Before there was the Saturn V, there was the Saturn 1B, the NASA test bed for Apollo flight hardware. Versions of the Apollo Command and Service Module, and the Lunar Module were all test flown on the Saturn 1B while the Saturn V was still in development. Even the S-IVB upper stage which served as the third stage of the Saturn V was first tested on the Saturn 1B, functioning as that....

Between 1967 and 1973, NASA successfully launched 13 Saturn V rockets - two were unmanned test flights, nine carried astronauts to....