On July 16, 1969, the thunderous roar of rocket engines propelled three astronauts atop a 363-foot-tall Saturn V rocket from the Florida coastline towards the Moon. Just four days later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would become the first humans to step foot on another world, watched by over half a billion people back on Earth. It was the crowning achievement of the 20th century space race, fueled by the immense power of the largest rockets ever built.
Even 50 years later, the Saturn V retains records as the biggest and mightiest launcher in history, though several challengers may soon steal its crown. This new class of megarockets builds upon the ambition of those early space pioneers, aiming even farther out into the solar system.
So what fuels this extreme push towards larger and larger rockets decade after decade? And which launch vehicles stack up as the top 10 biggest ever built on the path to unlocking our solar neighborhood and beyond?
Why Bigger Rockets Matter
The immense challenge of spaceflight comes down to a pure physics problem – rockets must accelerate their huge mass beyond Earth‘s substantial gravity into orbital velocity of over 17,000 mph. Creating controlled, sustained, explosively powerful thrust over minutes of ascent requires staggering quantities of propellant.
The right ratio of fuel to spaceship is key. During NASA‘s Gemini program in 1965-66, Titan II rockets standing around 103 feet tall pushed two-man capsules into low Earth orbit. But escaping gravity‘s clutch to achieve Apollo‘s lunar aspirations depended on the mighty Saturn V and its 3,400 ton fueled weight.
Strapping more tankage and engines onto a rocket exponentially multiplies its payload potential at the cost of wrestling an ungainly beast off the pad. While advances in materials science and high-efficiency engines moderate their growth today, rockets continue ballooning in height and width thanks to the demands of modern space commerce, exploration, and even tourism.
Super Heavy Lift Vehicles: Primed to Break Records
From moon missions to space stations and Mars ambitions, launch vehicles have steadily grown over 60 years of spacefaring history, capped by today‘s super heavy lift vehicle (SHLV) class. The Saturn V defined this top echelon at its debut, but NASA’s 21st century Space Launch System (SLS) soon promises to claim that title. Not to be outdone, Elon Musk’s privately-funded Starship exceeds even those dimensions.
We‘ll countdown the 10 most massive rockets ever successfully launched into space, culminating with today‘s record-setting heavy lift vehicles.
#10. Space Shuttle – Dashing Reusable Trailblazer
Born in the 1970s in the afterglow of Apollo’s triumph, NASA‘s iconic winged Space Shuttle broke new ground as the world‘s first reusable orbital spaceship powered by twin solid rocket boosters (SRBs) flanking a towering orange external fuel tank. Combined they stretched 184 feet high, weighing 4.5 million pounds at launch.
Over 30 years, NASA‘s Space Transportation System (STS) fleet launched 135 times from Kennedy and Vandenberg Space Centers. Astronauts conducted cutting-edge microgravity research aboard Shuttle orbiter spacecraft like Atlantis, Endeavor, and Discovery gliding to offshore landings.
#9. Energia – Forgotten Soviet Superbooster
As the Space Shuttle‘s roll-out neared in 1976, Soviet engineers raced to field their ambitious counterpart named Energia. Its key distinction was a modular design allowing multiple payload configurations riding atop its core liquid hydrogen/oxygen engines, augmented by 4 strap-on liquid boosters.
By the time this roughly 200 foot tall, 5 million pound colossus first flew in 1987, it already faced cancellation. Just two launches were made in 1988-89 carrying experimental payloads equivalent to the unused payload capacity of NASA’s fleet before the program‘s termination.
#8. New Glenn – Commercial Workhorse
Leaping from suborbital space tourism into orbital launch services, Blue Origin’s 20-story New Glenn rocket aims to be an affordable, reusable heavy lift vehicle for commercial satellites and exploration missions.
Named for astronaut John Glenn, the first American in orbit, New Glenn will stand 322 feet tall while its optional third stage pushes it to 337 feet. Hydrogen and oxygen propellants will fuel 7 BE-4 engines producing up to 2.45 million pounds of liftoff thrust.
Debut flights have slipped to 2024 or beyond, but New Glenn may become a space industry mainstay over decades of operations.
#7. Falcon Heavy – SpaceX‘s Powerhouse
The 2010s saw daring launch startups founded by tech billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk start encroaching on established aerospace giants through FBI- Vertical Integration – designing and producing rockets and spacecraft themselves using lean manufacturing principles.
