🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec30.190747.29554@dcatlas.dot.gov> joet@dcatlas.dot.gov (Joe Trott) writes:
>>>30. How many Saturn V's flew?
>>> Thirteen - Apollos 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and Skylab
>>If you really want to be picky, you can argue that the count was 12.6666...,
>>since the Skylab 1 launcher was only the first two stages of a Saturn V.
>
>I vaguely remember some of the Mercury launches and many of the Gemini
>launches...I thought Apollo VI never flew, due to a fire in the CM that
>unfortunately killed 3.  And, I don't remember an Apollo IV.  Oh well...

Apollos 4 and 6 were both unmanned tests; Apollo 7 was the first manned
mission (which did not use a Saturn V).  This was the post-fire numbering.

(The pre-fire numbering was somewhat confused, to put it politely.  At the
time of the fire, the booster people were calling the Grissom/White/Chaffee
mission Apollo 4 (since three unmanned tests preceded it), and the astronauts
were calling it Apollo 1.  Its only official name was AS-204.  Afterward,
the crew's wishes were honored retroactively... which left the unmanned tests
in limbo.  It's not clear why the first post-fire test was Apollo 4.  There
never was a mission officially designated Apollo 2 or Apollo 3; proposals
to retroactively rename the pre-fire tests were rejected.)

Mercury used Redstone and Atlas boosters; Gemini used Titan.
-- 
"God willing... we shall return."       | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
       -Gene Cernan, the Moon, Dec 1972 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry