4.+Man+on+the+Moon

=​The Man In The Moon Setbacks =

Following the success of Shepard's journey into space, President John F. Kennedy set his sights on landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade. On May 25, 1961, Kennedy addressed a joint session of Congress and urged them to grant more funding to acheive his goal. As a result, the Apollo space program (originally conceived by Dwight D. Eisenhower) began designing a spacecraft that would successfully land astronauts on the lunar surface and bring them home safely. While everyone knows that the legendary Apollo 11 mission accomplished this task, the Apollo program was not without its own major setbacks.

Apollo I was intended to be the first manned mission into space with a Command and Service Module, a form of onboard computer used for ground tracking and flight control. Three astronauts, Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee were chosen to man the spacecraft. However, an electrical problem started a fire on the launchpad and the three astronauts died from smoke inhalation.

Similarly, on March 23, 1961, a Russian Cosmonaut named Valentin Bonderenko died from a fire in a testing chamber. However, the Soviet government covered the incident and the truth of the accident was not revealed until 1980.



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One Small Step


On July 20, 1969, President Kennedy's dream came true. The crew of Apollo 11 (comprised of Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins) successfully landed on the moon. The Apollo 11 spacecraft was composed of two main parts, the Eagle lunar lander that would transport Aldrin and Armstrong directly to the lunar surface, and the Columbia command module piloted by Collins. After orbiting the moon for four days, Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong jettisoned the Eagle the lunar lander from Columbia and made their descent. Upon landing in the "Sea of Tranquility", Neil Armstrong became the very first man to step foot on the moon. Buzz Aldrin quickly followed him, while Collins watched from orbit. On the surface, Neil Armstrong took many photos of the lunar surface while both men tested the effects of gravity on them. Armstrong then dealt the killing blow in the American-Soviet space race when he firmly planted an American flag in the Sea of Tranquility. In addition, the Apollo 11 crew set up several experimental devices on the lunar surface including the Lunar laser Ranging Experiment (which reflected lasers back to earth to determine the moon's distance) and the Passive Seismic Experiment (which monitored lunar quakes).

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