Musk in particular set his sights on revolutionizing space access with ambitious but modestly sized Falcon 9 rockets eventually able to launch and land themselves routinely. Seeking to extend his reusable architecture for moon and Mars missions, SpaceX then formulated the larger Falcon Heavy by combining 3 Falcon 9 cores as side boosters around a strengthened center core.
When this beast thundered to life in 2018, its 27 million pounds of thrust made Falcon Heavy the world‘s most powerful operational rocket – able to deliver 140,000 pound payloads towards Pluto or hurl Musk‘s personal Tesla Roadster in an eccentric Mars-crossing orbit as a test payload!
#6. Delta IV Heavy – Hypersonic Hydrogen Hercules
As SpaceX emerged to challenge government space launch monopolies with Falcon Heavy, aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin merged their fleets into the United Launch Alliance (ULA) joint venture.
The legacy Delta and Atlas rocket families were modernized and uprated for the 2010’s space market. Boeing’s workhorse Delta IV single stick grew into the Heavy variant by strapping two Common Booster Cores as liquid hydrogen-fueled strap-on side boosters.
Generating 2.1 million pounds of thrust, this 236 foot tall launcher has achieved over 30 successful launches since its 2004 debut delivering high value satellites and reconnaissance payloads. But retirement looms before the end of the decade as ULA transitions more launches to their next generation Vulcan Centaur rockets.
#5 Ares I – Constellation’s Ill-Fated Moon Rocket
In the wake of Space Shuttle Columbia’s tragic destruction during reentry in 2003, President George Bush announced his Vision for Space Exploration (VSE) centered on NASA’s Constellation program returning astronauts to deep space destinations aboard the Orion spacecraft launched by two separate rockets – Ares I crew lifter and Ares V cargo lunar vehicle.
Ares I aimed to apply Shuttle heritage technology as affordably and reliably as possible using a stretched 4-segment Space Shuttle booster first stage topped by a new second stage with Orion or Apollo-shaped cargo fairings. With test flights planned by 2011 and operational crew rotation flights commencing around 2015, this 308 foot tall design intended to inaugurate lunar missions by 2020.
But crippling budget woes doomed Constellation and Ares before they could get off the drafting table despite an initial test flight in 2009 of a shorter Ares I-X prototype successfully demonstrating the new rocket‘s shape and stability. Over $9 billion invested was written off when the program was canceled the following year.
#4 Long March 9 – China‘s Next Super Rocket
The 21st century has seen China transform from a fledgling space-capable nation dependent on Russian technology to a fast-rising independent space power with an increasingly capable and reliable family of Long March rockets. Its space station and lunar exploration programs are now pressing against the limits of current heavy lift capacity.
Enter the enormous Long March 9 megarocket now in development by China‘s Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology. At a towering 338 feet tall with 10 meter diameter boosters flanking a mammoth central core, this monster aims to loft 50 ton payloads to lunar transfer orbit – capabilities approaching Saturn V scale to support establishing a Chinese moon base during the 2030s.
Initial cargo missions would validate end-to-end systems ahead of crewed flights before more ambitious Mars expeditions later next decade. rollouts and launches are targeted between 2028 and 2035.
#3 Saturn V – Legacy Moon Rocket Uneclipsed
The behemoth SLS and Starship designs fast encroaching on its towering legacy can‘t diminish Saturn V‘s hallowed standing as the heaviest rocket ever successfully flown, which remains the only launch vehicle to enable humans to explore another world.
From 1967 to 1973, thirteen Saturn V rockets punctually launched all 24,900 pounds of spaceships needed to achieve Project Apollo‘s monumental goal of ten manned lunar landings within President Kennedy‘s deadline before the decade was out. Classified as a supersized "Moon rocket", Saturn V perfected the delicate art of staging – discarding spent propellant tanks and engines at precise moments- to fling Apollo spacecraft out of Earth orbit towards their moonbound trajectories.
Nothing has yet matched its majestic 7.5 million pound liftoff thrust and payload mass fractions nor repeated its signature Earth-departure "trans-lunar injection" burns. Saturn V set records at 363 feet tall and condensing the power of 180 million horses into the five revolutionary new F-1 engines igniting its first stage – still the most powerful rockets ever brought to operational status.
This pinnacle of 1960s technology will be tough to beat 50 years later!
