Legacy of the Moon

The Moon and Star

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The agency celebrated its 50th anniversary this month on Oct. The superpowers were roughly on parallel paths, according to Launius and John Logsdon, former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University here. The United States launched the first American to space, Alan Shepard, on a Mercury capsule, just about a month after the Soviets sent the first man, Yuri Gagarin, into orbit on a Vostok spacecraft April 12, Logsdon said in an Aug.

Dawn of the Space Age.? NACA estimated a two-year development cycle to send a human into orbit but the orbital launcher, the Atlas, took longer than expected to complete, he said. John Glenn became the first American in orbit Feb. Mercury was an experiment to see whether a human could survive the extremely rapid travel necessary for orbit, could perform tasks while weightless and survive the forces of re-entry, Logsdon said.

But the manned Mercury flights commenced under newly elected John Kennedy who, unlike his predecessor, was more interested improving the United States? Kennedy noted the positive reaction from around the world to Gagarin? Saddled with another Soviet space first and the failed U. The answer came back that a manned Moon landing would be just such a program.

It was risky but the success of Shepard?

The war analogy also applies to the budget that was required for the moon landing. Charged with landing an astronaut on the moon, Project Apollo was announced July 29, The proposal departed from NASA?

Steve Pyke

That plan was partly based on what is considered the traditional space program paradigm, which was popularly championed by visionary Marshall Space Flight Center head Wernher von Braun, who wanted to establish a space station in Earth orbit and then travel to the moon, Logsdon said. The Gemini program, which was announced Dec. Launius compares Gemini to a middle child that is successful in its own right but oft-forgotten between the firsts of oldest-child Mercury and the splendor of youngest child Apollo.

Gemini was necessary because NASA planners needed to know how to rendezvous and dock. Gemini also maintained manned activity to prevent a problematic five-year gap during the space race with the Soviet Union, Launius said. Gemini was completed in just a year and a half, Spitzmiller said in an Aug. Gemini missions, which often involved rendezvousing and docking with target Agena launch vehicles and one rendezvous between two Gemini orbiters, also helped develop procedures for spacewalks and long-duration missions, he said.

NASA's Legacy: The Quest for the Moon

Until Gemini the longest U. Gemini astronauts were unable to perform efficient spacewalks until Buzz Aldrin perfected a new spacewalking technique during the Gemini 12 mission that would help prevent spacewalkers from exerting themselves unnecessarily.? With a doctorate in astronautics Aldrin had a better understanding of microgravity than his fellow astronauts and he worked diligently on space rendezvous techniques, Launius said.

The United States could have stopped the Apollo missions after Apollo 11, but the nation wanted to prove it could do it consistently, and scientists were pushing for further lunar studies, Launius said.

By the Light of the Moon

In the s Launius had the opportunity to talk to a Russian who had worked in the design bureau of Soviet Chief Designer Sergei Korolev, who is credited with driving the Soviet space program until his death in The rovers could reach a top speed of about 8 mph about 13 kph , but the moon's cratered surface prevented the astronauts from driving too fast. It was a pretty bouncy ride. Even flat looking terrain on the moon is not very flat because there are so many crater pits, so it would have been a fairly exciting ride.

Apollo 15 provided a blip upwards in public interest. Part of it was because the landing site was so much more attractive, and there were also more television broadcasts from the moon. But, the rovers were definitely a part of that.

The public took a lot of interest in this new capability that the astronauts had. The LRVs allowed the Apollo astronauts to explore beyond their landing site, but there were definite limitations, such as the non-rechargeable battery life of the rovers. As a safety precaution, the vehicles were also constrained to a distance that, if the rover broke down, the astronauts would have enough resources in their life support systems to walk back to the Lunar Module. On the Apollo 15 mission, the LRV was driven a total of about 17 miles 27 km , which amounted to 3 hours and 2 minutes of driving time, according to NASA officials.

The Moon and Star

In the decades since the end of the Apollo program, engineers have looked to the LRVs for cues on how to develop current and future manned and robotic rovers. Even though past and current Mars rovers were designed to be robotic, studying the first manned lunar vehicles proved invaluable, said Kobie Boykins, an engineer in JPL's spacecraft mechanical and engineering division.

All the basic physics of how we interact with the soil stays the same even without having a human being in the rover. It helped us understand our capabilities and our limits. We needed to then figure out how to drive over rocks and drive on steeper inclines, but it's all applicable.

Boykins and his team worked on the twin Spirit and Opportunity rovers, which landed on Mars in January and have greatly outlasted their planned three-month lifespan. Spirit, which got stuck in sand, was declared dead by its operators earlier this year, but Opportunity is still driving steadily on the surface of the Red Planet.

Lunar Iron Sword

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