Apollo 13

Read about Apollo 12

After the success of Apollo 12, the lunar landing missions continued with Apollo 13 next on the list.  Originally, Alan Shepherd was supposed to act as commander for this mission, but NASA didn't feel he was ready for the job, so they pushed him back one mission.  The crew that took his place was James Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert.  They had been preparing to man Apollo 14.  Originally, Ken Mattingly was supposed to be the Command Module Pilot, but he was grounded after being exposed to German measles.  The mission was meant to land on the moon and explore the Fro Mauro formation, named after an 80-km wide crater in it.

However, two days into the flight, Swigert stirred an oxygen tank as was standard procedure which was soon followed by a loud noise.  As they would soon learn, one of their two oxygen tanks exploded, and the command module were leaking oxygen.  The explosion also resulted in fuel cells 1 and 3 shutting down in three minutes, and fuel cell number 2 was slowly drained over the next 130 minutes.  To survive, the lunar module was used as a lifeboat, but the return flight would be dangerous, cold, and full of ingenious problem solving.

Because the Apollo 13 crew was so close to the moon (approximately 200,000 miles from Earth), they orbited the moon instead of turning around to save fuel and construct a plan.  However, landing on the moon was now out of the question,so that plan was aborted.  Honestly, what follows is nothing short of amazing, and I can't do the story the justice that it deserves.  So, I'm going to recommend seeing the movie if you haven't.  Also, I recommend reading A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin and watching the mini-series, From the Earth to the Moon.

Apollo 12: Pete Conrad and Al Bean

Read about Apollo 11

The moon landing was never meant to be a one time thing. Many missions were slotted for the moon, and each mission advanced in complexity. The Apollo 11 astronauts had only spent a seven hours exploring the lunar surface. In later missions, the science portion of the mission would be expanded. Chosen for Apollo 12 were Charles "Pete" Conrad, Jr.; as Commander, with Al Bean as the Lunar Module Pilot, and Richard Gordon, Jr. as the Command Module Pilot. This would be Bean's first spaceflight, and he would be walking on the moon. Conrad was an old pro with this being his third flight. This would be Gordon's second flight into space.

When their Saturn V launched, it was raining outside. At 36 seconds after launch, the rocket was hit by lightning. Then, it was hit again at 52 seconds. Still, the Saturn V continued to fly correctly. However, it caused the shutdown of the fuel cells and put the Command/Service Module (CSM( entirely on batteries. The screen in front of the crew lit up with red. Thankfully, John Aaron remembered this type of failure from an earlier test when the power supply failed in the CSM Signal Conditioning Equipment (SCE). The SCE is responsible for converting raw signals from the instruments into standard voltages for the spacecraft instrument displays and telemetry encoders. He told the astronauts to try "SCE to aux" which switched the power supply for the SCE to a backup power supply. However, it was fairly obscure. Most of the flight controllers didn't know it nor did Conrad. Thankfully, Bean did. He flipped the switch, and the warning lights went away. Aaron and Bean's actions saved the mission being aborted.

After this, they were on their way to the moon. They followed the standard procedure and arrived at the moon on November 19, 1969. Conrad and Bean would conduct two EVAs lasting a total of 7 hours and 45 minutes. When Conrad stepped off the LEM onto the lunar surface, his first words were "Whoopie! That may have been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me!" Another notable incident was with the television they brought with them. Al Bean accidentally pointed directly at the sun which broke the SEC tube. The camera didn't work after this this. They also visited the Surveyor 3 probe and collected moon rocks before leaving the lunar surface and docking with Gordon in the Command Module.

The crew headed back to Earth where they splashed down on November 24. During splashdown, Bean was hit in the head by a camera and was knocked temporarily unconscious. He suffered a mild concussion from the incident, but the rest of the trip was safe for the astronauts. To learn more about the Apollo program and this mission, I recommend watching From the Earth to the Moon and reading A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin.