#2 Space Launch System (SLS) – 21st Century Moon Rocket
As the Space Shuttle retired in 2011, NASA faced criticism it no longer had its own rockets for sending astronauts anywhere beyond low Earth orbit, instead paying Russia for Soyuz access to the International Space Station. President Obama and Congress held firm insisting America needed to retain independent crew launch capability. Out of the cancelled Constellation program‘s ashes came direction for NASA to develop the ambitious Space Launch System.
Immediately nicknamed the Senate Launch System due to perceptions its Congressional-mandated design and timeline served politicians more than engineers, SLS has seen its inaugural launch perpetually postponed from 2017 to 2023 at minimum. Nevertheless, by blending upgraded Space Shuttle main engines and twin solid rocket boosters with a modified central External Tank core stage, SLS now nears operational status as the most powerful rocket in the world.
Its Block I can deliver 70 tons to low Earth orbit or 26 tons on trans-lunar injection – nearly Saturn V scale. Later Block II will stretch even taller and girthier to loft 45 tons towards Mars. Shooting for the Moon and beyond, SLS is America‘s mega Moon rocket for the new space age!
#1 Starship – Aiming for Mars
If realized as envisioned over the coming years, SpaceX‘s fully reusable Starship launch system will utterly explode all records for rocket size, payload lift capability, and operational flexibility for point to point Earth transit, lunar bases, and crewed Mars exploration.
Comprised of the Super Heavy booster and 165 foot long Starship spaceship with payload bays, this steel and stainless-steel, methane-fueled leviathan under rapid development in South Texas will stand 400 feet when mated – taller than even Saturn V or SLS. But unlike those disposable rockets, both elements are designed to fly themselves back to soft landings for rapid reuse up to 100 times each, slashing spaceflight costs 1,000 fold in Elon Musk‘s dreams!
While still awaiting a successful high altitude test flight after four fiery crashes, early Starship prototypes have already broken height records for rocket hops. If the full stack can reliably generate 17 million pounds of thrust from up to 37 methane-fueled next-gen Raptor engines, it will handily seize the title as the largest, mightiest rocket ever built – and possibly the first true spaceship for extending human civilization beyond Earth!
Rocket Size Correlated to Mission Ambitions
Advances allowing rockets to push higher and heavier have closely aligned with each era‘s vision for expanding human activity and presence beyond our atmosphere into Earth orbit, to the Moon, Mars and the wider Solar System.
First generation vehicles like Atlas, Titan and the Saturn I enabled achieving Earth orbit and developing early space skills. The lunar goal-post set by President Kennedy then birthed the giant Saturn V rockets designed specifically for trans-lunar flight. Its lessons then flowed into the partially reusable Space Shuttle fleet focused on economical access to low Earth orbit over three decades.
Military and commercial satellite market needs diversified rockets until the 2000s when new deep space ambitions sparked designs for super heavy lift vehicles. The SLS returns toward Saturn-class dimensions for its moon missions with the Starship system intending to far surpass all contenders to enable an expansive interplanetary future for humanity!
So strap in for the next giant leap as the world‘s leading rocket-makers push the limits of engineering to build the biggest rockets ever!
| Rank | Rocket | Height | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SpaceX Starship | 400 ft | Development |
| 2 | NASA SLS | 365 ft | Final Testing |
| 3 | Saturn V | 363 ft | Retired |
| 4 | Long March 9 | 338 ft | Early Development |
| 5 | Ares I | 308 ft | Cancelled |
| 6 | Delta IV Heavy | 236 ft | Active Launches |
| 7 | Falcon Heavy | 230 ft | Active Launches |
| 8 | New Glenn | 313 ft | Development |
| 9 | Energia | 203 ft | Retired |
| 10 | Space Shuttle | 184 ft | Retired |
Conclusion
From the earliest rockets launched in the late 1950s to today‘s giant megarockets on the horizon, launch vehicles have grown hand-in-hand with expanding mission ambitions driven by economic, military, geopolitical, and human curiosity rationales. Mastering safe controlled explosions to break Earth‘s surly bonds remains epic engineering challenges, but now private commercial forces also look to drive a renaissance in space technology and capability.
Starship and other super heavy lift vehicles ushering in fully reusable space access promise to truly revolutionize exploration and development of the Moon, Mars and the wider Solar System over the coming decades. Buckle up for the next giant leap!
