From Wheeler to the moon ...

From Wheeler to the moon .... Wheeler Lock and Dam. Many people may not relize that NASA’s first voyage to the moon was intended to travel through the lock at TVA's Wheeler Dam. NASA planned to ship its Saturn rocket booster (which would eventually carry astrounts to the moon for the Apollo program from Redstone Arsonal in Huntsville, Ala., by barge to Cape Canaveral, Florida, for its first test firing in the fall of 1961. , The 75 ton rocket was too large to be moved except by water on a special barge. But in June, the lock's north land wall failed, shutting down the lock and blocking shipping of all cargo-including the Saturn Rocket. Keeping the test-firing on schedule was critical to the Apollo program's mission to send astronauts to the moon., TVA, barge lines and shippers worked with urgency to develop means to transport cargo around the dam by constructing transshipping facilities at the north and south ends of the dam, including barge terminals, pipelines around and over the dam, and concrete bulkheads for heavy freight. The enormous barge docks allowed the Saturn rocket to be offloaded above the dam and reloaded below the dam. The barge docks were completed for the first transhipment of the Saturn rocket in August 1961, and a second rocket was shipped in February 1962. The failities were also used to tranship a nuclear reactor vessel built upstream and shipped by water to Italy. , In April 1962, Wheeler Lock was reopened to commerical navigation traffic only 10.5 months after it failure. This was a monumental effort by all those who contributed extraordinary efforts and made sacrifices for the region and nation. The docks built for the Saturn rocket are still occasionally used for loading heavy equipment and cargo. They have also been re-purposed to serve for fishing access including modificaitons to assist those who may have mobility limitations. , To learn move visit tva.com , For questions about TVA land and recreation contact TVA's Public Land or website www.tva.com/plic, e-mail [email protected]