Apollo Crewed Earth Orbiting Missions example essay topic

NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, headed the Apollo program, which lasted from 1963-1972. These Apollo missions cost approximately $20,443,600,000. Six of these Apollo missions were successful with landing on the moon they include Apollo 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17. Two of the missions, Apollo 7 and 9 were used to test the lunar module and command module for future missions.

Another two missions are 8 and 10 did test while orbiting the moon and took pictures of the lunar surface. Two failure missions were Apollo 1 and the infamous Apollo 13; we will go more in depth later in why they are the failure missions. Apollo 7, which launched on October 11 1968, was the first Apollo spaceship to go up that had men on it. These three men were: Walter Schirra, Jr, Donn Ei sele, and Walter Cunningham. This mission was one of the Apollo Crewed Earth Orbiting Missions.

"The primary objectives of the Earth orbiting mission were to demonstrate Command and Service Module (CSM), crew, launch vehicle, and mission support facilities performance and to demonstrate CSM rendezvous capability. Two photographic experiments and three medical experiments were planned". (Williams) The other tests performed on this mission included: sextant calibration, attitude control, evaporator, navigation, rendezvous radar, thermal control system, and service module propulsion systems. Apollo landed in the Atlantic Ocean on October 22nd, 1968; the mission's elapsed time was 260 hours, 9 minutes, and 3 seconds. Apollo 9 had been similar to Apollo 7; it just tested different type of spaceship going up into orbit. It launched on March 3, 1969.

It was crewed by: James Mcdevitt, David Scott, and Russell Schweickart. The spaceship splashed down on March 13, 1969; the mission's elapsed time was 241 hrs and 54 seconds. Apollo 8 launched on December 21, 1968, first ship to successfully orbit the moon. The crew did such things as: take pictures of the lunar surface (near and far side), and obtained information on topography and landmarks. The crew consisted of Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, Jr., and William A. Anders. Apollo 8 landed on December 27, 1968 the elapsed time was 147 hours, 0 minutes, and 42 seconds.

Apollo 10 was another spaceship to do a lunar orbit and return back home. They took many photographs also, and planned future Apollo landing sites. This was the first mission the command module and the lunar module disconnected; various test were done on the lunar module such as: communications, propulsion, attitude control, and radar. Apollo 10 landed on May 26, 1969 with an elapsed time of 192 hrs, 3 mins, and 23 secs. Apollo 1 was the first mission of the Apollo program and also the first failure. The crew consisted of Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee.

The tragedy took place on January 27, 1967, during a preflight that was at Cape Canaveral. The problem was a fire had started from all the flammable material that was stored in the cabin, which the oxygen tight capsule had ignited. "The Apollo hatch could only open inward and was held closed by a number of latches which had to be operated by ratchets. It was also held closed by the interior pressure, which was higher than outside atmospheric pressure and required venting of the command module before the hatch could be opened.

It took at least 90 seconds to get the hatch open under ideal conditions". (Williams) Which made it impossible to save the members of the crew. The second failure was Apollo 13, the third mission that intended to get man on the moon. The cause of this accident was a shorted wire on the second oxygen tank, which caused a fire within the tank and then dealt damage to tank no. 1. After many procedures to try to get this spaceship home, NASA had successfully gotten them home without completing their intended missions. The splashdown was April 17, 1970 after an elapsed time of 142 hours, 52 minutes, and 41 seconds.

On July 16, 1969 three astronauts went into space with all intentions to land on the moon these men were Neil Armstrong, Edwin E. "Buzz" Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins. On July 20th Neil Armstrong was the first man to ever walk on the surface of the moon, and Buzz Aldrin being the second man; they landed in the Sea of Tranquility. They set up scientific experiments, took photographs, and collected lunar samples. The Apollo 11 came back to earth on July 24, 1969; the elapsed time of the mission was 195 hrs, 18 mins, and 35 secs. The other missions that landed on the moon were Apollo 12 launched on November 16, 1969, landed on the moon on the 19th on the Ocean of Storms. Apollo 14 was launched January 31, 1971; landed on the moon on February 5th on Fra Mauro.

Apollo 15 was launched on July 26, 1971 and landed on the moon on the 30th at Hadley Rille. Apollo 16 launched April 16, 1972 landed on the 20th; it landed on Descartes. Apollo 17 was launched December 07, 1972 it successfully landed on the moon on the 11th of the same month on Taurus-Litt row. Many of these missions involved experimenting and doing more tests on the moons surface, and testing out new NASA equipment.

Testing included soil mechanics, meteoroids, seismic, heat flow, lunar ranging, magnetic fields, and solar wind experiments. I think the NASA program was a great idea and I think that the Apollo missions are very significant. They helped us learn a lot about space travel and about the surface of the moon. It gave science a whole new field to look at, and I think scientist and everyday people were very interested and still are in space travel. Dr. David R. Williams, The Apollo Program (1963-1972), December 21, 2002, [ web November 13, 2003.