About the Story.
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Story: NASA scientists launched Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969. Four days later, the lunar module, manned by Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, separated from the command module and touched down near the Sea of Tranquility. It was a dramatic descent that was almost aborted. Upon arrival, Armstrong transmitted the now-famous message “The Eagle has landed.” The iconic photo of the first footprint on the moon created a huge sensation.
The dream of landing on the moon was at first just a noble idea. U.S. President John F. Kennedy inspired the nation to pursue this monumental goal in a famous speech he gave in 1961: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.” Kennedy inspired his country to get involved in the space race because there was concern that the conflicts on earth would continue in outer space without America’s leadership to ensure peaceful exploration and international cooperation. The vision that many countries shared was that the moon would not belong to any one nation, but it would be a place for all countries on earth.
Landing on the moon was a grandiose project. It required $25 billion with an estimated 400,000 people working for eight years to launch Armstrong and his team off the ground! What was only a dream became real because of the hard work and cooperation of all those people.
When all was completed and the rocket was ready to be launched, the astronauts settled in their command module for a complicated journey to the moon, with no guarantees they’d succeed. Once they left the earth, the team spent 109 hours, 42 minutes to get to the moon.
What was so complicated about getting to the moon? There were many things that could have gone wrong, but fortunately, Apollo 11 had a great crew. One of the most important parts of the mission had to do with the thrusters. Thrusters on the rocket were responsible for slingshotting the module out of the earth’s orbit and propelling it to the moon. If the team had misjudged the timing, and the thrusters had been engaged too early or too late, the trajectory would have carried the rocket into deep space and doomed the mission. The success of the entire project was dependent upon the exact timing and perfect performance of the command module.
The Apollo story is a dramatic example of the cooperation and the precise calculations needed to make an awesome dream come true.
