Apollo Moon Conquest 45 Years Ago



It was 45 years ago when a troubled America began turning its attention to a distraction from our problems—the first Moon landing. 
 The year 1969 was an unforgettable time of triumph and tragedy. 
 Racial strife...women's lib...President Richard Nixon...Vietnam...nuclear disarmament...Woodstock...
 But America's domestic woes and the unpopular war 9,000 miles away were nearly forgotten in the Summer of '69 when the historic events of Apollo 11 culminated in the footprints of Americans on an alien world 240,000 miles away.  
 Mankind’s greatest adventure was set in full motion July 16 at 9:32 AM when three Apollo 11 astronauts were blasted off the Earth by the largest rocket ever built, the Saturn V. It was the culmination of a decade of technological innovation that spread world-wide and continues into the 21st Century. 
MOON SHIP ATOP SATURN V AT LAUNCH PAD 

The first steps of the risky Moon voyage by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) began in 1961 with America’s first spaceflight in 1961 by Alan Shepard. And it was fueled by President John F. Kennedy's directive to “land and man on the Moon, and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade.”
 Americans weren't the only ones wanting to go to the Moon.  Communist Soviet Union put the first man in space, and continued with propaganda-fueled space spectaculars of the first female and first two and three person crews in orbit.  But the Russians were conducting their space program in secret, while Americans showed their triumphs and failures to the world. 

 The 1960s saw a logical progression of building blocks of knowledge about the unforgiving unknowns of outer space.  First were six one-man Mercury spaceflights, and then nine two-man Gemini missions.  Finally there was the three-man Apollo Command Module that was tested in Earth orbit with Apollo 7.  The bold, orbit-only mission to the Moon by Apollo 8 in December 1968 made the world see America was serious and almost ready to make those giant steps on our celestial neighbor 240,000 miles away.  

In March 1969, Apollo 9 tested in earth-orbit the moonship that would take two men to the surface.  Designed only to fly in space and land on the Moon, the Lunar Excursion Module resembled a giant four-legged spider and was called “LEM.” The Command ship 
Command Module and Lunar Lander
would orbit the Moon and return to Earth, the LEM would land with the leg section becoming the launch platform for the bulbous, pressurized cabin.  Both vehicles would need code names chosen by the astronauts.
The full dress rehearsal was made by Apollo 10 astronauts when “Charlie Brown” was in orbit May 21, 1969 and the moonship “Snoopy” flew to within 9 miles of the lunar target in Mare Tranquility. Despite a few problems in the landing radar system, the mission was an overwhelming success and NASA ramped up for the actual lunar landing. 
 Finally, the Moon was within man's grasp.
 The stage was set, and every move of the principle characters were followed in the media for the next two months in the Summer of '69. It was a Thursday on July 16th when one million people lined the roads leading to Cape Kennedy, Florida to watch the morning launch of the mighty Saturn V moon rocket. Crammed in the tiny cockpit of “Columbia” were astronauts Michael Collins, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Commander Neil Armstrong, while nestled beneath them was the moonship, “Eagle.” 
 The media coverage world-wide was unprecedented, rivaling the 24-hour coverage of the assassination of President Kennedy in November 1963. The morning and evening editions of newspapers, radio, and the three broadcasting networks—ABC, CBS and NBC—reported up-to-the-minute reports from NASA on the status of the moonship. 
 The non-stop TV coverage began Saturday afternoon July 19th when the two docked spacecraft entered lunar orbit.  ABC’s Jules Bergman and CBS’s Walter Cronkite spent the next 36 hours on the air with NASA astronauts and rocket scientists trying to explain and document the adventure.  The moment of landing came at 4:17 pm EST Saturday, followed by Armstrong’s first footprint on an alien world at 9:28 pm EST. The two-hour moonwalk by Armstrong and Aldrin was broadcast live by a Black & White video camera on a tripod, and included a congratulatory conversation from President Richard Nixon.  
Neil Armstrong's first step seen live on television