Read about Apollo 13

Apollo 11: A Man on the Moon

Read about Apollo 10

Seven months earlier, Apollo 8 orbited the moon. On July 16th, Apollo 11 blasted off for the moon. This time, two of the three astronauts would step onto the surface of the moon. These men would become legends, and their names would be remembered forever in history. The only astronaut whose name may not be famaliar is that of the Command Module Pilot, Michael Collins. The Commander was, of course, Neil Armstrong, and the Lunar Module Pilot was Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. The life story of both of these men is quite interesting, and it deserves some discussion.

Buzz attended West Point and graduated from there in 1951 with a degree in mechanical engineering. Then, he fought in the Korean War as a fighter pilot. After the war, Buzz earned his Doctor of Science in astronautics. Then, he was selected in the third class of astronauts. His Apollo 11 mission would be his second space mission.

Neil flew combat missions during the Korean War as well. After the war, he attended college at Purdue where he received a degree in aeronautical engineering. After this, he became a test pilot and had a few mishaps, but he always escaped without serious injury. In 1961, he became part of the New Nine, the second class of astronauts. His first space mission was Gemini 8 were the vehicle began to spin out of control. The astronauts were seconds away from blacking out when Armstrong saved the mission by switching to the Reentry Control System to gain control of the spacecraft. Then, he commanded Gemini 11 which was successfully completed. While training for Apollo 11, Armstrong flew a Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) to help simulate landing in a real setting. The vehicle began banking and Armstong lost control. He then ejected, and, again, narrowly avoided disaster.


Once Apollo 11 took off for the moon, it had few problems. As they were landing, the LEM was ahead of its intended position by two seconds. Because Armstrong was worried about landing on unsafe terrain, he took manual control of the LEM and landed in a safe area in the crater known as the Sea of Tranquility on July 20th, 1969. The astronauts went for an EVA (extravehicular activity aka a walk) soon after landing. They only spent 2.5 hours on the surface. Then, they blasted off of the moon's surface and rendevoused with the Command Module. They went back to Earth, and the rest is history.

Read about Apollo 12

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Apollo 10

Apollo 10 acted as the dry run for the Apollo 11 to land on the moon. The crew consisted of Thomas Stafford as the commander. John Young was the command module pilot, and Eugene Cernan was the lunar module pilot. Once in orbit around the moon, Cernan and Stafford took the lunar module to the moon and practiced the normal landing procedure that would be used by future Apollo missions. This LEM was never meant to actually land on the moon. If the astronauts had decided to land on the surface, the LEM didn't contain enough fuel in the ascent module, so they would have been stranded on the lunar surface. The LEM did come within 8.4 nautical miles of the lunar surface. After this run, the LEM docked with the command module again and headed back to Earth. Each crew member would return to space. Young and Cernan would both return to the moon while Stafford would command an Apollo-Soyuz mission.

With the path cleared, Apollo 11 could land on the moon.

Hermann Oberth

As a young boy, Hermann became interested in space and rocketry after reading the work of Jules Verne. Before adulthood, he would conceive of a multistage rocket, but it was purely theoretical. In 1919, he began to study physics and wrote a dissertation by 1922 titled By Rocket into Planetary Space and later expanded it into a 429 page volume Ways to Spaceflight which was published in 1929. His dissertation was rejected because it was deemed utopian, but he was granted his doctorate in 1923. In 1928 & 1929, Oberth worked on a film about space The Woman in the Moon. For the film, he designed and constructed a rocket which was launched before the premiere of the movie and also the main rocket in the film. Oberth fired his first liquid fueled rocket motor in 1929, but he did little with rockets until he began to work for Nazi Germany when he worked on the V-2 rockets. The rest of his work on rockets was limited, but he continued to write about space. In 1953, he wrote Man in Space. Then, in 1958, Oberth began to work in the United States for his former student, Wernher von Braun on rockets for NASA. Oberth finally retired in 1962, but he lived until 1989. Hermann Oberth is considered to be the last of the fathers of rocketry.

