Apollo 11 Accomplishments

On July twentieth, 1969, millions of people from the United States and around the world turned on their television sets which displayed black and white images. What they tuned in to see was one of the ultimate triumphs of science, getting a man to the Moon. The Moon is the largest object in the night sky, the Earth’s only natural satellite, the heavenly body closest to our world, and most importantly, people have been dreaming of visiting it for millennia. During the era of the Cold War, a time of rising tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States, this dream became a reality with the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Apollo program (“Apollo 11” 1). This subject is important as it laid the groundwork

In order to ensure the success of Apollo 11 NASA decided to choose their best and brightest people to carry out the mission. Their selections were Commander Neil Armstrong, Colonel Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin, and Lieutenant Colonel Michael Collins (Red). Born August fifth, 1930, Neil Armstrong was 38 when NASA chose him to lead the quest to the moon and let him become the first American civilian to command two space missions (Red). Second in command Buzz Aldrin was 39 at the time of Apollo 11 and had previously piloted Gemini 12 as well as demonstrated that astronauts could commute effectively in space when he took a roughly two-hour walk outside his vessel (Red). Rounding out the elite team was 38 year old Michael Collins, the Italian-born pilot of Gemini 10 (Red). NASA’s choices were excellent as the astronauts chosen had already obtained experience in the relatively new occupation. Now that the crew was set only the technology and vehicles needed to leave Earth were required for the highly influential

Scientists and engineers knew that they needed a tremendous amount of power to get the three-man crew out of Earth’s atmosphere. Furthermore, high-tech equipment was required to collect and analyze samples and data from the lunar surface.To meet these requirements the most powerful rocket ever built was designed and commissioned. The Saturn V consisted of three small rockets known as stages that were stacked vertically with each subsequent rocket being on top of the other (Hubbard 16). Each stage was designed to blast the ship farther and farther out of Earth’s atmosphere and then eject when its fuel was completely and utterly depleted, leaving only the Apollo 11 spacecraft that had been harboring the crew members and was stationed on top of the trio of rockets (Hubbard 16). This spacecraft was made from three smaller modules, the Command Module or CM, the Service Module or SM, and the Lunar Module or LM (Hubbard 24). The CM and the SM were attached and contained a plethora of control panels, switches, lights, and displays with very limited computing power (Hubbard 24). It’s a miracle that the Command Module could complete its task at all as it had less computing power an average smartphone used today. Apollo 11’s third and most impactful module was the Lunar Module. It was the only module that would actually land on