Stainless Steels participating in special moon flights

50 Years Ago

Commonly used products available from U.S. Steel have been chosen for some of the unusual applications for steel as part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s programme for putting a man on the moon by 1970.

Plates for Inner Shell

For building nine giant “bottles,” with capacities of 250,000 gallons each, to transport liquid propellants at temperatures as low as minus 425 degrees Fahrenheit for ground testing Saturn V rockets the contractors decided on plates for the inner shell made of U.S.S. stainless steel types 304 and 304L which are particularly well adaptable to cryogenic applications because of their ductility and toughness.

Moreover, the low carbon content of such austenitic stainless steel helps in solving contamination problems, since the stainless surface will not scale or form deposits, and prevents harmful carbide formation adjacent to the welds.

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