
The sound and fury generated that day resulted from the test-firing of the first stage of the Saturn moon rocket. Throughout the 1960s, Huntsvillians would hear and feel that roar many times as ASA scientists aimed for the goal set by President John F. Kennedy in 1961-- "landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth." Before the end of the decade, the goal would be reached, and on July 16, 1969, a mammoth rocket, standing taller than the Statue of Liberty, would leave the launch pad in Florida carrying three human beings toward the surface of the moon.