The Mighty Saturns: Saturn V

Product Description

Standing 365 feet tall and generating a liftoff thrust of over seven and a half million pounds - the Saturn V launch vehicle remains the most powerful successful rocket ever flown. Built by hundreds of thousands of workers from all over the country, the Saturn V was born of the dream of a man on the moon. In just a few short years the Saturn V was conceived, designed, tested, constructed and launched on 13 successful missions, placing 12 human beings on the lunar surface. This three-DVD set features incredible footage of the story of the Saturn V. From rare footage of overcoming technological challenges in materials and techniques - to stunning digital transfers of original 35mm pad camera footage - you'll come to know the Saturn V as you've never known it before. Material on this disc has been collected from the National Archives, Johnson Space Center in Houston, and the lead center for the Saturn launch vehicles, Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Disc one contains an original program detailing the development of the Saturn V. With rare footage of the development of the engines and stages, you'll see the challenges faced and overcome by the Saturn team - and understand the scope of the task. Disc two contains footage from all 13 Saturn V launches, including reels presented "as it happened," just as it was shot in the camera. Disc three presents footage from pad cameras, transferred digitally from the original film - an outstanding collection of material showing the power of the moon rocket.

Customer Reviews:

An Amazing Recollection.......2007-01-09

I will never forget that Saturday morning in December 1968 when as a young boy, I woke up and went to turn on my cartoons and instead of them being on, the only thing thing that was on TV that day was Apollo 8 poised on the launch pad waiting to be launched to the moon. The sight of that rocket taking off was quite a spectacle. I made sure to watch every subsequent launch of the Apollo program after that day. Now with this DVD, you can relive the actual launches plus you can see them from many different perspectives. Other amazing footage is watching the Saturn V staging sequence from Apollo 4. Watching the mighty 1st stage fall into the Atlantic is quite a sight. For those of us who followed the Apollo program from 1967 to 1972, I highly recomend this DVD as well as any other DVD's from Spacecraft Films.

The Mighty Saturns: Saturn V (Extended Collector's Edition)

Average customer rating:

The Mighty Saturns - Saturn V (Extended Collector's Edition)
Wonderful historical record of Saturn V launches and operations
Everything You Always Wanted To Know About The Saturn V
Sheer visceral entertainment
WOW! If you love the Saturn V - get this set!

The Mighty Saturns: Saturn V (Extended Collector's Edition)
Starring: Spacecraft Films
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video

Space Exploration | Documentary | Genres | DVD | Video

( M ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Extended Editions | Fully Loaded DVDs | Features | DVD | Video

Documentary | Boxed Sets | Stores | DVD | Video

ASIN: B0001NBM5I
Release Date: 2004-04-13

Amazon.com

Mankind's greatest adventure is remembered for the digital age. The DVD format changed the way we look at movies and especially TV series, with massive complete-season sets. That concept is spectacularly taken one step further with Spacecraft Films' definitive collections of the Gemini and Apollo space missions, stuffing in nearly every scrap of TV transmissions and on-board footage. The three- to six-disc sets use the full functions of the DVD format; see a liftoff in six different angles (some remixed with 5.1 sound) or listen to a mixture of air-to-ground communications, official NASA narration, or post-flight debriefings, most often carefully synched to the exact moment of footage seen. Like any good research paper, every bit of footage may not be interesting, but taken as a chronicle of history, it's irreplaceable.

Do you like seeing Apollo launches? Well, we have a DVD set for you. See several angles of every Apollo launch and several more of Apollos 8, 11, and 12 in a dozen more angles (in Dolby 5.1). The set's gem is the second part of the documentary on the amazing Saturn 5 rocket from concept to construction, often showing the raw power of the engines. (The Mighty Saturns: Saturn I and IB contains the first half.) A real curio is a dozen "Quarterly Reports," short NASA updates from the early sixties on the progress of the building of the rocket. --Doug Thomas

Description

Customer Reviews:

The Mighty Saturns - Saturn V (Extended Collector's Edition).......2006-03-24

This collection of DVDs is not what I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be a VERY LONG documentary. I was wrong!

Wonderful historical record of Saturn V launches and operations.......2006-03-18

This DVD set is really ideal for the space purist as it has superb footage of launches, tests and more. What the documentary lacks in entertainent, it more than makes up for in technical talk and analysis. Its a must for those interested in the history of manned spaceflight and the glory days of Apollo!

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About The Saturn V .......2006-03-13

I have seen most Apollo documentaries, and I have read most Apollo books, but Spacecraft Films have really outdone themselves this time. This three disc set includes footage of every Saturn V launch (including Skylab) from multiple angles. Original (and in some cases digitally enhanced) audio is present, and in some cases the Launch Control Center and MOCR tapes are available to listen to while viewing. A word of warning though: most of the MOCR tapes are not in sync with the film, which can be a bit confusing for people new to the terminology and procedures under discussion (this seems most pronounced on some of the Apollo 8 footage); the DVDs always point out when the soundtrack will be de-synchronized.

The footage compiled is stunning to say the least, and while all launches are covered more than adequately, Apollo 8, 11, and 12 get even more detailed coverage. The camera angles presented are amazing in their completeness; there are stationary cameras, tracking cameras, and onboard cameras (there's even a camera in the Apollo 8 Liquid Oxygen [LOX] tank designed to document draining and sloshing effects.)