Robert H. Goddard

Many consider Goddard to be the father of modern rocketry, and his love of space came at an early age. At the age of 16, Goddard read H.G. Wells War of the Worlds, and his pursuit of space began. At the time, science was not fond of ideas concerning space travel, so Goddard worked largely in private. Goddard's first writings about rocketry occurred during his undergraduate career in the spring of 1908 and were jotted down in his journal. He stated that liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen could be used as a fuel. By 1913, he had calculated the mathematics of a rocket launch, and, one year later, Goddard applied for and received two patents. The first described a multi-stage rocket, and the second described a rocket fueled by gasoline and liquid nitrous oxide. In 1915, he showed that a rocket could work in a vacuum and actually proved that a rocket's performance actually decreases under atmospheric pressure. However, his most influential work was still to come.

In 1919, Goddard published his most influential work, A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes. In this, he discussed his previous research, theories of rocket flight, and future space travel. Before the end of the decade, he would discuss an ablative heat shield as well as photographing the moon, contacting distant civilizations using inscribed metal plates, solar energy use in space, and high energy ion propulsion. Goddard finally launched his first liquid fueled rocket on March 16, 1926 in Auburn, Massachusetts. The rocket only flew 41 feet into the air, but it showed that liquid propelled rockets were possible. Goddard continued rocket experiments until 1945. He moved to Roswell, New Mexico where 31 rockets were launched between 1930 and 1945. The highest altitude that he ever achieved was 9km on March 26th, 1937. Planes and other rockets could exceed this altitude, but his work is still influential as well as pivotal. It is no surprise that he is considered one of the fathers of rocketry.

Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

The first academic paper concerning rocketry was written by this man, and he added conceptually to space travel. Tsiolkovsky was a Russian scientist fascinated by space, but he was also a loner. As a hermit by choice most of his life, his work was largely ignored until after 1920. In 1903, he published The Exploration of Cosmic Space by Means of Reaction Devices which calculated a horizontal escape velocity of 18,000 miles per hour to sustain a minimal orbit around the Earth. He also proposed a way to accomplish this. His idea was a multistage rocket fueled by the reaction of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. Tsiolkovsky also proposed steering boosters, multi-stage boosters, space stations, and airlocks to exit spacecraft. He also proposed the very first idea for a space elevator. While almost no one would know who he is, his work has been invaluable to space travel. He is the first father of rocketry.

Aliens and My Short Story

For many years, I watched science fiction movies and didn't question the look of humanoid aliens. Then, I read a book by Carl Sagan, and it became clear that our idea of life was incredibly bias. It wasn't that hard to realize why television and movies depicted aliens like this. They were played by people, and it was a matter of being practical. However, Sagan's tale about aliens got me thinking, and, as an aspiring author, this influenced my first short story. A short tale of aliens visiting Earth in a search for intelligent life (no, it's not a satire, but that might be another idea).

Sagan's opinion about the destruction of mankind also influenced this tale about aliens visiting Earth. The aliens are far from humanoid and are, in fact, spheres who communicate by changing color and humming. It could be that this tale was also influenced by an episode of Futurama where Earth wars against balls (hehe).

While Sagan's tale of alien contact, titled simply "Contact" is ingenius, I wanted to show it from the alien perspective simply because I thought it would be cool. While the nature of the short story is bleak, "Alien Contact" is a meager ten pages of reading. I know that it can never compare to the work of Sagan, but I also can't ignore his impression on it.

Recommended reading and gratuitous self promotion below:

From the Earth to the Moon

My first real exposure to man's exploration of space started with "From the Earth to the Moon", a documentary produced by Ron Howard and Tom Hanks made for HBO. In ten parts, it documents man's effort to reach the moon in a ten year time frame. Throughout the mini-series, NASA experiences joy, anxiety, tradegy, and, eventually, triumph.

The mini-series begins with Kennedy's proclaimation that this country (the United States) will land a man on the moon before this decade is out. This speech was made in April of 1961 because a man had even flown into space. Then, the mini-series catalogues the Apollo 1 disaster, creation of the lunar module, the first landing on the moon and the last. It is a great documentary that is worth checking out.

This documentary was based on the book "A Man on the Moon" by Andrew Chaikin.

