MOON SHOTS
Houston, we have a pictorial… Stunning images tracing the 1961-72 Project Apollo missions that took us to the moon and back.
In 1961 US president John F. Kennedy announced his goal of putting a man on the moon – and “returning him safely to Earth”. The first Saturn rocket (SA–1) was launched later that year. Project Apollo was under way
APOLLO WAS THE GREEK GOD
of archery and music and, more significantly, he was the chariot-driving god of the sun. The spacecraft named after him was designed to take three astronauts into the moon’s orbit, where it would release a lunar module with two astronauts aboard to land on the moon. After two days, the module would lift off and bring them back to orbit, and all crew would return to Earth. In 1967, a flash fire in the first manned Apollo Saturn flight during a prelaunch test killed the three astronauts aboard. The Apollo 1 commemorative medallion is pictured above.
APOLLO SPACECRAFT
were lifted by Saturn rockets. The Apollo Project included both manned and unmanned space missions, flown by NASA between 1961 and 1975. The Apollo 8 mission took astronauts around the moon for the first time in 1968. Above: Photographs taken aboard Apollo 9 show the crew enjoying their ten-day stay in Earth’s orbit. More distant views of Earth were captured on missions to the moon. (In the circle is a photograph by the Apollo 10 crew, the second mission to orbit the moon.)
APOLLO 11 LANDED ON THE MOON
on July 20, 1969. A specially designed folding American flag was planted together by Neil Armstrong and Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin. The flag-like Solar Wind Composition Experiment, which Aldrin is shown installing above, was the first experiment set up on the lunar surface. The astronauts exposed an aluminium foil sheet to a flow of charged particles emitted by the sun and then brought the foils back to earth for scientific analysis, with 22 kilograms of material, including 50 rocks and samples of the fine lunar soil.
IN 1970, APOLLO 13 CANCELLED
its moon landing after an oxygen tank exploded, damaging the ship. The crew used the lunar module as their ‘lifeboat’. Above, engineers on the ground improvise a way to remove carbon dioxide from the module – such that the astronauts could construct it on board with duct tape and cardboard. The successful splashdown is pictured. The 1995 film Apollo 13 is based on the book Lost Moon written by mission commander Jim Lovell.
FOUR MORE MISSIONS FOLLOWED.
Apollo 15 astronauts stayed on the moon for three days and used a lunar rover, which Eugene Cernan of Apollo 17 (1972) is driving above. So far, he remains the last person who has walked on the moon. Thanks to space-history fan Kipp Teague and NASA’s cooperation, thousands of Apollo mission photographs are now on the internet. They are unedited and free to view or download.