The Saturn I was the United States' first dedicated "space launcher," a rocket designed specifically to launch loads into Earth's orbit. Most of the rocket's power came from a "clustered" lower stage consisting of tanks taken from older rocket designs and strapped together to make a single larger booster. Critics joked that it was "Cluster's Last Stand", but the Saturn design proved sound and very flexible. Originally intended to be an almost uni...
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The Saturn I was the United States' first dedicated "space launcher," a rocket designed specifically to launch loads into Earth's orbit. Most of the rocket's power came from a "clustered" lower stage consisting of tanks taken from older rocket designs and strapped together to make a single larger booster. Critics joked that it was "Cluster's Last Stand", but the Saturn design proved sound and very flexible. Originally intended to be an almost universal military booster during the 1960s, it served only for a brief period and only with NASA; ten Saturn I's were flown before it was replaced by the Saturn IB, which featured a more powerful upper stage.
The Saturn project was started as one of a number of proposals to meet a new Department of Defense (DoD) requirement for a heavy-lift vehicle to orbit a new class of communications and "other" satellites. The requirements, drawn up by the then-unofficial Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), called for a vehicle capable of putting 9,000...
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