"The Saturn rocket evolved from the idea of clustering a number of Jupiter engines around Redstone and Jupiter propellant tanks to build a large launch vehicle." All the Jupiter engines on that model would give the rocket a total amount of 1.5 million pounds of thrust. In 1958, the Department of Defense Advanced Research Project Agency gave an OK to start the design of the Saturn rocket. In 1959, NASA started developing the three stage Saturn 1 rocket. In 1960, stage 2 was altered so instead of having 4 - 20,000 lb 2nd stage engines, 6 smaller engines were used. Also, they eliminated the third stage. On October 27, 1961, the first 162 foot long launch vehicle weighing about 1 million pounds was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. At the same time, NASA was developing the larger Saturn 1B, to test the Apollo spacecraft. They stopped flight testing the 1B because of the fire on Apollo 1. The fire was caused by the pure oxygen in the command module. The next Apollo flights 2 through 6 were all unmanned tests of different mixtures of oxygen and other chemicals to try to avoid the fire in the command module hazard. Apollo 1 and 7 were the only manned flights that used the Saturn 1 or 1B rocket.

Saturn and 1 and 1B were preludes to the Saturn V rocket. The Saturn V was the largest and fastest vehicle to ever be flown into space. Its sole purpose was to put the first human being on the moon. The rocket stood a whooping 363 feet high and produced 7.7 million pounds of thrust at liftoff. Saturn V had three different stages. The first stage had 5 F1 engines that lifted the rocket off the ground. The second stage had 5 J2 engines that produced 1.15 million pounds of thrust to take the rocket to an altitude of 115 miles. The third stage had 1 J2 engine that produced 230 thousand pounds of thrust. This engine boosts the rocket to orbital velocity.