The Apollo Program

The First Footprint – Lego Style!

The Apollo Missions

Apollo 11 – 50 Part 1

The Saturn V Rocket

Apollo 11 – 50 Part 2

Apollo 11: Rocket Men

The Speech That Sent Us To The Moon

But if I were to say, my fellow citizens, that we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth, re-entering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 miles per hour, causing heat about half that of the temperature of the sun–almost as hot as it is here today–and do all this, and do it right, and do it first before this decade is out–then we must be bold.
President John K Kennedy; Rice Stadium, Houston Texas; Sep. 12th 1962

That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind
Neil Armstrong; Sea of Tranquility, The Moon; Jul. 20th 1969

These two quotes epitomise one of the greatest if not ‘The’ greatest feats by human kind. It represented all that is bold, brave, daring, brilliant, resilient and admirable in human endeavour.The space exploration story involved many men and women from many nations, backgrounds and skills. Astronauts, cosmonauts, engineers, scientists. People like Yuri Gagarin, Alan B. Shepard, Katherine Johnson, Jim Lovell, Gherman Titov, Margaret Hamilton and so many more. I hope to write about all these magnificent people in time but this year marks the 50th Anniversary of Apollo 9 and the exploits of Neil Armstrong, Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin and Michael Collins and it is to this particular chapter that we will concentrate on over the coming few months. But before we blast off with the crew of Apollo 9, it is worth listening to JFK’s speech in full – A speech which, in no small part, eventually led to “The Eagle has landed”.

How They Went To The Moon

I came across this excellent video which describes in simple detail how the Apollo mission worked from blast off to splash down (From the Vox channel on You Tube)