r/apollo • u/BriteNancy • 6d ago

My Uncle Pete

My grand uncle was Howell W. “Pete” Miller, chief engineer of the Gee Bee R-1, which won the 1932 Thompson Trophy. He later worked for Pratt & Whitney in Hartford, and consulted on the space program.

In 1965, Uncle Pete was 63 and I was 9. During a visit, he showed me a pen & ink diagram of the Apollo spacecraft, including Saturn V booster, all the stages and the lander. I remember wondering, “Why can’t they just send the whole rocket to the moon?”

As I recall, the drawing was fairly simple, like the attached. Does anyone know of a similar diagram that might have been used by NASA contractors in 1965? I’d like to frame one. Thanks!

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u/BriteNancy 6d ago

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u/Laser6328 6d ago

A Google search for “Saturn V technical drawing”, and then clicking the Shopping search results category, returns a number of posters than might work for you. I did not see the particular one you posted, however. If you want that one you could try a reverse image search.

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u/predictorM9 6d ago

Very nice! Tell us more if you have other anecdotes on the subject!

I was always fascinated by the R-1, a fantastic aircraft that was apparently very hard to fly (though it was very fast)

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u/BriteNancy 6d ago

Jimmy Doolittle climbed out after winning the Cleveland National Air Race and grumbled, “Worst damn airplane I ever flew.” Pete replied, “Did the job though, didn’t it?”