Happy Monday and welcome to another edition of Beyond The Forecast!
The Mercury program proved that it was possible to take a human into space. The Gemini program built on that foundation by testing the technical details necessary to go beyond Earth’s orbit. Years of work led to the program that would go on to become the crown jewel in the journey to the moon: the Apollo program.
Apollo was the program set to achieve President Kennedy’s famous goal of putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. In fact, the mission of getting astronauts to the moon first got approval during the Eisenhower administration.
The origins of Apollo begin in the early 1960s, but by the time Mercury ended, NASA was officially established. The formal space administration initiated the Gemini program as the in-between step necessary to study how humans handle extended time in space and how to rendezvous two separate spacecraft.
American spaceflight started with modified missiles the military already had on hand, but getting to the moon means traveling much further than just beyond our atmosphere.
The moon is nearly 240,000 miles away from Earth. As a comparison, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is 2.5 miles long. Getting to the moon would be the equivalent of 192 runnings of the Indy 500.
To bring the astronauts themselves, the equipment necessary to keep them alive in space, and the actual lander they would use to set foot on the moon the Apollo rocket would need a tremendous amount of power. NASA again worked with government contractors to first develop the Saturn IB rocket. This rocket was intensely powerful in its own right: it stood almost 60 feet taller than the Mercury-Redstone and could carry 10 times as much weight. But even the Saturn IB is dwarfed by the rocket the astronauts actually rode on: the Saturn V.
To effectively bring astronauts to the moon, each Apollo mission needed three astronauts and three spacecraft. The Saturn V carried a massive amount of fuel in its first stage (stages are the points of separation of rockets that allow smaller pieces of a mission more ease of maneuverability). In the upper stages of the rocket was the conical Command module where the astronauts piloted their vehicle and lived through most of the mission, the cylindrical Service module which provided oxygen and water for the astronauts as well as navigation controls, and the Lunar module two of the three astronauts used to land on the moon.
Because of how the Lunar module needed to fold in order to be launched on the Saturn V the astronaut crew needed to turn the already-attached Command and Service modules around to dock with the Lunar module. Then the crew would use the Earth’s gravity as a slingshot to send it to the moon.
Two astronauts would board the Lunar lander, while the main pilot stayed aboard the Command module. The Lunar module then lands, the astronauts perform the specific research assigned to them, then they climb aboard and use the top half of the Lunar module to launch back into the moon’s orbit.
The crew compartment of the Lunar module docks with the Command module, the astronauts transfer back into their seats, and then they turn around and head home using the moon’s gravity as another slingshot. When the spacecraft is ready to come back into Earth’s atmosphere the Command module detaches from the Service module and then, much like its Mercury and Gemini predecessors, falls back to Earth with a heat shield protecting the astronauts and parachutes slowing them down.
The Saturn V remains one of the tallest rockets ever built. Towering at more than 360 feet, the Saturn V could carry more than 6 times the weight the Saturn IB was capable of. It was such a massive project that NASA created a purpose-built Vehicle Assembly Building to handle the extreme necessities of the project.
NASA continued to use the VAB through the Space Shuttle era and still uses it for the rockets in the modern Artemis program. The first Apollo-designated mission that used the Saturn V was Apollo 4: a tragedy on a previous rocket bore the title of Apollo 1.
The crew for the first Apollo mission was counting down to a launch in late February. Gus Grissom, the second American in space, Ed White, the first American to ever take a spacewalk during the Gemini 4 mission, and Roger Chaffee, a newly selected astronaut that had yet to take to the stars, manned the command module of their spacecraft to test it without being connected to an Earth-bound power supply.
The capsule was intentionally filled with pure oxygen to simulate conditions the astronauts would experience in space. Unshielded wiring sparked during the test, and since the oxygen in the air was much more concentrated than in the standard atmosphere, the fire spread quickly. All three astronauts died before the ground crews could open the hatch. Their deaths initiated a massive review of safety procedures throughout the space program, and their test received the Apollo 1 designation in honor of their service.
After a few rocket tests and some unmanned launches testing the procedures, Mission Control needed to execute during Apollo missions NASA stood ready to launch astronauts for a live test. Apollo 7 soared from the launchpad carrying the 3-astronaut crew that all Apollo missions carried.
The rocket test went off without any issues (since this mission stayed in Earth orbit, it used the Saturn IB again since it didn’t need the full capabilities of the Saturn V). All three astronauts developed bad colds on the trip, but they fought through them to successfully practice the docking maneuver necessary to collect the Lunar Module and perform the first television broadcast from space.
Now that the first set of procedures had a successful test, NASA was ready to send a spacecraft all the way to the moon.
Actually landing would take a few more tests: the program wanted to make sure each leg of the trip was safe and they wanted to learn about any unexpected bumps in the road with limited risk. Apollo 8 brought the Command and Service modules of the Apollo spacecraft around the Earth and into the moon’s orbit. The Apollo 8 crew took meticulous notes on the lunar surface that proved important for selecting a landing site as the program continued.
Apollo 9 added the Lunar module into the testing mix, and Apollo 10 brought the entire spacecraft to the moon and did just about everything necessary to land except the landing itself.
That honor fell to the crew of Apollo 11. Michael Collins piloted the spacecraft that brought Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin into the moon’s orbit.
The mission started off without any major issues, and as Armstrong and Aldrin brought their Lunar module, the Eagle, away from the Command module all seemed normal. On approach, Armstrong noticed that the predicted flight path would put them right into a crater that NASA did not have knowledge of. He used his test pilot’s skill to bring the Eagle away from the crater and down onto the lunar surface without any further issues.
After four hours of additional preparation, Armstrong took the first steps of any human onto the moon. Aldrin followed soon after, and both astronauts appeared on the first lunar television transmission. The dream came true on July 20, 1969.
Reaching the moon was only the first step for NASA. Apollo 12 launched later in 1969 to conduct extensive exploration of the moon. Apollo 13 followed the next year, but due to an explosion during flight, the mission turned from exploring even more of the moon to bringing the astronauts home safely.
Four more Apollo missions followed furthering scientific discovery and exploration. The Lunar Roving Vehicle made its debut during Apollo 15 and made it even easier for astronauts to traverse their new environment.
Changing political priorities meant a scaled-back budget for NASA after the moon landing. Apollo 17 marked the last time humans set foot on the moon, and no one ventured back in the last 50 years.
Space exploration stayed closer to home in the meantime: NASA teamed up with the USSR in developing the Skylab space station, and later in the 1970s, the Space Shuttle brought larger astronaut crews into space for more discoveries. The shuttle program proved instrumental in the development of the International Space Station, but the moon was still a far-off target.
NASA set its sights back on the lunar surface in the 2010s. The Artemis program is set to bring humans back to the moon as a stepping stone for deeper space exploration in the coming decades.
Keep an eye out for more Beyond the Forecast articles all about when NASA plans to go back to the moon.
Fall is definitely here. The chilly but clear mornings make it an easy week to spot some planets. You can download our weather app to see which nights are the clearest and get Meteorologist Chris Michaels’ latest updates online.
You can always get specific forecast details for your zone, whether it’s the Roanoke Valley, Lynchburg area, the New River Valley or elsewhere around Southwest and Central Virginia, anytime at WSLS.com/weather. Know your zone!
In case you missed it, we have great weather and science content on WSLS.com. Here are some featured stories from the past week:
- 3 physicists share Nobel Prize for work on quantum science
- Smacked asteroid’s debris trail more than 6,000 miles long
- SpaceX delivers Russian, Native American women to station
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— Marshall Downing
Source: WSLS News 10
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