Space Exploration, Moon, Manned

The idea of lunar exploration goes back at least as far as 1638, when the protagonist of Francis Godwin’s Man in the Moon rode a flock of 25 geese from the earth to the lunar surface. Animals played a rather less fanciful role in man’s actual first steps into space, with the dog Lai'ka riding aloft in the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik-2 in November 1957.

Early Soviet space successes prompted the U.S. to accelerate its own space program. The U.S. entered space with the launch of the unmanned probe Explorer-1 on 31 January 1958, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), was founded in October 1958. Manned moon exploration was preceded by a series of unmanned missions by both the USSR and the U.S.

The USSR’s Luna series of spacecraft successfully reached the moon as early as 1959; the first spacecraft to land on the moon was Luna-2, which touched down on 14 September 1959. The Soviet Luna-9 landed on the moon on 3 February 1966, transmitting pictures of the moon’s surface back to earth. The U.S. followed suit with Surveyor-1, which achieved a soft lunar landing on the plain Oceanus Procellarum on 2 June 1966.

Manned space exploration began with the flight of the Russian Yuri Gagarin on 12 April 1961. It continued with the U.S. Mercury program, one of three successive U.S. programs leading up to the first moon landing. The one-manned Mercury capsule was launched into space aboard a Mercury Redstone (MR3) launch vehicle.

The first Mercury flight was accomplished by astronaut Alan B. Shepard, Jr. on 5 May 1961. The Gemini program followed. A major goal of the Gemini program was to increase the length of manned space flights. The two-man Gemini craft was lifted into orbit aboard a Titan-2 launch vehicle. Milestones in the Gemini program included the first rendezvous of one spacecraft with another, the first docking maneuver of two spacecraft, and the first ‘‘spacewalk’’ by American astronaut Ed White in June 1965 as part of the Gemini-4 mission (Figure 18).

Figure 18. Ed White, first American spacewalker, June 3, 1965

Information gathered on Gemini missions was critical in the Apollo program that would land the first man on the moon in July of 1969. The Apollo missions utilized a three-man space capsule carried into space aboard either a Saturn-4 or Saturn-5 booster rocket. The Apollo spacecraft had three components: the command module (CM) designed to return the astronauts to earth, the service module, housing the electrical and propulsion systems, and the insect-like lunar excursion module (LEM) designed to carry astronauts to the surface of the moon.

The 4.6-meter-tall LEM weighed 12 tons, the 7-meter-tall service module, 25 tons. The crew comprised a commander, a LEM pilot, and a CM pilot. The CM pilot remained in orbit around the moon, while the commander and LEM pilot descended to the surface.

There were ten manned flights from 1968 to 1972. The first of the planned Apollo missions ended in tragedy on 27 January 27 1967, when a fire during a launch-pad test killed astronauts Roger Chaffee, Virgil Grissom, and Edward White. The disaster prompted a thorough re-design of the lunar and command modules.

The first manned spacecraft to leave the earth’s orbit and orbit the moon was Apollo-8, which began its lunar orbit on 24 December 1968. Apollo-10, launched on 18 May 1969, was the ‘‘dress rehearsal’’ for the actual moon landing that followed with Apollo-11. On this mission, which came within 14.5 kilometers of the moon, astronauts investigated the Sea of Tranquility and provided the first live color television broadcast from space.

Two months later, Apollo-11 carried the first astronaut to the surface of the moon. Launched on 16 July 1969, the spacecraft landed on Sunday, 20 July at 4:17 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time in the Sea of Tranquility. Aboard the craft were Neil A. Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the moon, Edwin E. ‘‘Buzz’’ Aldrin, Jr., and Michael Collins. At 10:10 p.m., after sleeping for a few hours, Armstrong and Aldrin walked on the moon as Collins remained aboard the command module, Columbia. Armstrong and Aldrin raised the American flag for the television camera and left it behind along with a few instruments and a plaque reading ‘‘Here men from planet earth first set foot upon the moon.

July 1969 AD. We came in peace for all mankind.’’ It is estimated that roughly 600 million people viewed the televised landing. The lunar module left the moon on 21 July after more than 21 hours on its surface, and the spacecraft returned to earth on 24 July with drilled core samples, photographs and moon rocks.

The Apollo program continued after the July 1969 landing, with the final mission, Apollo-17, launched on 7 December 1972 (see Figure 19). Like the Apollo-11 mission, Apollo-17 astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, Ronald E. Evans, and Harrison H. ‘‘Jack’’ Schmitt left behind a plaque, which read ‘‘Here man completed his first exploration of the moon, December 1972 AD.

Figure 19. Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan, Apollo-17 mission commander, makes a short checkout of the lunar roving vehicle during the early part of the first Apollo-17 extravehicular activity. This view of the ‘‘stripped down’’ Rover is prior to load-up. The mountain in the right background is the east end of South Massif

May the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind.’’ In total, the Apollo program executed three earth-orbiting missions, two lunar-orbiting missions, one lunar flyby, and six lunar landings.