The DVD set also has fascinating interviews with many of the engineers from the Saturn V program, as well as other features such as stacking operations, pad operations, test firing, etc. My personal favorite extra was the inclusion of eleven "Saturn V Quarterly Updates" made in the early and mid-1960s by the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. These are each around 18 minutes long, and detail progress made on the Saturn V for a given quarter. All were made before the first Saturn V flew, but the level of detail regarding construction, development, and testing is outstanding.

Spacecraft Films should be commended for producing yet another superior and important documentary on spacecraft. If you are interested in the Apollo program or rockets in general, I highly recommend this DVD set. I also highly recommend that you read "Saturn" by Alan Lawrie and Robert Godwin. If possible I would read "Saturn" before watching the DVDs to better understand important background information on the Saturn V, and thus be better able to appreciate the footage seen on the DVD set.

This set gets my highest possible rating and endorsement.

Sheer visceral entertainment.......2005-12-26

There is a Simpsons episode where an advertisement comes on Homer's television for a demolition derby at the local stadium. The ad says: "No plot! No characters! Just lots, and lots, of EXPLOSIONS!"
Homer and Bart look at each other and say together: "Cooooool!!!!"

Well, this is essentially what you get with The Mighty Saturns DVD sets I and II. To be sure, there are insightful documentaries into the history of building the giant rockets, which should be played first and dutifully absorbed, but once you get to the actual launch footage, those are the bits you're going to rewind and play again. And again, with the volume turned up loud. The foundating-shaking, glass-shattering, crackling thunder of the Saturn rockets is like the roar of the apocalypse: your neighbors will complain if you have a home theatre and a decent subwoofer. Let them. If you like special effects and the spectacular, you'll love this. And the explosions are real, albeit controlled (barely.)

The cameras recording the Apollo launches are both tracking (following the vehicle through stage separation and tower jettison), and static (pad and long distance cameras.) The footage they provide is nothing short of awesome. You've seen some of them in newsreels, but you've not seen them like this, flawlessly transferred from 35mm to digital, with accompanying 5.1 audio on many shots (not all.)

Watch for:
* the mysterious plume of flame that appears on the S-II stage just before ignition on AS-503 (Apollo 8). What is it? Why is it there? Try to find out (I couldn't.)
* the searing blindness of the flame which burns out the long distance camera recording the first `all-up' test of the Saturn V launch vehicle. This was the test where Walter Cronkite was showered with ceiling plaster in his broadcast booth three miles away, as the noise threatened to destroy the building.
* The flames from the five rocket engines being sucked back down into the flame trench a few seconds after ignition, proving that Ron Howard was correct after all.
* The liquid oxygen disappearing down INSIDE the oxidiser tank like water being drained out of a bath. These F-1 engines each consumed 3 metric tons a second, and there were five of them. Staggering.
* The stages flexing and trembling as the hold-down arms do their job of allowing thrust build-up. Some of the super slow-mo footage here is incredible, especially for its time.

Listen for:
* the chirping of crickets and the honking of geese around the pad before a launch, abruptly drowned out by ignition and lift-off, only to resume a scant few minutes afterwards.
* The unexpected sounds of fuel `surging.' I thought the noise would be like a uniform, constant rate of fuel consumption, but it's not. It comes in waves. Fascinating.
* The screeching of metal caused by flexing and twisting of the rocket frame during flight.

Note: the 5.1 audio track accompanying the launch footage appears to be from the one source and laid over all the different launches. Not a fault, just an observation in case you are curious.

This is simply a terrific assembly of historical footage which shows the monumental achievement of the Apollo program in the 1960s and 70s. But more than anything, it's just sheer visceral fun. Enjoy.

WOW! If you love the Saturn V - get this set!.......2004-05-04

I always knew the Saturn V was powerful - and that it was one of the technological (though as simple in design as possible) achievements that put man on the moon. What I hadn't fully comprehended until this set was just how enormous was the task and how powerful was the vehicle.

Disc one presents a nice documentary about the launch vehicle - with interviews from some Saturn veterans on the development of the vehicle. What's great too is that some of the other footage has even more of the sound from these interviews, and some of the background and stories are great. This documentary doesn't have the great montage on Von Braun that the first Saturn documentary has (on the Saturn I and IB set) but it is still great. My favorite part is when Von Braun asks one of the engineers to come outside the launch control center to watch (and feel) the first Saturn V launch. And then the whoops in the control room as it works! Awesome stuff.

What's great also is that this is a labor of love for Spacecraft Films (all the sets are great), and it shows. The 500F rollout is presented as such - not as a flight vehicle. And there is cool stuff - such as engine testing - even a camera from inside the Apollo 8 liquid oxygen tank (strangely mesmerizing to see liquid oxygen drain!).

Disc two contains several angles of each Saturn V launch. Disc three contains fantastic pad cameras that look spectacular. Plus on disc three are 11 reports that Marshall in Hunstville did as an update on quarterly progress in developing the vehicle.

Well worth the money if you're interested in the Saturns.

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