THIS THURSDAY will mark the beginning of the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11's mission to the moon.
Two-thirds of Americans were either not born, or were too young (less than 5 years old) to remember this epochal event. But now, thanks to the John F. Kennedy Library, they will be able to experience it for themselves.
Beginning Thursday, the website We Choose The Moon will offer a minute-by-minute online recreation of the event, from launch to moon landing.
Many may be surprised at how little they knew... for instance, that the first step by humankind onto another terrestrial body took place six hours after landing, or that the return capsule had only 30 seconds of fuel remaining...
Fifteen Facts You May Not Know About Apollo 11...
- Presidential speech writer William Saffire had prepared a speech for President Nixon should the astronauts die in the attempt.
- Neil Armstrong was a civilian Astronaut, not a member of the Air Force. He had been a Naval combat pilot, and then became a civilian test pilot for the X-15.
- Though Neil Armstrong was the first to walk on the moon, Michael Collins was the Command Module pilot, and Buzz Aldrin was the Lunar Module pilot.
- As the Lunar Module made its descent, alarm bells went off signalling program problems, which could have led to aborting the mission. Back at Mission Control, Flight Controller Steve Bales identified the alarms as resulting from computer overload, and okayed the landing. Bales would later receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his role.
- The Lunar Module landing site was improvised after finding the planned site too rocky for safety. For a while Mission Control had no idea of the location of the module or the astronauts, and Astronaut Mike Collins who was orbiting the moon in the command module never saw the landing site (called Tranquility Base).
- Though Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk the moon, Buzz Aldrin was the first to urinate there (into his space suit's relief tube).
- Buzz Aldrin left behind on the moon commemorative patches for three American astronauts and two Soviet cosmonauts who had died in the line of duty.
- The mineral Armalcolite was discovered at Tranquility Base. Its name is a combination of the three astronauts of Apollo 11 - Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins.
- Six hundred million people watched the Astronauts on the moon.
- The Lunar Module, named Eagle, was on the moon for 21 hours and 36 minutes.
- The splash down point was 13°19 N 169°9 W:
- The entire mission, from launch to splashdown, lasted 195 hours, 18 minutes, and 35 seconds (a little over 8 full Earth days).
- The three astronauts were quarantined for three weeks after their return to Earth.
- The return capsule is on display at the National Air and Space Museum.
- Only 12 men ever walked on the moon's surface: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Pete Conrad, Alan Bean, Alan Shepard, Edgar Mitchell, David Scott, Jim Irwin, John Young, Charlie Duke, Gene Cernan, and Harrison Schmitt -- who on the final Apollo flight took captured this world-famous image, which came to be known as the 'blue marble' photo:
From NASA...
Top Ten Scientific Discoveries Made During Apollo Exploration of the Moon
- The Moon is not a primordial object; it is an evolved terrestrial planet with internal zoning similar to that of Earth. Before Apollo, the state of the Moon was a subject of almost unlimited speculation. We now know that the Moon is made of rocky material that has been variously melted, erupted through volcanoes, and crushed by meteorite impacts. The Moon possesses a thick crust (60 km), a fairly uniform lithosphere (60-1000 km), and a partly liquid asthenosphere (1000-1740 km); a small iron core at the bottom of the asthenosphere is possible, but unconfirmed. Some rocks give hints for ancient magnetic fields although no planetary field exists today.
- The Moon is ancient and still preserves an early history (the first billion years) that must be common to all terrestrial planets. The extensive record of meteorite craters on the Moon, when calibrated using absolute ages of rock samples, provides a key for unravelling time scales for the geologic evolution of Mercury, Venus, and Mars based on their individual crater records. Photogeologic interpretation of other planets is based largely on lessons learned from the Moon. Before Apollo, however, the origin of lunar impact craters was not fully understood and the origin of similar craters on Earth was highly debated.
- The youngest Moon rocks are virtually as old as the oldest Earth rocks. The earliest processes and events that probably affected both planetary bodies can now only be found on the Moon. Moon rock ages range from about 3.2 billion years in the maria (dark, low basins) to nearly 4.6 billion years in the terrae (light, rugged highlands). Active geologic forces, including plate tectonics and erosion, continuously repave the oldest surfaces on Earth whereas old surfaces persist with little disturbance on the Moon.
