Apollo Missions

Apollo’s Goals

Apollo was the third United States human spaceflight program carried out by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) done in the 1960s and 1970s.  Apollo was put into motion by president Kennedy. President Kennedy’s goal of demonstrating the superiority of the US political and economic systems over that of the Soviet Union in the Space Race was to be accomplished by this singular and significant achievement.

The Apollo program marked a series of firsts for the space industry and succeeded in landing the first humans on another celestial body, the Moon. Millions of people globally watched as Astronaut Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder onto the surface of the moon and spoke the first words.  The program was active in the 1960s and early 1970s and was a national effort that consumed a large percentage of the national budget to accomplish.

Project Apollo’s goals went beyond landing Americans on the moon and returning them safely to Earth. They included:

• Establishing the technology to meet other national interests in space.
• Achieving preeminence in space for the United States.
• Carrying out a program of scientific exploration of the Moon.
• Developing human capability to work in the lunar environment.

Rocket and Spacecraft

The concept for how to accomplish the Apollo mission was determined in 1962.  flight mode, lunar orbit rendezvous, was selected in 1962. New more powerful rockets were needed to accomplish the goals and NASA set upon the task to develop the Saturn IB for Earth orbit flights and the Saturn V for lunar flights.

The Apollo spacecraft was comprised of three-parts.  The first spacecraft: the command module (CM) served as the crew’s quarters and flight control section.  The service module (SM) provided propulsion and spacecraft support systems.  The CM and SM combined were referred to the CSM,  The final part of the spacecraft was the lunar module (LM) which itself was made of two parts: the separate descent and ascent stages, each with its own engine.  The LM would to take two of the three crew to the lunar surface, provide life support while on the Moon, and return them to the CSM in lunar orbit with the ascent stage.

Chart from NASA. https://history.nasa.gov

Other interesting links to look over:

https://datastro.opendatasoft.com/explore/dataset/project-apollo-archive/table/?disjunctive.apollo_x&sort=apollo_x&refine.apollo_x=Apollo+9

https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4029/Apollo_18-11_Launch_Vehicle-Spacecraft_Key_Facts.htm