Everything You Need to Know About the Moon
It was a feat for the ages. Just seven years before, a young president had challenged the nation to country a human being on the moon—non because information technology was "easy," as John F. Kennedy said in 1962, but because it was "hard." By July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong backed down a ladder and onto the moon'southward surface.
Along the style to achieving JFK's vision, in that location was plenty of hard piece of work, drama and surprise. Here are some lesser-known moments throughout the epic U.S. effort to achieve the moon.
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1. Moon dirt smells.
A big question facing the NASA squad planning the Apollo 11 moon landing was what would the moon's surface be like—would the lander's legs touch down on firm ground, or sink into something soft? The surface turned out to be solid, but the real surprise was that the moon had a smell.
Moon soil is extremely clingy and difficult to brush off, then when Armstrong and Aldrin returned to the lunar module and repressurized it, lunar dirt that had clung to the men'due south suits entered the cabin and began to emit an aroma. The astronauts reported that it had a burned odour like wet fireplace ashes, or like the air after a fireworks evidence.
Scientists would never get the chance to investigate merely what the crew was smelling. While moon soil and rock samples were sent to labs in sealed containers, once they were opened dorsum on Globe, the smell was gone. Somehow, as Charles Fishman, author of One Giant Jump, says, "The smell of the moon remained on the moon."
Scout video: Apollo xi: What the Moon Smells Like
2. JFK was more focused on beating the Soviets than in space.
In public, President John F. Kennedy had boldly pledged that the United States would "gear up canvass on this new body of water because there is new knowledge to exist gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people."
Merely surreptitious tapes of Kennedy's discussions would later reveal that in private, JFK was less interested in infinite exploration than in ane-upping the Soviets.
In a 1962 coming together with advisors and NASA administrators, JFK confessed, "I'one thousand not that interested in space." Only he was interested in winning the Common cold State of war. Simply months later on JFK's inauguration, the Soviet Matrimony had sent the get-go man into infinite. Kennedy asked his vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, how the U.Southward. could score a win confronting the Soviets.
One of the best ways to bear witness U.S. dominance, Johnson reported back, was by sending a manned mission to the moon. Johnson, in fact, had long been a space advocate, saying in 1958, "Control of space is command of the world."
Lookout man video: Apollo 11: JFK's Secret Space Tapes
3. The Soviets covered up their efforts to get to the moon outset.
It turns out that the United States wasn't solitary in wanting to demonstrate its dominance by landing humans on the moon. The Soviet Spousal relationship was as well gunning to accomplish the feat. Merely once U.Due south. astronauts got at that place outset, the Soviets tried to keep their efforts on the down-depression.
At first, "secrecy was necessary so that no one would overtake us," wrote announcer Yaroslav Golovanov in the Soviet paper, Komsomolskaya Pravda. "But later, when they did overtake u.s., nosotros had to maintain secrecy so that no ane knew that nosotros had been overtaken."
READ MORE: The Soviet Response to the Moon Landing? Denial.
four. Astronauts trained for microgravity by walking "sideways."
How do you fix to send someone to a place no one has ever gone before? For NASA in the 1960s, the respond was to create simulations that mimicked aspects of what astronauts could expect to encounter.
Armstrong and Aldrin rehearsed collecting samples on fake, indoor moonscapes. Armstrong skilful taking off and landing in the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle in Houston. And, to simulate walking in the moon'southward lower-gravity atmosphere, astronauts were suspended sideways by straps and and then walked along a tilted wall.
NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey even blasted out craters at Cinder Lake, Arizona to create a landscape that matched part of the moon's surface—because, later all, practice makes perfect.
A exam subject being suited up for studies on the Reduced Gravity Walking Simulator at Langley Research Center, 1963.
NASA
See PHOTOS: How Astronauts Trained for the Apollo Moon Missions
5. Ceremonious Rights activists got a front-row seat to the Apollo 11 launch.
Not everyone was gung-ho nearly the U.S. effort to state people on the moon. A few days before the scheduled launch of Apollo 11, a group of activists, led past civil rights leader Ralph Abernathy, arrived outside the gates of the Kennedy Space Center. They brought with them 2 mules and a wooden wagon to illustrate the contrast between the gleaming white Saturn V rocket and families who couldn't afford food or a decent place to live.
Amid the heady build-up to the launch, the NASA ambassador, Thomas Paine, came out to talk to the protestors, contiguous. After Paine and Abernathy talked for a while under lightly falling pelting, Paine said he hoped Abernathy would "hitch his wagons to our rocket, using the space plan as a spur to the nation to tackle problems boldly in other areas, and using NASA's infinite successes as a yardstick past which progress in other areas should be measured."
Paine then arranged to have members of the group nourish the next solar day's launch from a VIP viewing area. Abernathy prayed for the safety of the astronauts and said he was as proud as anyone at the accomplishment.
Bettmann Archive/Getty Images
READ MORE: Why Civil Rights Leaders Protested the Moon Landing
six. Buzz Aldrin took holy communion on the moon.
When Apollo 11's Eagle lunar module landed on the moon on July xx, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Fizz Aldrin had to expect before venturing outside. Their mission ordered them to accept a pause earlier the large event.
So Aldrin used some of the time doing something unexpected, something no man had e'er attempted before. Alone and overwhelmed past anticipation, he took part in the first Christian sacrament ever performed on the moon—a rite of Christian communion.
The communion handbag and beaker used by Fizz Aldrin during his lunar communion.
David Frohman, President of Peachstate Historical Consulting, Inc.
Read more than: Fizz Aldrin Took Holy Communion on the Moon. NASA Kept it Placidity
vii. Scientists were worried about infinite germs infecting World.
Later risking their lives for the advancement of humanity, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins had the dubious pleasure of being stuck in planetary protection quarantine on their return. Since humans had never been to the moon before, NASA scientists couldn't be certain that some deadly space-borne plague hadn't hitched a ride on the astronauts.
As soon every bit their re-entry capsule splashed downwards in the Pacific Sea on July 24, the trio was transferred to a mobile quarantine facility inside which they were transported to NASA Lunar Receiving Laboratory at Johnson Infinite Center where they had access to a larger quarantine facility until their release on August ten, 1969.
President Richard Nixon speaking with Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin who were subjected to a menses of quarantine upon their render to Earth.
MPI/Getty Images
READ More than: 5 Terrifying Moments During the Apollo xi Moon Landing Mission
viii. President Nixon was anxious the mission could fail.
While President Kennedy had rallied the nation to state a man on the moon, he was assassinated before he could run into the Apollo mission achieve his vision. That nervus-racking honor fell to President Richard Nixon, who had been elected in 1968.
Watching Neil Armstrong and Fizz Aldrin have their beginning steps on the moon, Nixon's feet reached a peak. If anything went incorrect, he would accept to manage America's outrage over billions of revenue enhancement dollars culminating in the death of two astronauts.
His staff had prepared a argument to be read in the consequence the worst happened and organized a priest to commit their souls to the deep, much like a burying at ocean.
Watching Apollo xi alive from the moon, the President could only hope he wouldn't accept to read it.
He didn't. The men who had traveled more than 200,000 miles to the moon so stepped pes on an alien world had survived. And the United States would go on to complete vi crewed missions that landed a full of 12 astronauts on the moon from 1969 to 1972.
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Source: https://www.history.com/news/moon-landing-apollo-11-facts
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