
Stages to Saturn: A Technological History of the Apollo/Saturn Launch Vehicles - unfasten
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4206/sp4206.htm
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bediger4000
This is a pretty good book. It does fail to compare and contrast the different
stages of the Saturn launch vehicle.

For example, the S-II, the 2nd stage, and the S-IVB, the 3rd stage, use a
"common" dome between fuel and oxidizer tanks. The S-I, first stage, did not.
Why? The S-II apparently used elliptical domes on both fuel and oxidizer
tanks, but it appears that the S-IV and S-I used hemispherical domes. There's
advantages and disadvantages to both, but why not set a standard? Titans all
used "square-root of 2" elliptical domes, and I believe that the Centaur upper
stage did as well.

Anyway, a compare-and-contrast on technical issues would have gone a long way
with me.

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emp_zealoth
Ive bought the book off Amazon a few years back, along with 2 other space
related ones.

I have to say, I've been appalled by the print quality of that one. It looks
like someone took too big blank book (the white edges are humongous) then
xero'ed stuff onto it directly from old typewriter pages (you can see the
characteristical typewriter not-entire-letters-printed)

Technically interesting, but a little dry

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unfasten
Also available a 169 MB scanned PDF:
[http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/1997000...](http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19970009949_1997011911.pdf)

This is a history of Saturn rockets commissioned by NASA (and thereby in the
public domain)

