Boeing Celebrates the 30th Anniversay of Apollo 11

(From Newsweek, December 21, 1964, © 1964 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the copyright laws of the United States. The laws prohibit any copying, redistribution or retransmission of this material without express written permission from Newsweek.) Click here for a full-size version of the cover of this issue.

How 300,000 Work For 3 'Moon Men'

In all history, there has never been a prouder, bolder, or more demanding human effort than this nation's program to land men on the face of the moon. In its simplest terms, it is a plan to send three men in a tub farther from home than men have ever been, and then to bring them back to tell the story. But it is also a giant stride in the stretching of human horizons, achievement, and knowledge, a proud new spire on the human Tower of Babel.

The leap through space is at least five years away, but it has already captured the world's imagination - and it is already a national effort comparable to the building of Egypt's pyramids. For the conquest of the moon must be fought on earth, and it is only possible through a near-miracle of engineering and production.

Almost casually, the United States has decided to spend more than $20 billion to reach the moon - enough to pay for all the houses built in the country last year. Project Apollo at its height will occupy more than 300,000 workers, enough to man the entire crude-oil industry. And 20,000 companies, in all 50 states, have joined in a tangled skein of contracts and subcontracts to design and produce the space ship for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Of them all, California's giant North American Aviation, Inc., carries the eagle's share of the overwhelming project. By the time the towering white rocket starts the moon trip from Cape Kennedy - some time in 1969, NASA hopes North American will have performed or supervised some $4 billion worth of work on it, in nearly every major stage of the lunar mission.

North American's main contributions:

The huge F-1 rocket engines, each 9 1/2 feet wide at the nozzle and each delivering an incredible 1.5 million pounds of thrust, which will be grouped in a cluster of five to power the colossal first stage of the Saturn V moon rocket. The engines, now in the testing stage, regularly shatter the desert of California's Edwards Air Force Base with the din of their firing. (The first stage itself will be 33 -feet in diameter and stand 138 feet tall; The engines will burn for 150 seconds, lifting the 6 million-pound moon ship 40 miles high at a speed well over a mile per second.)
The entire second stage of the rocket, a cylinder 33 feet wide and 81 1/2 feet long, and the five J2 rocket engines which will give it a total 1 million-pounds of thrust. (The second stage will burn for 390 seconds, moving to a height of 100 miles and a speed of 14,250 miles per hour.)
The J-2 engine that will provide 200,000 pounds of thrust, for the third stage of the rocket. (The third stage will lift the moon ship into earth orbit, at a height of about 115 miles and a speed of about 17,500 miles an hour. Then, restarted in orbit, the third stage will drive the ship toward the moon at a speed of 24,300 miles an hour, sliding into an orbit 80 miles from the lunar surface.)

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