Moon Flight
On May 25, 1961, John F. Kennedy delivered
one of the most memorable State of
the Union addresses in the history of the
United States. "I believe that this
nation should commit itself to achieving
the goal, before this decade is out, of
landing a man on the Moon and
returning him safely to the earth"
(http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklibrary,
President John F. Kennedy's Special
Message to the Congress on Urgent National
Needs). With those words,
Kennedy launched a new era of space exploration in the
United States.
Although the National Aeronautics And Space Administration was
created in
1958 by the National Aeronautics and Space Act
(http://www.hq.nasa.gov,
Key Documents), and the Russians already
launched the first satellite into space
in 1957, the US was still at a stand
still on the subject. What the country
needed was a wake-up call, and that is
exactly what it got from one of the most
celebrated speakers in its history.
The new era promised much, but expected
little. From USA’s struggle to be the
dominant world power in the Cold War
Era, to the careless depletion of
natural resources in the Information Age,
space exploration and astronauts
were and will be the real keys to the new
millennium and beyond. Before
looking into the future, or even evaluating the
present, one must look in
detail at the history of the space project. The
missions that gave scientists
and engineers the necessary data and experience to
make new, safer, more
reliable and intricate equipment were launched long before
there was
realistic talk of sending probes to Mars. The astronauts that helped
shape
the training programs, took the beatings of primitive flight tests, and
died
in order to serve their country were born before World War II. And even
the
Russian Space Program was crucial to what the space program is today.
It fueled
competition, and provided more resources for American engineers.
Until Apollo
11, they were ahead of the Americans in almost everyway,
with their launch of
Sputnik, a unmanned satellite in 1957, and their
countless firsts in orbiting
and space walks. Yuri Gagarin was the first man
in space. Although most of the
missions that have been launched have been
important in their own ways, some
missions just stand out, whether it was the
first step on the Moon, or the first
mission to Mars. NASA’s first high
profile program was Project Mercury, an
effort to learn if humans could
survive in space. It was the prelude to the
later missions, and it gave NASA
the necessary data to build better, and more
comfortable ships for humans to
stay in space for extended periods of time. The
first launch of the Mercury
program was the LJ-1 on August 21, 1959. At
thirty-five minutes before
launch, evacuation of the area had been proceeding on
schedule. Suddenly,
half an hour before launch-time, an explosive flash
occurred. When the smoke
cleared it was evident that only the capsule-and-tower
combination had been
launched, on a trajectory similar to an off-the-pad
abort
(http://www.ksc.nasa.gov, Mercury: LJ-1). The first mildly successful
spacecraft
launch occurred September 9, 1959. Although the BJ-1 ship
experienced some
problems, and the timing on some of the separation
procedures was off, the
capsule made it back to earth some seven hours after
lift-off. The capsule
orbited the earth for approximately thirteen minutes
(Mercury: BJ-1). Mercury
mission MA-5 was the first to carry live organisms
into sub-orbit. Although Enos
- a chimpanzee, was not a perfect substitute
for a human, he served as a good
test for the environmental controls of the
capsule. He orbited the earth in
total weightlessness for over three hours
and upon landing was in perfect
physical condition (Mercury: MA-5). On May 5,
1961, Freedom 7 was the first
launch to carry humans into space. Alan B.
Shepard, Jr. was the only crewmember,
and the successful mission lasted for
over 15 minutes (Mercury: MR-3). More
manned flights from the Mercury series
followed, highlighted by the Friendship
7, where on February 20, 1962,
John Glenn was the first American in actual
orbit, and he orbited the earth
three times for a little under five hours
(Mercury: MA-6). The last mission
from the Mercury project came on May 15, 1963,
where L. Gordon Cooper was in
orbit in the Faith 7 for over a day. Total
weightless time was over
thirty-four hours, and the mission was celebrated and
deemed more than
successful (Mercury: MA-9). Gemini missions followed which
built on the
success of the Mercury flights, and basically followed the same
outlines,
except with a crew of two astronauts. The most monumental program in
the
history of the US came next, following the late President Kennedy’s
mission
of landing a person on the Moon. The Apollo project featured many
milestones,
and also some setbacks. The Apollo 1 mission was a huge failure as
astronauts
Virgil Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee lost their lives when
a fire
swept through the Command Module (Apollo 1). After a few more test
flights,
Apollo 8, launched on December 21, 1968, was the first manned lunar
orbital
mission, staying in the Moon’s orbit for twenty hours, making ten
circles
(Zimmerman, 6). While the flights before were all important, the
most
celebrated and documented mission in the history of the US was the
Apollo 11,
where Neil A. Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr.
were the
first to land on the Moon. The mission launched without any delays
on July 16,
1969, and even the crewmembers could barely grasp the
magnitude of their
mission. Before the flight, while the astronauts were
being strapped in, Michael
Collins had this to say, "Here I am, a white
male, age thirty-eight, height 5
feet 11 inches, weight 165 pounds, salary
$17,000 per annum, resident of a Texas
suburb, with black spot on my roses,
state of mind unsettled, about to be shot
off to the Moon. Yes, to the Moon"
(http://www.ksc.nasa.gov, Apollo 13). The
flight went perfectly and on July
20 at 04:17 p.m. EDT, "The eagle has
landed." The first step on Moon, was at
exactly 10:56:15 p.m. EDT, and Aldrin
described the experience better than
anyone else could, "We opened the hatch
and Neil, with me as his navigator,
began backing out of the tiny opening. It
seemed like a small eternity before
I heard Neil say, "That's one small
step for man . . . one giant leap for
mankind." In less than fifteen
minutes I was backing awkwardly out of the
hatch and onto the surface to join
Neil, who, in the tradition of all
tourists, had his camera ready to photograph
my arrival" (Apollo 13). There
were celebrations all around the world,
especially in the US when Neil
Armstrong place the US flag into the rocky lunar
soil, and straightened out
the creases. At this time, the two astronauts on the
surface received
probably the biggest phone call of their life, from the
president. "Neil and
Buzz, I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval
Office at the White
House, and this certainly has to be the most historic
telephone call ever
made . . . Because of what you have done, the heavens have
become a part of
man's world. As you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it
inspires us to
redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to
Earth..." (Bean,
47). On July 24, 1969, the astronauts splashed down in the
Pacific Ocean,
and within minutes, they were on the USS Hornet
(http://www.ksc.nasa.gov,
Apollo 13). More missions would follow,
particularly the Apollo 13 mission,
which was almost a complete disaster.
