Apollo 11/Space Race
Many people dreamed of going to the moon. But in 1969, that dream became reality. Neil Amstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins blasted off on the mammoth, 363 foot Saturn V. This mission was a big step for NASA, as well as a big step for humanity.
The mission started as what is now known as the “Space race”. Basically, it was a race to see who was the most powerful nation in spaceflight capacity. The winning factor was to get to the moon. 2 big nations were allies in World War II. After World War II, they came to hate each other due to the United States being a Republic and the Soviet Union being communist nation. This time period is known as the Cold War.
The space race started on Friday, October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Nation launched Sputnik 1, the first artificial human satellite to orbit the earth. This created tensions as people were afraid the Soviet Union could spy on the U.S.A with their satellites. The United States quickly struck back, 4 months later, on January 31, 1958, with the launch of Explorer 1 on a Mercury Redstone rocket. On April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union launched the first man in space. Yuri Gagarin blasted off on Vostok 1, orbiting the earth for 108 minutes. The United Space were beaten again. On May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard became the first American in space. Although he didn’t achieve orbit like Gagarin, he controlled his space manually with retro rockets. American president John F. Kennedy, said in a speech after Alan Shepard's flight, “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.”
There were many space programs leading up to the Apollo program including the Mercury and Vostok programs, the Gemini and Voskhod programs. The Soviets achieved the first spacewalk and the U.S.A achieved the first docking. But at the beginning of the Apollo program, disaster struck. During a ground test, Command Pilot Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Senior Pilot Ed White, and Pilot Roger Chaffee were killed in a fire that swept through their capsule. The United States recovered from the tragedy, sending people in Lunar orbit later in the Apollo program.
On July 19, 1969, history was about to be made. Saturn V blasted off from Cape Canaveral Florida sending Neil Amstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon. The rocket was a 3 stage rocket, with the command module and lunar module at the top. The command module and lunar module would dock together in space. The astronauts would mostly stay in the command module until they got into lunar orbit. Then, Neil Armstong and Buzz Aldrin would climb into the lunar module and it would separate from the command module. The lunar module would take them down to the moon and land there. The command module was named Columbia. The lunar module was named Eagle. Saturn V lifted off at 9:32:00 and achieved orbit 12 minutes later. It started its trans-lunar injection at 16:22:13 UTC. Now, it was on its way to the moon. On July 19 at 17:21:50 UTC, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. On July 20, at 17:44, Eagle separated from Columbia. The Eagle landed at 20:17:40 UTC on Sunday, July 20 with about 25 seconds of fuel left. At 2:51, Neil Armstrong prepared to make history. He slowly climbed down the ladder with his words, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Buzz Aldrin came down shortly later. The astronauts quickly set up experiments such as EASEP, which included a Passive Seismic Experiment Package used to measure moonquakes and a retroreflector array used for the Lunar Laser Ranging experiment. They also planted an American flag and collected soil and lunar rock samples. Finally, the planted a plaque that said, Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.
Before July 1969, people thought that going to the moon was impossible. But on July 20, 1969, that dream became reality. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped on the moon, what few men have ever done. And the words Neil Armstrong first said when he stepped foot on the moon, “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” That really was one giant leap for mankind.