Apollo 9

Read about Apollo 8

Apollo 9 would play a pivotal role in the first manned moon landing because the crew would test many of the critical components to the Apollo 11 mission. The crew was headed by Gemini veteran Jim McDivitt. His Command Module Pilot was another Gemini veteran from the third group of astronauts, David Scott. Filling the final position of Lunar Module Pilot was young looking Rusty Schweickart whose first and only flight would occur on Apollo 9. The Lunar Module (LM or lem) would truly be tested in this mission, for the first time. However, there were many other mission parameters which will be discussed shortly.

First the crew separated from the craft containing the lem and used the command module to dock with it and unload it. After this was performed, the crew was connected to the lem and actually transferred from one to the other without using spacesuits.

Schweickart was supposed to perform an EVA, but he became ill with space sickness during the first day and his tests were scrapped for his safety. However, Schweickart recovered and performed some of the tests. However, he was able to prove that the new Apollo spacesuit could perform without an umbilical lifeline to the ship. To do this, Schweickart carried a backpack which functioned as life support for this suit. It would be used again for every Apollo mission.

Following this, there was one craft that had to be tested before Apollo could move forward. The LM would have to function in space, and its engines would have to work. McDivitt and Schweickart would take out the LM for this maiden voyage. The craft worked as it was supposed to, and the mission was a complete success. After this mission, the only member of the crew who would fly again would be David Scott.

Read about Apollo 10

The Lunar Module

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For man to land on the moon, they would need a vehicle capable of landing on the surface and taking off again. However, at first, there was some discussion on what to send to the moon. Some suggested taking a large craft to the moon weighing a significant amount more than the final product would. This was a direct ascent approach or an Earth rendezvous approach. However, both of these methods would require landing the entire spacecraft on the moon. By using a lunar orbit rendezvous, only a small craft would land on the moon while another stay in orbit. Once finished on the surface, the two would reconnect in lunar orbit. After this plan was accepted, the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) would be constructed mainly by the Grumann Aircraft Engineering with Tom Kelly as the chief designer. During this process, weight was a constant concern. To save weight, windows were made small, seats were even removed and replaced by velco so the astronauts could stand and see out the windows, and even shielding was removed and replaced by a thin sheet. However, the LEM would never fail and prove all the critics wrong. The final change before it would see space was from the Lunar Excursion Module to the Lunar Module, but it was still known as the LEM.

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Apollo 8

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The end of the decade was quickly approaching as the Apollo Program moved forward. The second manned Apollo was meant to test the Lunar Module, but its construction was behind schedule. A bold plan was instated. They would switch the Apollo 8 and 9 missions and add to the new Apollo 8 mission. Just before the end of 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 would journey to the moon and back, assuming all went well. The crew would include Commander Frank Borman, CMP Jim Lovell, and LMP Bill Anders. Borman and Lovell had flown together before on Gemini VII, but this was Anders first spaceflight. The Saturn V rocket would be used for this flight. However, with the quick change, the crew didn't have as much time to train and spent seven hours in training for every actual hour of the mission. However, in a year fraught with unrest, assassinations, and an escalation in Vietman, the nation looked to Apollo 8 as a sign of hope. They launched on December 21, 1968 and were the first men to escape low Earth orbit as they began their journey to the moon. The flight to the moon was fairly lackadaisical except that Borman became sick. He experienced vomiting and diarrhea; however, he soon recovered and the mission continued without incident. The crew journeyed around the moon and entered orbit, and, for the first time, man saw the far side of the moon with their naked eyes. While orbiting the moon, they surveyed the surface looking for future landing sites. As the fourth orbit approached, the crew witnessed an Earthrise leaving them speechless and providing one of the most common images from space. During their ninth orbit, they addressed Earth and, famously, read from Genesis. After wishing the Earth a merry Christmas, they signed off. Before they could leave the moon's orbit, they had to perform a burn to return them to Earth which was the most critical aspect of the mission. If it failed, they would be stuck in orbit and would eventually die. However, the burn worked, and they returned to Earth. Lovell would accidentally cause the craft to deviate off course, and they would have to manually re-align on their return journey. After this, the mission finished without a hitch and a normal splashdown. After landing, the crew was named Time's Man of the Year even though their feat had occurred just before the new year. They won because they were the first men to travel to leave Earth's orbit, travel to another celestial being, and return from that celestial being. However, their feat would be topped soon enough.