Another mission to set humans on the Moon,
was aborted after numerous
failures – 200,000 miles from Earth. The astronauts
did return in a Life
Module. The last of the Apollo missions was the Apollo –
Soyuz project
that brought along the peace process started earlier by Nixon. The
Viking
project was the beginning of the Mars exploration, with the first
two
Viking lander and orbiter missions in 1976 (Vogt, 60). The
atmospheric
conditions taken from those missions serve as background
information for
today’s plans to send humans to Mars. The Voyager missions in
1979 were set to
explore Saturn in detail, and Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune
as fly-bys (Vogt,
22). Although these missions served to collect a lot of
data for future research
and went to further planets, they were not as big as
the manned flights to the
Moon, particularly because space exploration
was so new, and because the
missions to the Moon had a patriotic feel to
them. But history of astronauts
would not be complete with out a more
detailed information about some of the
more famous astronauts. John Glenn,
the first American in orbit on the
Friendship 7 flight, was a pilot of
over ninety missions in the Korean War
(Kramer, 18). Chosen for his
experience as well as his bravery in the war, he
rose to the rank of Colonel
in the US Marine Corps before going into NASA. He
trained on crude machinery,
before NASA came up with a set training program
(20). He was 42 when he flew
for the first time in his orbital mission (34), and
he later became a Senator
(39). Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, both flew in the
Apollo 11, and
were the first two people to walk on the moon. They will always
be remembered
for their historic feat. Both Armstrong and Aldrin were 39 when
they flew the
Apollo mission. Armstrong was the first civilian in space, and in
his first
flight, he was the commander of the Apollo 11 mission. "Buzz"
Aldrin was
a Colonel in the US Air Force, and he was also chosen for his
flying
experience. Because Americans have lost interest in the space program
without
competition, there has not been another crop of astronauts as famous
as those
since the days of the Apollo mission. History of space flight has
been very rich
with accomplishments and milestones, but it appears that the
world has reached a
small bottleneck for technology in the area of space
exploration. In addition,
the lack of competition from any other country has
slowed down the pace of
innovation. With the Russian Space Program in
shambles, as well as the whole
country of Russia, the former USSR has not
produced much useful technology
lately. With a huge space station in the
making, Russia is the only country that
has not made the necessary parts for
its completion, due to costly maintenance
of their old space station, Mir, on
which Russia and America have worked
together on conducting experiments in
the years after the USSR’s break-up.
With Mir’s retirement, Russia now
has the time and the resources to complete
their part of the International
Space Station which will accelerate space
exploration. America has a few of
its own projects going on right now, like the
Galileo, the Pathfinder,
and the Mars Polar Lander. Galileo is one of the probes
out right now,
scheduled to study the environmental conditions of Venus and
Jupiter
(http://galileo.jpl.nasa.gov, Galileo). The Mars Pathfinder, launched 2
years
ago, has recently made some important discoveries about the water content
on
Mars, and the climate history of the "red" planet. Endless information
has
been sent back to earth about Mars’ ice caps, and rock formations, which
have
concluded that there was standing water on Mars, including oceans and
seas
(http://polarlander.jpl.nasa.gov/, Pathfinder). Although the Pathfinder
has set
the Mars exploration mission on the right track, the recent failures
with the
Mars Polar Lander mission have set back the program. The
communication with the
new lander could not be established and the ship is
presumed lost. Critics say
that the "faster, cheaper, better" approach taken
with the lander has
actually cost the government more than $36 million, and
the valuable time of
building and getting a new lander in position
(Associated Press, 1A). Although
the present movement of the space program
appears to have stalled, maybe the
future holds the answers. What is in the
future of the space program?
Eventually, people will settle on the
planets close to earth, if not because of
exploration, but because of a lack
of natural resources, which is catching up
with mankind. Prototypes of human
habitats on Mars are being made, and NASA
hopes to have humans on Mars by
2050. The International Space Station should be
well on its way to being
built, and should be functioning in the next five to
ten years
(http://polarlander.jpl.nasa.gov, Future). New cheaper satellites
and
explorers are also coming in the near future. The new explorers with
plasma
propulsion are already in design, and are going to cost no more than
one million
per unit greatly slashing today’s price. They are also going to
have a
virtually inexhaustible fuel capacity, because of the special engine
design
using metal for fuel. This explorer will be so affordable that they
could be
sent out in many directions to explore countless star systems, and
still be
inexpensive enough to lose (Chaikin, 60). Plans that are being
talked about
right now may be a little far fetched sometimes, but even if
some of them will
materialize, the future looking bright indeed. Forty-eight
years ago, John F.
Kennedy set a grand plan in motion. His State of the
Union address pushed the
United States to its limits. Better training
methods, and many schools for
future astronauts have made a big difference in
the level of the training,
ability and intelligence of the future crews of
American spaceships. Now, even
with interest dwindling, and problems piling
up, Americans have to try their
best to stare in the face of adversity, and
look at the big picture – the
endless "playground" known as outer
space.
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Barbara. John Glenn: A Space
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