Page 20 - Intro to Space Sciences Spacecraft Applications

Introduction and History
7
from the earlier Mercury flights in which the astronauts were basically
only along for the ride, and the outstanding successes of Gemini gave
NASA confidence in its abilities to continue on toward the moon.

Apollo. Unlike the earlier flights which used modified ICBMs as launch-
ers, Apollo required a totally new launch vehicle designed specifically to
carry men and equipment to the moon. In 1963, even before the first Gem-
ini flights, Wernher von Braun’s team at the Marshall Space Flight Cen-
ter in Huntsville, Alabama, was given the go-ahead to develop his Saturn
family of powerful boosters. The Saturn V rocket still represents the most
powerful launch vehicle ever developed in the United States and was a
“giant leap” in technology at the time.
However, the confidence gained from the Gemini flights was shaken in
January 1967 when a fire broke out in the Apollo I capsule during a
prelaunch test, killing astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaf-
fee. Redesign of the capsule to prevent any similar occurrences delayed the
first manned Apollo fight, designated Apollo 7, until October 1968.
Only nine months later, on July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong
and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin entered the gangly-looking lunar excursion
module (LEM) and descended to the surface of the moon while Mike
Collins orbited overhead in the Apollo 11 command module. Between this
date and December 1972, five more crews landed on the moon. The
twelve astronauts deployed experiments, explored the surface, and
returned a total of 378 kgs (836 lbs) of lunar material for study by the
international scientific community.
The only other mishap occurred on Apollo 13, when an oxygen tank in
the service module section of the spacecraft exploded on the way to the
moon. The tense situation had a happy ending when the crew was recov-
ered six days after launch. having used the lunar module as a lifeboat and
booster rocket to push themselves around the moon and back toward the
earth in place of the ailing commandservice module.
The Apollo program had successfully met its objectives, and the Unit-
ed States had clearly accomplished an enormous feat. But what next?

Skylab. After the lunar landings, public and governmental support for the
space program diminished. With the escalation of the Vietnam War, peo-
ple began to question the relative worth of the 25 billion dollars spent for
the program. Three planned lunar landings (Apollo 18, 19, and 20) were
canceled as a result of a review of the nation’s space program by a Space