-foot rocket above. Nine seconds after all five engines go to full thrust, the first Saturn V rocket begins to lift from the launchpad, taking the unmanned Apollo 4 check-out module into space.

The launch was flawless. Forty-one years ago to the day, the Saturn V became the biggest, tallest, largest-payload rocket ever to be sent into space. Even more amazingly, it still is.

If you talk about the Moon landings, some people remember Armstrong and Aldrin landing on the moon, and may think of the photo of that famous footprint, or the planting of the flag. I choose to remember the rocket that enabled it all, the Saturn V, a pretty shocking mechanical masterpiece all by itself.

Nearly everything about it is monumental in scale and historic in importance:

• At 364 feet high, it was roughly as tall as a 36-story building.

• Its launch weight of 6.7 million pounds was equal to about 2,200 average late '60s cars.

• Its orbital payload of 260,000 pounds is the equivalent of about 1,500 average people.

Here's a great comparison chart of the world's biggest and best rockets:

Even the Space Shuttle, deemed by some the most complex machine humans have yet built, doesn't compare to the Saturn V. And if you're wondering what the unlabeled black rocket in the middle is, it's Saturn V's competitor, the Soviet N1 moon-shot rocket. This had four attempted launches, none successful. Part of this was due to lack of management and funding, but part had to do with its incredibly complex first-stage design, which required the synchronized firing of 30 separate rocket engines.

[gizmodo]