saturnv_preserve After decades of exposure to the elements, the Saturn 5 rocket displayed at Houston's Johnson Space Center may get a thorough refurbishment later this year.
The rocket is one of three such artifacts of the Apollo moon program. The Saturn 5 at Florida's Kennedy Space Center was restored and placed in a new building in 1996. A third is located at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Alabama.
All three Saturn 5s are owned by the Smithsonian Institution's National Air & Space Museum, which has been awarded $1.25 million by the federal government's "Save America's Treasures" program to restore the Houston display.
To receive the money, the museum must raise matching funds from the private sector. It is currently planning a fundraising drive and developing a plan and budget for the refurbishment.
The Texas rocket's restoration may come just in time.
"Surprisingly, it's in worse condition" than was its Florida counterpart, says Paul Thomarios, president of a contracting firm that handled the Florida project. He notes that the Florida Space Coast is an "aggressive environment" of winds, water and salt spray.
The Saturn 5 in Houston has heavy corrosion (see image below), states Thomarios, who conducted preliminary inspections of the display and who plans to compete for the contract to perform the Houston work. He suspects acid rain and petroleum pollution are important factors in the rocket's condition.
Time and the elements have taken their toll on the Saturn 5 displayed at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
Restoration of the rocket in Florida included the repairing of metal, re-painting and treatment to prevent future corrosion, as well as placement into a permanent building to avoid exposure to the elements.
The Saturn 5, designed for trips to the moon, was among the most powerful rockets ever built.
"In some ways the Saturn 5 launch vehicles are wonders of the world," says Allan Needell, chairman of the museum's space history division and curator of manned space flight. "They symbolize [the vast] commitment that the United States made to the space program" in the 1960s.
The Houston rocket, he says, "is not only an important technical object. It's an icon in the historic representation of an era."
Indeed, the Houston rocket differs from its counterparts in Florida and Alabama in that it's composed entirely of components intended for flight. The other two rockets include parts built for ground testing. The Houston display's parts were taken from several Apollo missions that were canceled in the early 1970s.
The museum hopes to begin refurbishment in the summer and complete it by August 2001. Needell expresses cautious optimism that enough money will be raised to enable the project to go forward. The museum plans to focus its fundraising efforts primarily on Texas and nearby states.
The Saturn 5 at the Johnson Space Center was constructed from flight-qualified components.
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