I Think A Lot Of Us Know This Beautiful Video From Apollo 4 Unmanned Launch.

I think a lot of us know this beautiful video from Apollo 4 unmanned launch.

A lot of nerding, rocket stuff, trivia and technical info below:

Some of you may wonder: “Why am i not seeing the rocket exhaust?” or “When the second stage will fire?”. The answer is: They already are firing, since just after separation. S-II (the second stage), unlike first one is fueled by the liquid oxygen-liquid hydrogen mixture, which is invisible when burning. This is also (in)visible on Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs). What you can see, is the high temperature heating up and burning the the S-Ic and the interstage.

The S-Ic (first stage) and S-II (second stage) separated in a somewhat unusual fashion. Usually an interstage (the part holding stages together) is separated with a lower stage. In Saturn V however the second stage engines occupy so much space, that a “direct” separation could have destroyed S-II engines, so the interstage was separated a few seconds after the first stage to avoid that scenario.

The first, bright fire was a shaped charge (an explsive) used to break split the rocket in two. How else do you think you could separate a thing THAT big, THAT quickly?

The cameras were then dropped from the rocket (as seen at the end of the video) and picked up from the ocean.