Apollo

Everyone remembers these famous words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Neil Armstrong spoke these words as he made the first step on the moon. Apollo was a mission that took billions of dollars to complete, but put America first in the space race, and helped scientists better understand the moon. Here are the goals of the Apollo Project:


* To establish the technology to meet other
national interests in space;

* To achieve preeminence in space for the United
States;

* To carry out a program of scientific ex-
ploration of the Moon; and

* To develop man's capability to work in the
lunar environment.

To get the astronauts to the moon, NASA used a three part spacecraft to get the astronauts to the moon. This spacecraft consisted of a Command Module (CM), a Service Module (SM), and the Lunar Module (LM). The CM was where the crew slept, and lived in space, the SM was what pushed the spacecraft through space, and the LM, which was where the two astronauts lived on the moon.

A few missions that you might recognize are Apollo 11, and Apollo 13. Apollo 11 was the mission that put the first human on the moon. Apollo 11's crew is as follows: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. Apollo 13 was a mission that Universal made a movie of called Apollo 13. Apollo 13 was the closest NASA ever got to losing a human in space. On the way to the moon an oxygen tank burst, and the crew barely got back to Earth alive.
Go To: Homepage, Gemini, Introduction, Mercury, Space Shuttle, or Space Stations