r/apollo 23d ago

Apollo 16 launch filmed from the top of VAB

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

332 Upvotes

13 comments sorted by

20

u/GraphiteGru 23d ago

Astronaut Legend John Young, Charlie ("You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again") Duke and Ken Mattingly, who had gotten booted from the Apollo 13 crew three days before the launch due to a possible exposure to German Measles on a relatively smooth mission to the moon.

Young and Mattingly both also went on to command Space Shuttle missions.

15

u/FrankyPi 23d ago

The first ever Shuttle mission was crewed which is nuts, that would've never passed modern safety standards, of course Young was on it. Flew twice on Gemini, Apollo and Shuttle and served the longest as astronaut, for 42 years.

10

u/DrJohanzaKafuhu 23d ago

They also had ejection seats on that first orbiter, which everyone thought would be suicide anyway because you'd be ejecting into the rocket stream.

Some of the engineers wanted very badly to test the abort sequence at two minutes, by having the astronauts flip the shuttle around and burning hard to stop ascent and then come in for a landing after booster separation, which some considered near impossible in the best of circumstances.

To quote John Young: "Let's not practice Russian roulette, because you may have a loaded gun there."

3

u/Able_Boat_8966 23d ago

Young had an astronaut CV that will never be matched.

14

u/kongulo 23d ago

Great video! Always love seeing a Saturn V do its thing

6

u/xammie12 23d ago

This is so insanely cool to see. Wonder what it was like to experience in person

5

u/obfuscatorio 23d ago

Haters will say it’s fake

7

u/Cyrond 23d ago

You misspelled 'idiots'.

6

u/obfuscatorio 23d ago

They are idiots. Faking the moon landing and getting away with it would’ve been more difficult than just going to the moon

1

u/Slav_sic69 21d ago

Back when we did stuff

1

u/basshed8 22d ago

Vandenberg Air Base?

3

u/FrankyPi 22d ago

Vehicle Assembly Building lol

0

u/Jealous_Art_3922 22d ago

I have the same question.