What do you know about Apollo 11 and the Apollo program?

Question

I need to know everything about Apollo 11. And please, spare me the stuff about going to the moon being fake. This is a project I'm doing, and for my paper I can't put "We never went." Thanks a million!

Answer 1

Here are some great sites about Apollo 11:





*For future reference, this research took very little effort. I just typed "apollo 11" into the Yahoo! search field. Knowing how to conduct research is a skill that will serve you well throughout your life.

Answer 2

Honestly, there's more to know than could ever be summed up in a single answer here. To me, Apollo is one of the greatest achievments humanity has ever accomplished. Why? What else have we ever done in the entirety of recorded human history that gave us moments where the entire earth was one - we weren't American, Russian, Chinese, etc.... as Neil Armstrong took his one small step, the entire world looked on and felt the awe and wonder that we as a species had accomplished this "giant leap."

I highly recommend spending a few days' worth of your web surfing time reading everything you can 'get your hands on' about Apollo. For me, it's even more entertaining than watching TV because I'm enriching myself as I find out amazing new things.

When you read about this project, and about related topics, it just blows you away to think of how complicated all of this is. In an era of sci-fi movies where all you have to do is set engines to "warp factor 7" and "make it so" it's easy to lose sight of what all really goes into a space flight. The mechanics of orbits, the need to think of anything and everything that could possibly happen, and plan for it, the awesome power required to escape the Earth... the list goes on and on.

I could go on and on, but in stead, I'll give you some good jumping-off points.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Apollo
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/history/apollo/index.html
http://www.nasm.si.edu/collections/imagery/apollo/apollo.htm
http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/history/apollo/apollo.html

A nice retrospective by an enthusiast
http://www.retroweb.com/apollo_retrospective.html

Also, if you can find a copy of the HBO miniseries "From the Earth to the Moon," I highly recommend it.

I hope you enjoy learning about this amazing chapter in human history.

Answer 3

The following is from the source. That source has a LOT more.

Apollo 11 (CSM Columbia and LM Eagle)
Saturn V
July 16-24, 1969
Neil A. Armstrong
Michael Collins
Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr.

08 days, 03 hours, 18 minutes
First manned lunar landing mission and lunar
surface EVA. "HOUSTON, TRANQUILITY BASE HERE.
THE EAGLE HAS LANDED."--July 20,

Landing site: Sea of Tranquility.
Landing Coordinates: 0.67409 degrees North, 23.47298 degrees East
(Source: National Space Science Data Center)

1 EVA of 02 hours, 31 minutes. Flag and instruments deployed; unveiled plaque on the LM descent stage with inscription: "Here Men From Planet Earth First Set Foot Upon the Moon. July 1969 A.D. We Came In Peace For All Mankind." Lunar surface stay time 21.6 hours; 59.5 hours in lunar orbit, with 30 orbits. LM ascent stage left in lunar orbit. 20 kg (44 lbs) of material gathered.

Answer 4

It happened in July 1969.
I remember watching the Sinclair Paint commercials in the months previous, they were saying that Armstrong would be the first man to step upon the moon.

We all sat in front of our TVs (which had tubes back then and took ten minutes to warm up!) on the big day, and everyone heard Armstrong flub his line. "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." News reports later tried to spin it and misquoted "That's one small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind."

Afterwards, there was a popular song on the radio, whose lyrics went "a man named Armstrong walked upon the moon" and ended with "a man named Adam walked upon the Earth."

We all saw the splashdown on TV too.