The launch that changed everything: the first heavy lift capability space vehicle lifting off from Cape Canaveral, 29 January 1964

Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based paper, printed 1964, with Douglas Aircraft Company credit stamp and ID number "DAC 13324" as well as "A KODAK PAPER" watermark on verso, 20,3 x 25,4 cm

President Kennedy's last visit at Cape Canaveral was to survey Project Gemini and the advancement of this Saturn I SA-5 rocket.
In a speech at Brooks AFB in San Antonio, Texas, on November 21, 1963, the day before he was assassinated, Kennedy identified the launch as the one which would place US lift capability ahead of the Soviets, after being behind for more than six years since Sputnik.
He said: “And in December, while I do not regard our mastery of space as anywhere near complete, while I recognize that there are still areas where we are behind – at least in one area, the size of the booster – this year I hope the United States will be ahead.”

The major changes that occurred on SA-5 compared to previous flights were that for the first time the Saturn I would fly with two stages - the S-I first stage and the S-IV second stage. For the first time in the Apollo program, this flight would be an orbital mission. This was possible because of the upgraded first stage and the addition of the second stage. The whole stage separation system worked perfectly with the retrorockets firing on the first stage to decelerate it and ullage rockets on the S-IV firing to settle its fuel to aft of the stage. After an eight-minute burn, the second stage entered into a 262-by-785-kilometer (141 by 424 nmi) orbit. At 16,965 kg (37,401 lb) it was the largest satellite ever to go into orbit at that time. However, the achievement of Earth orbit was not an objective of the mission but merely a bonus. It did show to the American public that the United States could build launch vehicles as large as those of the Soviet Union.