An Apollo spacecraft rides the engine of its Saturn S-IV stage accelerating to over 24,000 miles per hour 38,624 km h to break free of Earth’s gravity The Apollo spaceships are the only human-carrying craft to travel to another world
INTRODUCTION For centuries humans gazed up at the Moon and wondered What would it be like to visit Low on the horizon our one and only natural satellite seems magnified and close enough to touch But it lies a far-flung average of 238,855 miles 384,400 km away By the mid 1960s spaceflight technology managed to bridge that immense gap with orbiting and landing probes It would take superpower rivalry the most powerful rocket ever made and a group of intrepid heroes ready to risk it all to finally get humans on the Moon Apollo 8’s 1968 Moon-orbiting mission was the first time humans had been close to its surface The crew scouted for sites for the following year’s landing
