SPACE PROGRAMS
MAY 16, 2021
nASA apollo program
In May 1961, US President John F. Kennedy declared that by the end of the decade America should put a man on the Moon. His famous speech declaring 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.”
For this mission NASA created the most ambitious plan to conquer the Moon called the Apollo program. At the time Kennedy declared it, only two man had ever been in space : Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in April 1961 and Alan Shepard a month later. Other living creatures that had made it to space included fruit flies, monkeys, dogs, and a chimpanzee.
The NASA Apollo program was designed to land humans on the Moon and coming back to earth safely. The program consisted of 17 missions in the 1960’s and 1970’s. There are six missions that achieved the goal : Apollo 11, 12, 14 , 15, 16 and 17.
At first NASA and the Space Task Group favored the name “Project Astronaut” which they believed would “emphasize the man in the satellite”. This name was for their first manned satellite project. Then they chose “Mercury” for the name, it was more familiar to the American public. The name would go on between 1961 and 1963 for six manned flights.
When NASA began to develop beyond Mercury missions they turned to a mythological naming. The Greco-Roman god Apollo was suggested by Dr. Abe Silverstein, NASA director of space flight programs. Silverstein felt that the image of “Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun was appropriate enough to the grand scale of the proposed program”.
There are 32 American astronauts in the Apollo lunar landing program between December 1968 and December 1972. Twelve astronauts have walked on the Moon and four of them are still alive per April 2021.
Apollo mission was one of the biggest government projects in American history. Around 34.000 NASA employees and 375.000 contractors involved in the program. In 2008 the budget for the program was estimated around $98 billion with inflation-adjusted to the date.
According to mentalfloss website, after the Apollo astronauts came back to earth they had various career. Michael Collins was the first director of the National Air and Space Museum. Harrison Schmitt was a senator from New Mexico. James B. Irwin founded an evangelical organization and Edgar Mitchell did research for psychic phenomenon.
But the most interesting job experience after the Moon travel was Buzz Aldrin. He was once worked for a Cadillac dealership in Beverly Hills, California as a car salesman.
He explained in his memoir, Magnificent Desolation, when people knew he was the astronaut that land on the Moon, the conversation immediately turned from luxury cars to space travel. He spent more time signing autographs and did not sell a single car when he worked at the dealer.
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