Space Progress World’s Biggest Building Near Cape Kennedy

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30855, 14 September 1965, Page 15

Space Progress World’s Biggest Building Near Cape Kennedy

On the flat Florida marshland near Cape Kennedy, the biggest building in the world has risen. It is the vertical assembly building in which the huge Saturn-5 moon rockets will be assembled and checked before being taken to the launching pad.

This 52-storey building, which covers eight acres, is tangible evidence of the declared American intention to set foot on the moon by 1970. Soon after President Kennedy committed the United States to sending men to the moon the National Aeronautics and Space Administration bought 80,000 acres of land near the Cape Canaveral Missile Test Centre, as it was then called. This area included most of Merritt Island, a flat expanse of scrub and orange groves which lies between the narrow peninsula on which the cape is located and the Florida mainland. It is now transformed into a scene of intense activity dominated by the construction of the vertical assembly building at the landward end of a long causeway which runs out to two giant launching pads known as Complex 39A and 398. 125 m Cubic Feet The vertical assembly building consists of four bays in each of which a threestage Saturn moon rocket can be pieced together on Its mobile launching tower. The air-condition interior of the building has a volume of 125 m cubic feet—which is why it qualifies as the biggest building in the world. No other building can match its volume. In such a huge enclosed space air-condition-ing is vital, otherwise the humid Florida air could turn to cloud and rain on the occupants. Near to the four assembly bays is a lower section of the building only a mere 20 storeys high. This section has eight smaller bays in which the upper stages and components of the rocket are received, inspected, and prepared for mating. When ready they are hoisted by overhead cranes and taken into the 52-storey section of the building, where they are mounted on the preceding stage. 364 ft Tall When fully assembled the Saturn-5 rocket will be 364 ft tall—as high as Christchurch Cathedral would be if placed on top of the new Government Life building. Its

weight unfuelled will exceed 250 tons, but fully fuelled on the launching pad more than 3000 tons.

Inside the vertical assembly building this giant rocket is erected on top of the mobile launch tower on which it will remain fastened until the moment of lift-off. For a month or more hundreds of engineers and technicians will swarm all over it checking, testing, calibrating, and making sure that all systems on the tower and rocket are perfectly adjusted. When everything is ready a gargantuan crawler - transporter, large enough to cover most of a football field, will be driven into the building to pick up the rocket and tower, a total load of more than 5000 tons. It will emerge into the open thorugh doors 450 ft high, the tallest doors in the world, and trundle at a speed of one mile an hour along the causeways to the launch pad three miles and a half away. The launching pad is rather like a large built-up dry dock. The mobile launch tower sits astride the dock, and when it is firmly anchored the transporter backs away and returns to the assembly area. Within a few days the rocket is fuelled and launched and the pad is cleared for the next shot.

This is where the vertical assembly concept pays. The launching pad is not tied up for months at a time, and as many as four rockets can be made ready simultaneously. At present with the Saturn I pads, where the rocket is assembled on the pad itself, it is impossible to have more than four firings a year a pad. Another Innovation Alongside the vertical assembly building is the launching control centre which looks out towards the Saturn 5 'aunching pads. It, too, is a departure from the normal practice of having a heavily protected blockhouse within a quarter mile of the launching pad. At its distance of more than three miles from the nearest pad it should be safe enough from any conceivable danger. The first launching from Complex 39, as the whole facility is called, is due to take place in 1967, with the first manned flight the following year. Then, late in 1969. the words of President Kennedy eight years earlier may come true: "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade Is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth.”