- The Moon and Earth are genetically related and formed from different proportions of a common reservoir of materials. The distinctively similar oxygen isotopic compositions of Moon rocks and Earth rocks clearly show common ancestry. Relative to Earth, however, the Moon was highly depleted in iron and in volatile elements that are needed to form atmospheric gases and water.
- The Moon is lifeless; it contains no living organisms, fossils, or native organic compounds. Extensive testing revealed no evidence for life, past or present, among the lunar samples. Even non-biological organic compounds are amazingly absent; traces can be attributed to contamination by meteorites.
- All Moon rocks originated through high-temperature processes with little or no involvement with water. They are roughly divisible into three types: basalts, anorthosites, and breccias. Basalts are dark lava rocks that fill mare basins; they generally resemble, but are much older than, lavas that comprise the oceanic crust of Earth. Anorthosites are light rocks that form the ancient highlands; they generally resemble, but are much older than, the most ancient rocks on Earth. Breccias are composite rocks formed from all other rock types through crushing, mixing, and sintering during meteorite impacts. The Moon has no sandstones, shales, or limestones, testifying to the importance of water-borne processes on Earth.
- Early in its history, the Moon was melted to great depths to form a "magma ocean." The lunar highlands contain the remnants of early, low-density rocks that floated to the surface of the magma ocean. The lunar highlands were formed about 4.4-4.6 billion years ago by flotation of an early, feldspar-rich crust on a magma ocean that covered the Moon to a depth of many tens of kilometers or more. Innumerable meteorite impacts through geologic time reduced much of the ancient crust to arcuate mountain ranges between basins.
- The lunar magma ocean was followed by a series of huge asteroid impacts that created basins which were later filled by lava flows. The large, dark basins such as Mare Imbrium are gigantic impact craters, formed early in lunar history, that were later filled by lava flows about 3.2-3.9 billion years ago. Lunar volcanism occurred mostly as lava floods that spread horizontally; volcanic fire fountains produced deposits of orange and emerald-green glass beads.
- The Moon is slightly asymmetrical in bulk form, possibly as a consequence of its evolution under Earth's gravitational influence. Its crust is thicker on the far side, while most volcanic basins -- and unusual mass concentrations--occur on the near side. Mass is not distributed uniformly inside the Moon. Large mass concentrations ("mascons") lie beneath the surface of many large lunar basins and probably represent thick accumulations of dense lava. Relative to its geometric center, the Moon's center of mass is displaced toward Earth by several kilometers.
- The surface of the Moon is covered by a rubble pile of rock fragments and dust, called the lunar regolith, that contains a unique radiation history of the Sun, which is of importance to understanding climate changes on Earth. The regolith was produced by innumerable meteorite impacts through geologic time. Surface rocks and mineral grains are distinctively enriched in chemical elements and isotopes implanted by solar radiation. As such, the Moon has recorded four billion years of the Sun's history to a degree of completeness that we are unlikely to find elsewhere.
More from NASA...
NASA Links About Apollo
Apollo 40th Anniversary web site celebrates the many accomplishments of the Apollo Program.
Apollo Program Overview at the Kennedy Space Center: A fine collection of materials relating to each Apollo mission, including an impressive collection of images.
Apollo Press Kits placed on-line in .pdf format by the Kennedy Space Center.
Apollo Lunar Surface Journal: An excellent site containing the transcripts of all the transmissions between Earth and the Moon while the astronauts were on the surface.
Apollo Soyuz Test Project: A site commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Apollo Soyuz Test Project with video and historical documents.
The Apollo Program Summary Report (Document # JSC-09423, April 1975): This hard-to-find document is an extremely useful overview of Apollo with details on the spacecraft, launch vehicles, scientific results, etc.
The Decision to Go to the Moon: President John F. Kennedy's May 25, 1961 Speech before a Joint Session of Congress, initiating Project Apollo
The Flights of Apollo: Information about each mission in the Apollo program.
A Historic Meeting at the White House about Human Spaceflight involving President Kennedy and NASA Administrator James Webb on November 20, 1962.
Apollo 1 (204): A special exhibit about the Apollo 1 (204 Capsule Fire) that took place on January 27, 1967.
Apollo 11 35th Anniversary Exhibit: An excellent site with documents, images, movies, and historical commentary.
Report of the Apollo 13 Review Board (a.k.a. the Cortright Commission): This is the report issued after the Apollo 13 accident which prevented the mission from landing on the moon and nearly cost the lives of the astronauts involved.
