Introduction With the safe landing of Apollo 11 in 1969 the ancient dream of travel to the Moon finally came true When astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set down their Lunar Module it was a time of new and exciting discoveries In these pages you can read about the six successful Apollo missions to the Moon and the flight that nearly ended in disaster
Moon Flight Atlas Contents Apollo system From Earth to the Moon Apollo 11 The Eagle has landed Apollo 12 Meeting a surveyor probe Apollo 13 Explosion in space apollo 14 Science on the move Lunar Roving Vehicle An electric car for two Apollo 15 Driving on another world Apollo 16 Exploring the lunar highlands Apollo 17 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 The last landing 22 Will we visit the Moon again 24 26 28 30 32 After Apollo Moon flight facts Secrets of the Moon Landing zones Timeline Glossary Webfinder Index About the author
Apollo system From Earth to the Moon Apollo Moon flights all used the same basic hardware the first of these being the huge Saturn V rocket that was used to launch each mission from the ground How big was the Saturn V rocket From top to bottom the Saturn V 5 towered at 360 feet 110 m high It consisted of three main stages each one dropping away when its fuel was used up The most powerful first stage was used for lift-off It had five engines roaring with a combined thrust of nearly 3,858 tons 3,500 metric tons The moment of lift-off for Apollo 11 the first Moon-landing mission The pencil at the top was part of the launch escape system In an emergency rockets could pull the Command Module out of danger Gee that launch tower is just a few feet off to one side And then when they tell you Launch tower clear you kinda say Oh whoosh that’s good we don’t have to worry about hitting that and off you go from there Michael Collins Apollo 11 CM pilot talks about the Saturn V lift-off Where did the astronauts sit Each Apollo mission had a crew of three astronauts They sat in the top cone-shaped Command Module CM which was attached to the Service Module SM behind it The SM had a rocket motor with fuel tanks and also supplied power for the electronic and other systems Together the Command and Service Modules were called the CSM 4
The trip from Earth to How far is the Moon The Moon orbits Earth about 239,000 miles 385,000 km away It takes about a month to complete an orbit the Moon took the Apollo spacecraft about three days after which the craft went into orbit around the Moon itself The CSM continued to circle the Moon while the Lunar Module was flown down to the surface Escape tower Command Module Service Module Lunar Module Earth Moon The Moon is far smaller than Earth Even so its land area is huge about the same as the combined area of Africa and Australia Command Module Lunar Module ascent stage Third stage Service Module three crew to scale Lunar Module descent stage Second stage First stage What about the Lunar Module The Lunar Module LM was a spidery machine with its own motors and air supply and was designed to carry two astronauts to and from the Moon’s surface The third crew member stayed in the CSM orbiting the Moon alone until it was time to link up with the returning LM All three astronauts then returned to Earth in the CSM mother ship Neil Armstrong at the LM control panel 5