The lunar stay ended at 1:52 pm Monday afternoon when the “Eagle” spacecraft blasted off the alien world, meeting up two hours later with Collins orbiting in the moonship “Columbia.” The three day voyage back to Earth was all smiles, and splashdown at 2 pm Thursday July 24th saw the astronaut heroes picked up by the USS Hornet, with President Nixon on deck. America had won the Moon Race, and Kennedy’s dream was realized. 
 Today, the year 1969 is a nostalgic, far away land of 35-cent gasoline in $3,000 new cars that were parked in the garages of average American homes that cost $26,000.  A great steak dinner was $10, a gallon of milk was $1.25 and.  And it seemed everyone was smoking 35-cent packs of cigarettes at their work desk, in restaurants and anywhere they wanted to light up. Minimum wage was $1.60 an hour. 

Tranquility Base from lunar orbit

 Americans were watching on new color televisions (and more black and white TVs) “Get Smart!,”  “Hogan's Heroes” and “Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.” They were listening on transistor radios to “Mrs. Robinson” by Simon and Garfunkel, “Honky Tonk Women,” by the Rolling Stones and the Beatle's last album, “Abbey Road.” And at the $1.50 ticket movies, 1969 offered “Midnight Cowboy,” “Easy Rider” and “Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang!” 
 The Moon Race with the Soviet Union was decidedly won by the United States—but it was very close.  The Russian's lunar spaceship was ready, but their moon rocket had blown up twice in the spring of 1969, leaving their moonship grounded. The Apollo 11 moon landing was the ultimate fatal blow in the USSR Moon plans, and they turned to earth-orbiting space stations.  
 As incredible as the Apollo 11 triumph was—indeed the debatable #1 historic event of the entire 20th Century—the conquest of the Moon was achieved against the background of an America in chaos at home with racial desegregation and at war in Vietnam.
While civil rights showdowns became ugly and American soldiers fought the Communists in Southeast Asia, rocket scientists in the USA traded space spectaculars with the top secret Moon program of Communist Russia. The Moon Race, costing American taxpayers around $40 billion at the time ($200-plus billion in 2014 dollars) and the Vietnam War (another $50 billion or more) both had their detractors—and it was amazing both were financed at the same time. 
 Now, 45 years later, we know the Soviet space program was a lot of smoke and mirrors to make them look good.  Propaganda from the USSR in the 1960s was commonplace as the two Superpowers vied for the world's attention as the technologically superior nation.
 And when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their moonship named “Eagle” on the shores of an ancient, frozen lava ocean named Tranquility, the Soviets responded by saying they had no desire to walk on the Moon. 
But the Russians were lying, their national pride hurt.  Their moonship, named Zond, was built for just one man, and was to be attached to the two-man Soyuz spaceship, as two cosmonauts were to make the lunar voyage. 
 Moonship Zond was the size of a bulky telephone booth with landing legs and rocket engines. One lucky cosmonaut was to land in this moonship, step outside quickly to gather rocks and take photos, then blast off after only a couple hours on the surface. The whole concept was crude, highly dangerous and had little room for spacecraft system failures. 

That was a far cry from the 10-ton NASA Lunar Module that took two men to the Moon's surface on July 20, 1969, and for some 20 hours on the surface fulfilled a dream of mankind.
 The American spirit was never stronger or filled with more pride than on that amazing Sunday summer night of July 20, 1969. Maybe as many as 1 billion of the Earth's 3.6 billion people were watching live television as Armstrong and Aldrin lopped across the Moon's dusty surface.  
 Five more successful Moon landings followed, including the last three with Lunar Rovers that allowed serious geological exploration during three-day stays on the surface. 
 Forty-five years after those first tentative footsteps on an alien world, it's questionable whether the United State of America has ever swelled with more pride—or ever will again.

 Some will argue that the orbiting $100 billion International Space Station is a greater accomplishment than the Apollo moon landings.  In many technical ways it is, but the Space Station lacks the attention and drama of the lunar voyage.  
 Four and a half decades later, the voyage of Apollo 11 is a distant memory to a generation, and a footnote in history to those too young to remember.   The crowning achievement of Space Age, the events at Tranquility Base on the Moon will forever be a benchmark in mankind’s quest to find our place in the Universe.