Apollo 7

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On October 11, 1968, Apollo 7 launched into space with the crew of Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham. The Apollo crews would have the new positions of Commander, Command Module Pilot (CMP), and the Lunar Module Pilot (LMP). Schirra was the Commander while Eisele (CMP) and Cunningham (LMP) would have lesser positions. This would be Schirra's last spaceflight, and he would be the only man to fly Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions. However, no manned flight had occurred since the tragedy of Apollo 1 placing some pressure on this flight for success. Schirra was an excellent candidate for this mission because he was meticulous when it came to safety. Before the flight, he asked that an abort be instated in case of a significant wind on the launchpad. If they were to launch on a very windy day and had to abort, the wind could blow them back ashore causing the astronauts to be harmed or even killed. Schirra's demand was instated, but the launch went smoothly. However, in space, the crew became irritable after they developed motion sickness due to the larger space provided for the astronauts. Schirra soon developed a bad head cold, and he began to refuse requests. Likewise, the other crew became irritable. This "talking back" led to Eisele and Cunningham being omitted from later crews. Still, the mission was successful and was instrumental in the impromptu mission alteration for Apollo 8.

Saturn V

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The dream of sending a man to the moon and returning him safely to Earth was in reach after Project Gemini. But, man would need a rocket to travel to the moon carrying more mass than ever before. This rocket would prove to be the largest rocket ever built by far. The Saturn V booster would be this rocket. The initial work on a Saturn V relative would begin in 1960, and they would begin plans on the Saturn V in 1962. By 1963, it was confirmed as the rocket for the Apollo missions. Wernher von Braun was the architect of this rocket, fulfilling a long time dream for the man. The finished product would stand 363 feet tall and use 6,500,000 pounds of fuel. Like other rockets, this was a multi-stage rocket which had three stages. The first stage had five engines and used kerosene type fuel with liquid oxygen. The second stage also had five engines and used liquid hydrogen and oxygen. The third stage used a single engine for a final push into space with liquid hydrogen and oxygen. Before men would ride this rocket, there would be two unmanned launches of this rocket with the Apollo 4 and 6. Four was successful while six had some serious problems. However, the rocket has 2,000 moving parts, and anyone of these parts failing could cause serious problems. The work had to be literally flawless, and it was consistently. This rocket is the pinnacle of science and an amazing feat considering that rocketry was still young (40 years old) and space flight was very young (12 years old). While the rocket worked, other missions would have to be flown before man would walk on the moon.

Apollo I

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After several unmanned flights, the first manned Apollo spaceflight would have a Mercury and Gemini veteran at its helm, Virgil "Gus" Grissom. The second member had conducted the first American space walk, Edward White, and the third member was a smart astronaut from the newest group of astronauts named Roger Chaffee. The crew began to prepare for the launch in late 1966. There were a few issues including communication between the ship and the ground control as well as fire safety issues. On January 27, 1967, during a routine plugs out test was conducted. This is where the craft is sealed and run under its own power. However, an accident occurred. The cabin was filled pure oxygen when a faulty wire caused was a spark. This quickly exploded into a fire which engulfed the entire cabin. The men reacted as they should. They shouted "fire" and began the procedure to open the door. Within 30 seconds, the cabin door exploded outwards, and the crew was dead. The pressure from the expansion of air due to the heat made the door unable to open. The crew wasn't removed from the craft for hours due to various hazards to others. Asphyxiation killed Grissom, White, and Chaffee, but there were others who said it was poor design, rushed construction, and carelessness. Congressional hearings were held on the matter. There was fear that Apollo was done, but it was allowed to continue. Doors were made to open outward and had an explosive charge for emergencies. This accident actually facilitated safety and prevented many other deaths. Still, it's just terrible that it had to come at the cost of three lives. However, Grissom himself said, "If we die, we want people to accept it. We are in a risky business and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life". I, wholeheartedly, again.

