When the mighty Rocketdyne F-1 engine was conceived in the late 1950s for the U.S. Air Force, it had no defined mission and there was no launch vehicle it could power. It was a bold concept to push the technological envelope of rocket propulsion in order to put massive payloads into Earth orbit. Few realized at the time that the F-1 would one day propel American astronauts to the Moon. In The Saturn V F-1 Engine, Anthony Young tells the amazing story of unbridled vision, bold engineering, explosive failures during testing, unrelenting persistence to find solutions, and ultimate success in launching the Saturn V with a 100 percent success rate. The book

contains personal interviews with many Rocketdyne and NASA personnel involved in the engines design, development, testing and production;is lavishly illustrated with black-and-white and color photographs, many never previously publishedis the first complete history of the most powerful rocket engine ever built.

The F-1 engine remains the high point in U.S. liquid rocket propulsion it represents a period in American history when nothing was impossible.

Anthony Young's first automotive book, published in 1984, became the best-selling automotive title sold in America within three months of its publication, according to Auto Week magazine.  His first Springer-Praxis book, Lunar and Planetary Rovers: The Wheels of Apollo and the Quest for Mars will be published in the fall of 2006. He is a regular contributor to Space Times magazine and the online weekly website, The Space Review.

Foreword.- Authors Preface.- Acknowledgements.- List of Illustrations.- Origins and F-1 Engine Development.- From Nova to Saturn: Evolution of the Moon Rocket.- Manufacturing the F-1 Engine at Rocketdyne.- Boeing and the Saturn V S-IC Stage.- Testing the F-1 and S-IC Stage.- The Apollo Saturn V Launches.- The Engine that Might Been: the F-1A and its Legacy.- Appendix.- Index.