The Apollo program, which ran from 1961 to 1972, reached its pinnacle on July 20, when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the Moon. Their decisions regarding approach, technology, organisation and funding had an outsized influence on human spaceflight and continue to shape today’s space exploration efforts. The…
President Kennedy issued an ambitious challenge for Americans to reach the moon by 1961 and place two men on its surface. NASA achieved this goal in July 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin became the first people ever to step foot onto its surface while Michael Collins orbited around it with Columbia Command…
Spacecraft missions involve journeys by uncrewed spacecraft or robots to explore distant planets, moons, or objects within our Solar System. For instance, NASA Galileo provided evidence of liquid water on Jupiter’s moon Europa before being sent careening into Saturn’s atmosphere to prevent it from landing there and potentially polluting any underground lakes that might support…
No doubt modern smartphones are far more powerful than the computers used on Apollo missions, yet such comparisons underplay the amazing technology employed by NASA during these missions to get us there. MIT-designed Apollo Guidance Computer was crashproof, operating according to a hierarchical system which allocated energy based on program importance; this allowed energy distribution…
Apollo 11 was an historic United States spaceflight which successfully sent humans to land on the moon. This mission marked an achievement in their national mission of outpacing Soviet Russia in space exploration. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made history when they transitioned from their command module Columbia into Eagle, then fired its engine for…
On the third EVA, Cernan and Schmitt drove to Van Serg crater where they collected house-sized rock, took gravimeter readings, deployed more experiments, but ran out of both water and oxygen and had to retreat back to LM. Once inside, they relaxed. However, upon closer inspection they saw that the amount of sunlit land on…
Six Apollo lunar landing missions explored various geologic terrains on the near side of the Moon. This collection of images shows each site explored along with footprints left by astronauts between landing sites. Apollo 14 conducted research at Fra Mauro Crater for evidence of impact melt breccias and rock ages from Imbrium Basin. This mission…
Apollo and Peter Davis, trained search-and-rescue dogs, arrived at the World Trade Center 15 minutes after South Tower collapsed and quickly began searching the rubble piles for survivors – earning themselves the Dickin Medal for their efforts. James Symington drove Trakr and Genelle Guzman across 15 hours from Nova Scotia, Canada, to Manhattan in aid…
NASA’s Apollo program consisted of six missions which used command modules and lunar modules to land astronauts on the Moon. On July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set sail from Columbia’s command module and entered their lunar module Eagle, landing successfully and surveying its surface before calling home: “Houston Tranquility Base here:…
