Launching a Saturn V was an enormously complicated affair. Nothing more illustrates this is a look at the launch control center (LCC). With over 150 consoles on the main floor and some more elsewhere, each monitored some small system of both he rocket and the launch tower.

This image is of a part of one console showing the deflection of a single one of the Saturn V’s first stage F1 engines. Four of the engines could be aimed a few degrees off center to steer the massive rocket. This is why so few rockets had little or no fins.