Apollo 11 Rocket Research Paper

In the Shadow of the moon-Bethan

On the 25th of May 1961 President John F. Kennedy set the goal to place a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

“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” says Kennedy.

When Kennedy’s speech took place it was a difficult time. The world was at the midst of the Vietnam War, a time of turmoil and horror. Not only was it important for America to see a man on the moon, but for the whole world. So when the astronauts of Apollo 11 were broadcasted on television and when they finally came home it was such a significant time for all of humanity. It truly is an amazing piece of history,

EST, July 16th 1969. The rocket has to be launched at a specific time to land on the moon as soon as possible. It had to launch so that the rocket, shooting upwards, would no fall short of the moon. Three days after launch the moon has to be close or the rocket has to orbit the Earth before reaching the moon.

During launch a rocket is difficult to keep balanced, massive motors are used to keep the rocket from tipping. The Apollo 11 rocket was 111m tall and [without fins] had a 10m diameter.

The rocket had to travel 11.25 k/p to break free from the earth’s gravity [9.807 m/s2], 7.5million pounds of thrust, and at take-off the rocket travelled 0.46 m/s. Doing this required lots of fuel and power. The first stage of the rocket uses 770,000 litres of kerosene fuel and 1.2 million litres of liquid oxygen to be able to combust at take-off. The second stage uses 984,000 litres of liquid hydrogen fuel and 303,000 litres of liquid oxygen. The third stage uses 252,750 litres of liquid hydrogen fuel and 73,280 litres of liquid oxygen. Each of these stages discarded at certain stages after

When With only thirty seconds of fuel left, Armstrong still had to fly the Lunar Module onto a safe landing spot. The craters and mountainous terrain of the moon it was difficult to find a flat safe place to land. In these sorts of situations there are thousands of things that can go wrong and any of these could have happened, endangering the lives of the astronauts. Armstrong managed to land the Lunar Module and around six hours later he stepped onto the moon, “Buzz” Aldrin shortly after.

Food on the mission to the moon had to be nutritious enough to give sufficient energy to the astronauts for them to be able to walk on the surface of the moon. The food had to be lightweight, fit within small packages, and able to maintain the astronaut’s body weight and nutritional balance. Much of the food on Apollo 11 was dehydrated to increase shelf life.

Oxygen is another concern in space. During a test on a spacecraft there was a tragic accident. A fire started and quickly spread because of the pure oxygen inside. By the time someone managed to open the test spacecraft the astronauts were already burnt to death. The use of pure oxygen was abandoned and replaced with 34 % oxygen. Many people lost their lives during the Apollo program and there was a great threat for all astronauts [and others] to come back from space