Project Apollo: The Race to Land on the Moon (Moon Flight Atlas)
Introduction The Apollo Program or Project Apollo was a 12-year plan to develop the equipment and skills needed to land humans on the Moon and bring them safely back to Earth Launched through the National Aeronautics and Space Administration NASA Apollo included 11 space flights and six lunar landings The first crewed lunar landing of Apollo 11 in 1969 was the high point of the program 2
Moon Flight Atlas Contents 4 6 World’s biggest rocket 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 Safe splashdown 24 26 28 30 32 The Apollo program To the Moon The mighty Saturn v Assembling the Saturn v The full stack command module Spacecraft for three Lunar module Spider in space Testing Apollo Tragedy and triumph Apollo 8 and 10 Circling the Moon Apollo 11 Target the Sea of Tranquility Tranquility base One small step Return to earth Moon flight facts Flight path to the surface Inside story Timeline Glossary Webfinder Index About the author
The Apollo program To the Moon In 1962 President John F Kennedy delivered his famous We choose to go to the Moon speech It set the United States on the path of dedicated space exploration that would result in the lunar landing in 1969 Why did President Kennedy make his speech In an earlier message to Congress on May 25 1961 President Kennedy said the battle between freedom and tyranny in the world would be won when America took a leading role in space achievement He was referring to the sense of wonder people felt when in 1957 the Soviet Union U S S R launched the first artificial satellite Sputnik 1 This act led to a competition for dominance in space between the U S and the U S S R It was called the Space Race Kennedy’s focus in his message to Congress and his later We choose to go to the Moon speech was to land a man on the Moon before the Soviet Union Project Apollo was the space program that would make it happen Mercury spacecraft Gemini spacecraft Apollo spacecraft with Lunar Module attached President Kennedy left arrow inspects the Mercury spacecraft that John Glenn right arrow flew into orbit on February 20 1962 What was Apollo This was the name for the entire U S Moon program The Apollo spacecraft right was designed to carry three astronauts It followed the smaller single-seat Mercury and the two-seat Gemini They all shared a capsule or small container design 4
What was the Saturn V rocket This was the big launch rocket that carried Apollo spacecraft and crew into space Once in space astronauts would fly to the Moon which circles or orbits Earth about 238,000 miles 385,000 km away Wernher von Braun stands near the base of the massive Saturn V rocket The picture shows four of the five main engines The person who led the design of the Saturn V was Wernher von Braun right He was a German rocket scientist who had gone to the United States when World War II came to an end The Earth and Moon shown to scale Astronaut John Glenn’s Mercury 6 orbit of Earth in 1962 reached 162 miles 261 km into space The Moon is about 1,500 times further away Apollo astronauts faced an enormous challenge in their quest to reach and land on the Moon Earth Curving path taken by Apollo spacecraft to and from the Moon Moon 5
