Amazing facts about the Apollo Program
The Apollo program cost $200 billion
In the early 1960s, the initial estimated cost of the Apollo program was around £5.3 billion ($7 billion), revised to £15.9 billion ($20 billion) by NASA administrator James E. Webb. By the end of the program in 1973, total research and development costs of the 17 missions had cost the US government £18 billion ($23.9 billion), equivalent to around £151 billion ($200 billion) in today’s money.
Apollo 1 met a tragic end
Designated Apollo Saturn-204 or AS-204, the first manned Apollo mission was scheduled to launch on 21 February 1967, but never made it. During a launchpad test on 27 January, a cabin fire broke out, destroying the Command Module and killing all three of its crew: commander Gus Grissom, senior pilot Edward White and pilot Roger Chaffee. The widows requested that the test flight be renamed as the first Apollo mission, and NASA formally retired the Apollo 1 name.
NASA erased the Apollo 11 footage
Unbelievably, the video recording of the original Apollo 11
Moon landing was erased in subsequent years. NASA had a shortage of magnetic tape in the years following the famous 1969 mission and simply recorded over it, kicking themselves 40 years later on the anniversary when the agency wanted to digitally restore the original analogue recording.
Apollo used 3 million litres of fuel
The Apollo program’s Saturn V launch vehicle used a total of around 3.6 million litres of fuel to land humans on the Moon. With a fuel efficiency of 12 kilometres (7.4 miles) per litre, you could drive for nearly 30 million kilometres (18.6 million miles) on a tank that size, or 400 times around Earth. That much fuel aboard the Saturn V increased its weight by 2.55 million kilograms.
Apollo’s power could light a city
The energy generated by the Apollo spacecraft’s reentry into the atmosphere was incredible. It was the equivalent of 86,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is enough to illuminate all of Los Angeles’ street lights for 104 seconds.