Quote:
Originally Posted by mechman600
I'm trying to wrap my mind around 60 gigawatts.
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At full power during launch, a Saturn V generated power equivalent to the peak demand of Britain.
All of Britain.
Granted, it took five motors to do that. Still: dang.
[edit]
Whoops, OP already pointed this tidbit out. Ah well. It bears repeating in my opinion.
Pulse and glide: heh.
Skylab was lofted by a Saturn V and covered approximately 900,000,000 miles during its lifetime. That is, shall we say, one hell of a glide.
Skylab was a modified S-IVb stage, so it launched atop a S-I and S-II for a combined fuel consumption of (guessing wildly with a little reference help) about 2,500,000 kilos.
560km per kilo of fuel is pretty good.