Nov 072012
A NASA-Marshall concept for a Nova launch vehicle. Nova began life as a vehicle somewhat smaller and lower-capability than the Saturn V, and quickly grew substantially larger than the Saturn V, ending its run as the “Post Saturn” launch vehicle (with designs such as ROMBUS and Nexus). This design features eight F-1 engines on the first stage, and has been, probably apocryphally, referred to as the “Saturn C-8.”
There are several official NASA documents from the early 1960s that make reference to the C-8. Since “Nova” was a squirrelly term that was used for the “next big rocket”, and in the pre-LOR era it was similar to the C-8. There seems to have been an arbitrary dividing line based on the upper stages. 8 F-1s and 8 J-2s made a C-8, while an M-1 upper stage was a Nova. Yet, you can find documents that call the F-1/J-2 system a Nova, so who knows really.
And I just found a ref at:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19790077222_1979077222.pdf
that refers to a C-8 with 5 J-2s and a c-8 Prime with 9 J-2s. So now I’m confused.
A few years ago I made a resin model of this – pictures are here http://www.martins-models.co.uk/Sales/144/C-8/saturnc8.htm