May 25, 1961

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The Apollo Program which proposed that a man be sent to the moon was conceived as early as the Eisenhower administration. However, it wasn't until May 25th, 1961 that this program began moving forward. On this date, Kennedy addressed congress. His statement was this "...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. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish". This was just weeks after Alan Shepard had launched into space for fifteen minutes. The goal was bold, to say the least. Over the 8 years and more that followed, 400,000 people would work towards this goal and tens of billions would be spent on this endeavor. President Kennedy would publicly push this goal, especially in a speech made at Rice University on September 12, 1962. In this speech, Kennedy stated that "No nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space" and "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". However, President Kennedy would not live to see this dream after succumbing to an assassin's bullet just fourteen months after this speech. Even after this death, Project Gemini would move towards this goal, and, by the beginning of 1967, the moon appeared to be a tangible goal. But, tragedy would stop it dead in its tracks.

Gemini: The Crews (An overview)

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The manned crews of Gemini are as follows:

Gemini III (Command Pilot first, Pilot second):

Virgil "Gus" Grissom

John Young

Gemini IV:

James McDivitt

Edward White

Gemini V:

L. Gordon Cooper

Charles "Pete" Conrad

Gemini VI:

Wally Schirra

Thomas Stafford

Gemini VII:

Frank Borman

James Lovell

Gemini VII:

Neil Armstrong

David Scott

Gemini IX:

Thomas Stafford

Eugene Cernan

Gemini X:

John Young

Michael Collins

Gemini XI:

Charles "Pete" Conrad

Richard Gordon

Gemini XII:

James Lovell

Edwin "Buzz" Aldwin

Gemini XI and XII

Hey everyone,

Project Gemini was coming to an end as the Project Apollo was slotted to begin. There were only two flights left. The Gemini XI mission would be flown by Charles "Pete" Conrad and Richard Gordon. Conrad wanted to fly a mission around the moon, but this wouldn't happen (eventually, his wish would come true). However, they did rendezvous immediately after reaching orbit with the Agena to simulate a lunar rendezvous. Gordon made two spacewalks, but he succumbed to exhaustion as other space walkers had. Another EVA was attempted, but it was just a stand up space walk. However, they would reach the highest Earth orbit by an American manned spacecraft, a record that still stands today. They also conducted experiments relating to the human body as had the other Gemini missions. Re-entry was done by computer and landed 4.5km from their intended landing site.

The final manned Gemini flight would have to prove that a man could maneuver easily and work efficiently outside the craft. Jim Lovell and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin manned this mission which utilized underwater training to simulate space. Foot holds and hand bars were introduced to the spacecraft for increased maneuvering. The other aspects of the mission were routine at this point. Finally,all of the Project Gemini objectives had been completed. With 1967 looming, time was running out, and the goal of the moon by December 31st, 1969 would need a major step forward. The journey would be fraught with excitement as well as tragedy. However, the tragedy came first.

Gemini X

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Gemini X was the third to last manned flight of Project Gemini. John Young would command this flight with Michael Collins as his Pilot. This mission set bold objectives which were supposed to be accomplished in the previous two missions. This mission would include two rendezvous and two EVAs. The first rendezvous and EVA were simple and executed with ease. The crew docked with their Agena craft for their first rendezvous and Collins stood in the open hatch and took pictures during his first EVA. Soon, they undocked from the Agena and set a course for the Gemini VIII Agena. After some difficulty, they found it and floated 3 meters away from it. Collins began his second EVA where he retrieved a Micrometeorite Collector from their Agena, but he also space walked over to the other Agena and collected the Micrometeorite Collector from that craft as well. A gas gun, used for mobility, was also being tested. Collins used it to move around the Gemini X craft, but it would fail after 25 minutes which would end the EVA. It would take eight minutes to finally close the hatch once Collins was inside again showing the difficulties of space walks. A few other experiments were conducted during the mission, and this mission showed that radiation at high altitude was not a problem. No major problems occurred during the flight, and they returned to Earth after three days in space.