I went to Houston about 40 years ago for a potential (new) job interview. The place where I stayed was quite close to the Johnson Space Center so I spent several hours checking out the Saturn V there. At the time, it was simply sitting outside - completely exposed to the elements and - even though it had only been there ~10 years - severely deteriorated. Very visible corrosion under what was obviously many layers of poorly applied paint. Impressive (first time I'd seen a Saturn V in person) and depressing that it had been allowed to deteriorate so badly.

A while later, I heard about an effort to restore that Saturn and display it inside a proper, climate controlled enclosure. I sent them some money
Although I've seen the Saturn V at KSC, I'm not been back to Houston to see that particular example since it was restored.

The Houston Saturn V was also the first Saturn V I ever saw and only about two years later (Summer ‘85). I had longed to see a Saturn V since I had been a young kid, and I was impressed with its size. But, like you also, I could see the exposure to the elements was taking its toll, and bird nests here and there amongst the structure and peeled paint, especially on the Command Module and Service Module, was very apparent.

I’m glad they got it restored and enclosed for posterity. And our fellow YORF member the late John Pursley (RIP) was instrumental in that restoration process.

Earl

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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
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Rocket-Brained Since 1970

Those of us who were at the Houston NARCON in 2018 were privileged to have a tour of that Saturn V conducted by the late great Mr. Pursley.

The Saturn V in Houston is displayed with the stages separated so you can see the engines and other details at both the tops and bottoms of the stages.

Here is John Pursley at the base of the first stage, telling a story. February 25th, 2018.

Attached Thumbnails

 

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Bernard Cawley
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Thank you for posting the picture of John at the Houston NARCON, Bernard. I think that I have a similar picture from the front. John helped with the renovation of the Houston Saturn V and also work on a display of a piece of the Titanic's hull that was recovered. It was an honor to have known him and worked with him on the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 7 models.

Chas

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Charles Russell, MSgt,USAF (ret.)
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True... but if they'd been displayed and stored properly from the beginning they wouldn't be in such bad shape! Rockets were designed for flight-- exotic lightweight alloys and structures, never meant to sit in the sun, wind, rain, snow, salt air, etc. for decades outdoors unprotected. I know when I talked to John Pursley about the Saturn V restoration at JSC, he was saying how it had holes corroded through it big enough to put your head through, particularly some of the magnesium components and such. Thankfully they got to it and restored it before it was too far gone. They FINALLY built a big steel building to protect it from the salt air and frequent rain and pollution from refineries nearby, and for a time air conditioned it, until it became "cost prohibitive" and now its hot and humid in there, but at least its out of the sun and rain which it sat in for decades at JSC. Thankfully they've constructed buildings over their Saturn V's at KSC and USSRC in Huntsville.

Last time I toured Huntsville, it came a sudden afternoon thunderstorm (which is common in summer in Alabama, same in Texas in its Piney Woods). We ducked inside for about 15 minutes during the downpour until it passed, and then went back out to the Rocket Garden. The V-2 displayed on its side out there had water POURING out of it in the middle... and of course they'd had to scrap the Skylab mockups that had been displayed outside and had huge rust holes in them years before when I toured the place... so sad! Military missiles, particularly solid propellant ones, can hold up to outdoor display as they're much more robustly built and designed to be deployed and operated in the elements for long periods of time, and with "rough" conditions in storage. Space rockets and hardware are NOT. Even the Shuttle-Centaur at USSRC is at risk... it has to remain pressurized to maintain structural integrity... more than a few display Atlases kept inflated by compressors collapsed and wrecked themselves when the compressors failed and the rocket depressurized... They should spray foam the inside to stiffen it up before the thing collapses and is destroyed.

It just floors me that we have money for everything else, but we cannot preserve our own history for future generations...

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The restoration went very well. It's not perfect, but it's good and now protected under cover, though the cost of air conditioning the building for about 10 months of the year at some level, and at least 3 months of near 100 degrees everyday, got excessive so now it's NOT air conditioned, at least it wasn't a few years ago when I was down there...

John Pursley was hired on by the contractor to help with the restoration years ago... we had a gathering one time at his place and he told us the story... He got hired on because of his lifelong love and dedication to scale modeling the Saturn V... his research had given him more knowledge of the Saturn V than practically anybody still working at NASA. He assisted in the other restorations as well IIRC. He told us of taking the manhole cover off the top of the first stage oxygen tank and crawling inside, knowing NOBODY had seen the inside of that tank since the rocket was built in the late 60's...

There's actually a display in the NW corner of the Saturn V building detailing some of the restoration process with photographs. It was heartbreaking ot see holes rusted in it large enough to put your head through, but they did a great job of restoring and preserving it. Hope it stays that way!

It's not an uncommon problem... the Galveston Railroad Museum had a "sowbelly" double-truck propane mega-car that was built in the late 60's or early 70's in limited numbers and put on the rail system to test it out. It was thought that building a single gigantic propane rail tank car with two sets of wheel trucks on each end would be more economical than building two smaller cars. As it turned out this was found not to be true, so the half-dozen or so cars in operation were gradually removed from service, and the museum managed to get one (only one left IIRC). Unfortunately, during the flooding of Galveston during one of the hurricanes in the past 10 years or so, the railroad car tank floated off its trucks (the wheelsets of a train are only held on by a single pin and the car sitting atop it weighing about 100,000 lbs empty) and the tank floated away through a fence and down the street. It was going to be cost prohibitive for the museum to hire a heavy lift crane and truck to haul the tank back and reinstall it on the wheelsets, so it was cut up and scrapped. Such a shame because IIRC it was the last one left, and it was a REALLY cool railcar... Shame nobody thought about the flooding potential and either chained the thing down to keep it from floating away, or since it was decommissioned, cut some holes in it to allow the water to flow up into it as the water rose to prevent it from floating away... and then drain itself out as it went back down.

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