The Explorers' Club, № DCCCXLVI

Operation AXIOM: Destination Moon—The 60th Anniversary of Saturn-Apollo 1
27 October 1961: Saturn-Apollo 1 (Saturn I S.A.-1), the first test flight of a Saturn I rocket, lifted off from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on a suborbital flight; the S-I ("S-One") first stage was only partially fueled to limit the damage in case of a catastrophic failure, & both the S-IV second & S-V third stages were inactive; the only flight anomaly was that the rocket cut off 1.6 seconds early.

Commentary: The development of the Saturn I rocket, underway since 1957, was one of the reasons President Kennedy felt confident enough to issue the challenge—to land men on the Moon & return them safely to Earth before the decade's end—in May 1961, not quite three weeks after Al Shepard became the first American in space during Mercury-Redstone 3 & nine months before John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth during Mercury-Atlas 6.

Semper exploro.