Those Saturn V Rockets Were Not Exactly Small

Here’s a picture of me standing beside a Saturn V rocket engine on my first visit to the Kennedy Space Center in 1997. As you can see by the size of that thing, if it were able to lift off it would crush me like an ant! As I stood in its shadow I was almost trembling. I’d made models of the Saturn V and I knew how small the engines were compared to the entire rocket. The Saturn V rocket measured 37 stories from nose to ground and standing beside one of its engines gave me a huge appreciation of what an awesome piece of engineering that rocket was. The Saturn V rocket was made during an era where people took chances and believed that nothing was impossible. The word “can’t” didn’t exist back then. People didn’t automatically give up when they hit a stumbling block or say “We can’t do this, we can’t do that,” like they do today. It was an amazing time in history… when John F. Kennedy made his famous declaration in 1961 that the United States should commit to the goal of sending a man to the moon by the end of the decade, he took a piece of the 21st century and brought it into the 20th century. Just look at what was achieved during those years. Look at what we accomplished. We can do this much again, or even more… we just have to believe in ourselves and know that nothing is impossible. And this small piece of a Saturn V rocket is proof of that.