In 1961, U.S. President John F. Kennedy committed America to landing a person on the moon before the end of the decade. Because William Allen believed in the space program, he loaned 2,000 executives to NASA to coordinate activities and Boeing provided overall systems integration for the entire Apollo project.
At that time, the far side of the moon was a mystery. Boeing Lunar Orbiters circled the moon and sent photographs of its surface back to Earth so NASA could select safe landing sites for the astronauts. Boeing also built the Lunar Roving Vehicle astronauts used to explore the moon on the last three Apollo missions.
The shared heritage of The Boeing Company today is graphically symbolized by the Saturn launch vehicles for which Boeing built the S-1C first stage, North American Rockwell, the second, and Douglas the third.
The 138-foot-high S-1C first stage was the largest rocket booster produced in the United States, and it could hurl 120-ton payloads into orbit around the Earth. Boeing made 13 S-1Cs for the Saturn Vs, one of which carried Skylab into space in 1973.