Apollo 12 Flight JournalA new companion to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal and the already existing Apollo Flight Journals.
Apollo 13 Detailed Chronology
Apollo 15 Flight Journal: A splendid companion to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, this evolving site contains the air-to-ground transcript of this trip to the Moon, accompanied by detailed technical commentary.
On the Moon with Apollo 16: A Guidebook to the Descartes Region: This guidebook contains many photographs and diagrams of the Descartes region and the equipment used on Apollo 16 for research and exploration and also explains the importance of scientific research in the region.
Lunar Exploration Times, 1959-1976: An outstanding chronology concerning missions to the Moon conducted by both the United States and the Soviet Union. Includes not only the Apollo flights but also the satellite probes sent to the Moon.
Apollo Audio and Video Segmentsfrom NASA's Fortieth Anniversary.
Non-NASA Links About Apollo
Apollo and the Smithsonian Institution: An interesting exhibit about Project Apollo created by the National Air and Space Museum.
Boeing Celebrates the 30th Anniversary of Apollo 11: A site about Boeing North American (the former Rockwell aerospace units) and McDonnell Douglas, and their roles in helping to make possible the first Moon landing.
The Apollo Mode Decision: A good private site at Clemson University on the debate over the method of flying to the Moon with Project Apollo.
"To the Moon" the companion Web site to the two-hour NOVA special that chronicles the untold science and engineering story of how we got to the moon. The program will be broadcast on PBS at 8 pm on July 13,1999.
"Washington Goes to the Moon": A two-part radio program that deals with the political story of the acquiring and sustaining of support of the Apollo lunar landing program in the 1960s. Produced by WAMU-FM, the public radio station of the American University in Washington, D.C., the show's web site also has transcripts of the two programs, on-line documents, and transcripts of interviews with key personnel.
Apollo at American Samoa: Some interesting information about the Apollo missions that landed near and then passed through American Samoa.
Apollo Saturn Reference Page: Detailed technical information about the Saturn Launch Vehicles for modelers and space buffs, by a private enthusiast.
Contact Light: A personal recollection of the Apollo missions to the Moon. This site by a private enthusiast includes some cool video and audio clips, a lunar landing simulator game, and reference tables.
Where Were You? This web site is dedicated to collecting memories from the various points of view of people who where alive during the historic landing of Apollo 11.
"One Giant Leap" commemorates the anniversary of Apollo 11 with a visual journey and interesting facts and data.
First Moon Landing in 1969 marked an entire generation: Memories of the first moon landing on October 4, 1969
Apollo 11 Commentary: Contains the complete audio air to ground transmissions in streaming format
Man In Space: Study of Alternatives: This is a National Park Service study to identify possible locations and other components of the national park system that pertain to Apollo.
Virtual AGC and AGS Home Page Project Overview: A page devoted to the Apollo guidance computer.
On-line Books Concerning Project Apollo:
Apollo Expeditions to the Moon (NASA SP-350, 1975)
Apollo Over the Moon: A View From Orbit (NASA SP-362, 1978).
The Apollo Spacecraft: A Chronology (NASA SP-4009, 4 volumes, 1969-1978).
Managing NASA in the Apollo Era (NASA SP-4102, 1982)
NASA Engineers and the Age of Apollo. (NASA SP-4104,1992).
Moonport: A History of Apollo Launch Facilities and Operations (NASA SP-4204, 1978).
Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft (NASA SP-4205, 1979).
Where No Man Has Gone Before: A History of Apollo Lunar Exploration Missions (NASA SP-4214, 1989).
Unmanned Space Project Management: Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter (NASA SP-4901, 1972).
Destination Moon: A History of the Lunar Orbiter Program (NASA TM-3487, 1977).
An Annotated Bibliography of the Apollo Program (Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 2, 1994).
Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis (Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 3, 1994).
Enchanted Rendezvous: John C. Houbolt and the Genesis of the Lunar-Orbit Rendezvous Concept (Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 4, 1995).
Apollo by the Numbers: A Statistical Reference(NASA SP-4029, 2001).
Biomedical Results of Apollo (NASA SP-368, 1975).
What Made Apollo A Success? (NASA SP-287, 1971).
"Before This Decade is Out..." Personal Reflections on the Apollo Program (NASA SP-4223, 1999).
Project Apollo: The Tough Decisions (Monographs in Aerospace History, No. 37, 2005).
A blissful Neil Armstrong in the Lunar Module after his moon walk. |
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