Wernher Von Braun Standing Next to the F-1 Engines Which Took Man to the Moon, 1969

A pioneer of America’s space program, Dr. von Braun stands by the five F-1 engines of the Saturn V Dynamic Test Vehicle on display at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Designed and developed by Rocketdyne under the direction of the Marshall Space Flight Center, a cluster of five F-1 engines was mounted on the Saturn V S-IC (first) stage. The engines measured 19-feet tall by 12.5-feet at the nozzle exit and burned 15 tons of liquid oxygen and kerosene each second to produce 7,500,000 pounds of thrust. The S-IC stage is the first stage, or booster, of a 364-foot long rocket that ultimately took astronauts to the Moon.