The Apollo Program and Its Importance
When you think of the Apollo program, two things come to mind. Apollo 11 and Apollo 13. Apollo 11 can be summed up as we made it to the Moon. And Apollo 13 can be summed up as duct tape is a national hero. However, there is more to the Apollo program than these two missions. The Apollo program started in 1961 and ended in 1972. During the 11 year program, NASA made a lot of progress in space research and exploration. NASA was also able to create some of the most important events in history.
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| Earthrise (Picture Taken During Apollo 8 by Astronaut Willaim Anders) |
The Apollo program officially started in 1961, occurring after Project Mercury. Many new centers and buildings were built to help the Apollo Program. These include the Manned Spacecraft Center in the Johnson Space Center, the Launch Operations Center in Kennedy Space Center, and the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The program was estimated to cost $25 billion. That's $156 billion in 2019. At first, there were many possible missions, including ferrying crews to a space station, circumlunar flights, and a crewed lunar landing. In the end, they decided that they would land on the Moon. They had 4 main ideas on how to actually accomplish this task:
Direct Ascent (Spacecraft would be launched and travel directly to the lunar orbit without first entering lunar orbit)
Earth Orbit Rendezvous (Multiple parts would be launched to use Direct Ascent)
Concept of Earth Orbit Rendezvous Lunar Surface Rendezvous (Two spacecraft would be launched, one autonomous and one crewed would go onto the Moon, the autonomous spacecraft would fuel the crewed spacecraft)
Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (Smaller spacecraft would land on the lunar surface with another spacecraft orbiting the Moon)
In the end, NASA chose to go with the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous with Apollo 11. I will go more in-depth into Apollo 11 in a later post.
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| Apollo 11 Lunar Module Named Eagle Picture Taken by Neil Armstrong |
Many spacecraft were built during the Apollo program. These include the Command and Service Module (CSM) and the Apollo Lunar Module (LM). The Command Module (CM) was the crew's cabin designed to carry three astronauts into lunar orbit and back. The Service Module (SM) was the module that supported the CM. It had a service propulsion engine and propellant. It also had a fuel cell power generator and liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen reactants to help the modules move in space. It housed communications so that the crew could communicate with mission control on Earth. The SM would be discarded before reentry and would burn up in the atmosphere. The CSM was built by North American Aviation. The Apollo Lunar Module was designed to land two astronauts on the Moon from lunar orbit. The LM would also be responsible for rendezvous back to the CM. Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation was contracted to build the LM.
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| Saturn V Launching During Apollo 11 |
There were also many launch vehicles built during the Apollo era. These included Little Joe II, the Saturn I, the Saturn IB, and the Saturn V. Little Joe II was the rocket for the Launch Escape System (LES). The LES would work independently from the rest of the rocket and jettison off once the launch vehicle exited the Earth's atmosphere. It was built by General Dynamics and Convair. The Saturn I was the first version of the Saturn rockets. It was designed to carry the CSM to low Earth orbit. The Saturn IB was an upgraded version of the Saturn I. It was stronger and had a greater thrust force. Finally, there is the Saturn V. The Saturn V was the best version of the Saturn rockets. It had 7.5 million pounds-force and was capable of lunar launches and parking in orbit.
The program had 32 astronauts, 24 of which touched the lunar surface. Sadly, three astronauts were killed in a ground test for Apollo 1. These astronauts were Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. The astronauts chosen had prior experience in the military. These astronauts flew in many missions and helped with testing. The Apollo program had an interesting development history that I will discuss in a later blog. It started with an uncrewed flight test, and later they began to prepare for a crewed flight. Despite many delays, NASA was able to launch crewed missions and eventually touchdown on the lunar surface. Many lunar samples were brought back to Earth to evaluate and study them. However, some Apollo missions were canceled.
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| Moon Samples Taken by Apollo 15 |
The Apollo program was one of the greatest technological achievements ever. It helped grow many jobs and led to many spinoff products. It is estimated that there were over 1,800 spinoff products. Following the Apollo program was the Space Shuttle program, which aimed to fix the Apollo program's problems. For more information on the Space Shuttle program, check out the article I wrote on this blog. In the end, the Apollo program was one of the most important events in the history of the world. It paved the road for future space research and exploration.
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