George Mueller's 'all-up' testing philosophy meant the Saturn V's first flight used all three live stages and a live Apollo command and service module, rather than testing stages incrementally with ballast.
Notes on verification
Confirmed by NASA's official history office, mission pages, 'Stages to Saturn' publication, and von Braun's own recollections quoted across multiple independent sources. [tier=gold indep_score=0.867 clusters=3 claim_tier=notable]
Sources
- We Built the Saturn V (seed:science_and_space)
- https://www.nasa.gov/history/55-years-ago-apollo-4-the-first-flight-of-the-saturn-v/ (corroboration)
- https://www.space.com/18505-nasa-moon-rocket-saturn-v-history.html (corroboration)
- https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4206/ch12.htm (corroboration)
- http://heroicrelics.org/info/all-up/mueller-memo.html (corroboration)
- https://www.nasa.gov/mission/apollo-4/ (corroboration)