An early NASA idea for a super rocket, powerful enough to fly astronauts directly to the Moon and return them to the Earth. The plan for a vehicle capable of a direct ascent mode was supported by German rocket engineer Wernher von Braun and informally known as the ‘Dream Rocket’. The Nova, if it had materialized, would have been the ultimate Saturn rocket, 183 m long with a first stage made up of 8 to 12 F-1 engines providing more than 8.6 million kg of thrust. The project was dropped when US president John F Kennedy set a tight deadline for landing on the Moon, and NASA turned to a lunar-orbit rendezvous mode.