Gems from the Museum

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Fly Me to the Moon

To the eyes of a hobbyist, the museums Apollo Saturn V launch vehicle model might seem a bit rough around the edges, but it was never meant to win beauty contests. Instead, the 1:25 scale reproduction was intended to help presidents, congressmen, and scientists understand how NASA would put a man on the moon and return him safely to earth.

Bob Seamans, SM 42, ScD 51 (a distant relative of museum founder Warren Seamans), was at the heart of Americas love affair with space exploration, first as associate administrator and then as deputy administrator of NASA in the 1960s. Shortly after President Kennedy set the goal in 1961 of going to the moon, NASA model makers at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL, built a handful of models of the proposed spacecraft that could be pulled apart for explanatory purposes. The wood, plastic, and metal models traveled around the country in wooden carrying cases that are now plastered with stickers, reminiscent of a 1930s suitcase. Seamans used these models to explain the program to Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The MIT Saturn V model may be the only one of those original models on public display in a museum. One of them was given to John F. Kennedy Jr. shortly after his father was assassinated. The others are believed to be held by NASA.

MITs involvement with the Apollo program went much further than Seamans. His mentor, Charles Stark Draper, won the contract to develop the missions guidance, navigation, and control systems at MITs Instrumentation Lab. That lab eventually spun off as the independent Draper Laboratory in Cambridge.