Saturn V

The Saturn V clears the tower at Launch Complex 39A at 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969, carrying Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11. This is the photo most people picture when they hear the word rocket. The numbers still astonish: 363 feet tall, 6.2 million pounds fueled and 7.6 million pounds of thrust from five F-1 engines at liftoff. It flew 13 times, 12 Apollo missions and the Skylab launch, and its heaviest load to low Earth orbit was 141 metric tons.