Founding of NASA and the Moon Landing
68 years ago to the day, Congress passed the legislation to create a new civilian agency that would be in charge with creating and coordinating any and all projects involving space; specifically to find and create a response to the Sputnik I satellite that was launched the year prior by the Soviet Union. This would also be when the Space Race would truly kick into overdrive, with the U.S and the Soviets attempting to one up the other to prove which was the more technologically advanced. How would a winner be determined one may ask when you can easily move the goal post for such a competition? Simple; just put a man on an entirely different celestial object, specifically the moon. If a moon landing could be achieved, then all other feats are considered obsolete in the eyes of the public.
The first problem that NASA ran into was that unlike the Soviets, the folks running NASA would prefer if the people they sent to the moon could be brought back in one piece. After all what was the point of putting people ON the moon if they also could not get OFF the moon as well. If you just wanted to put a soon to be corpse on the moon, then you can skip out on several safety features ranging from space suits that would not get someone killed in low to 0 air spaces, to a specialized pen that could work in zero gravity so as to not deal with graphite getting into important systems. This put NASA at a massive disadvantage compared to their Soviet counterparts, who merely would be happy with just getting someone on the moon rather than the need for a return trip.
In 1961 the Apollo program would be created, which would serve as effectively a step by step process on creating the perfect moon landing so that those that get on the moon can come back. About six years later, the Apollo 1 attempt, and the first manned space ship attempt by NASA dedicated to the Apollo program, would end in tragedy as the rocket’s command shuttle would catch fire and kill all three crew members. This served as a wake up call that if NASA wanted to put a man on the moon, they needed to do more in safety precautions than what they thought was acceptable. It would not be till the Apollo 7 launch on October 11th, 1968, that NASA would use a live crew again. This was the first attempt at getting a crew both into orbit, and to make sure 100% that they could get them back out of orbit; which proved to be a success.
Apollo 8 would be the first attempt to have a crew fly around the moon; for it would be pointless to do this if they could not reach the moon in the first place, and followed by Apollo 9 being a test of the lunar module systems to see if they could work under stress. Apollo 10 served as the rehearsal for the first moon landing and would prove to be a make or break mission for if it went wrong, it would be back to the drawing board. Luckily it went off without a hitch and Apollo 11 was set up to properly put a man on the moon. At this point, NASA was getting very close to their deadline of end of the decade, as proclaimed by President John Kennedy back in 1961, and if they failed this, it would push them back most likely several months to even a year; time that they lacked to fulfill the challenge to the Soviets.
July 16th would be the launch day for the Apollo 11’s maiden launch, and by 9:44 A.M the crew had reached earth’s orbit. Over the course of several days the spacecraft would travel to the moon and eventually land on the surface of the moon, with nearly a billion people watching with baited breath as the lunar craft began its landing; everyone wondering all the while if this would turn into another Apollo 1 tragedy. As luck and preparations would have it, the landing would go without a hitch and Neil Armstrong would state his famous quote “that’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” After 2 hours of gathering samples, taking photos and exploring the moon’s surface, the crew of Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins would begin their return trip back to earth, with the rest of the U.S.A celebrating at having beaten the Soviets at a game they had since dominated for the past decade.
The crew would return alive off the coast of Hawaii on July 24th, being hailed as heroes for having survived our greatest challenge in space travel to date; with the hopes of new exploration attempts being stated for years to come, be it moon colonization to getting a man on the surface of mars. The moon landing would prove that NASA’s efforts since their founding where not for naught, their efforts not in vain and that since they could do it once, they would do it again. The next 3 years would see an additional 10 people over the course of Apollo 12 through Apollo 17 landings, with the Soviets throwing in the towel and focusing on establishing space stations rather than putting people onto the moon themselves after several failed attempts to get to the moon with their current rocket programs. 1975 would mark the symbolic end to the space race as the Apollo-Soyuz test project would go through cleanly; resulting in a shift from competitive rivalry to internation cooperation in space exploration between two national super powers.
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