Apollo+Program

Home The Bomb Sputnik Apollo Program

//"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."//--Neil Armstrong
 * Apollo Program**

Humans on the Moon? Is it possible? YES! The Apollo Program was designed to achieve the goal of landing a human on the moon and safely returning him/her to Earth. Out of the 20 Apollo trip attempts, only 6 achieved the goal. Four of the missions (Apollo 1, 18, 19, 20) were canceled, and five of them were unmanned missions. With the successful landing of Neil Armstrong and his crew upon the surface of the moon, the United States took the position again as the world's technology leader. This led to fear in Russia as the Russians had underestimated the ability of the Americans and were not longer sure of what the United States was capable.

This video shows both the original claim by JFK that America should land a man on the moon, and film of when it actually happened. It also notes the importance of the scientific tasks for the Apollo11 crew. The astronauts could not simply bask in the beauty of the new body; they had work to do. media type="file" key="7407.flv"

First Apollo to achieve the goal: Apollo 11 Members of Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin Jr. -Armstrong and Buzz actually landed on the moon, Collins orbited above



Distance between Earth and moon:** 384,000 km In order to determine the gravity of the moon, the equation **g=G[(mass of moon)/(radius of moon)^2]** is used**. G= 6.67 x 10^-11 (N*m^2)/kg^2**
 * __Basic Facts about the moon__:
 * Radius of the moon:** 1.74 x 10^6 m
 * Mass of the moon:** 7.36 x 10^22 kg
 * Equation to solve for gravity of moon:** (6.67 x 10^-11)[(7.36 x 10^22)/(1.74 x 10^6)^2]= 1.6 m/s^2
 * Gravity of the moon:** 1.6 m/s^2
 * //More about Gravity//** -- Gravity, a force, is the mutual attraction between 2 masses. Looking at the Law of Universal Gravitation, it is stated that "every body attracts every other body in the universe with a force that is directly proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the separation of their centers." Basically this is saying that the force, which is gravity, is equal to the mass and acceleration multiplied together. The force attracts the objects and brings them together. Even though a person's mass would remain the same on the Earth and moon, their weight would be different. Example: A person who weighs 132 lbs on the Earth will only weigh about 22 lbs on the moon!

__**Rotation, Yay!**__ Rotation= time it takes to spin around on it's own axis Rotation of moon = same time it takes moon to orbit Earth (27.3 days) //**Kepler's Laws** 1. Planets travel in elliptical paths around the earth. 2. A line from the sun to the planet sweep out equal area for equal time. 3.(R^3)/(T^2)= constant// Dealing with Law 1, when the moon travels around the earth, it travels at a speed of about 3,700 km/hr. It travels in a circular motion which is due to a gravitational force. Somehow the moon has synchronized itself into only showing one of it's faces to Earth at all times. Because of this, we only see one hemisphere while the other is constantly facing the other direction.

__**Rocks, soil, no water?! Oh my !!**__ Part of the expedition to the moon was to also gather rocks and soil from the moon's surface. This was accomplished and it was discovered that these minerals are very dry. This is because the moon has no indigenous water. The surface of the sun bakes in the sun at up to 117˚C for 2 weeks at a time. That's a whole lot of heat and no water!