Space Rocket History Archive

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Lovell toggled the “master arm” switch to On and glanced around to see if everything else was in order. Guidance control was set to “Primary Guidance”; thrust control was on “Auto”; engine gimbals were enabled; the propellant quantity, temperature, and pressure looked good; the ship was maintaining the correct attitude. Homepage with pictures.

Aquarius, can you see any stars yet? Homepage with pictures

Kraft wanted to fire the descent engine now, get the ship back on its free-return slingshot course, and when it emerged from behind the moon and reached the PC+2 point, execute any maneuvers that might be required to refine the trajectory or increase its speed. Homepage with pictures.

Cronkite did not look good. He called Schirra over and thrust a sheet of wire-service copy at him. Schirra scanned the text hurriedly, and with each sentence his heart sank. This was bad. This was worse than bad. This was . . . unheard of. He had a thousand questions, but there wasn't time to ask…… Homepage with pictures 

EECOM, Sy Liebergot looked away from his monitor; the end, he knew, was at last here. Liebergot, through no fault of his own, was about to become the first flight controller in the history of the manned space program to lose the ship that had been placed in his charge. Homepage with pictures.

As near as Lovell could tell, it would be a while before the ship's endgame would play out. He had no way of calculating the leak rate in the tank, but if the moving needle was any indication, he had a couple hours at least before the 318 pounds of oxygen were gone. Homepage with pictures

By the time Flight Director Kranz heard Lovell's report, of “Houston, we've had a problem. ” three controllers had reported related problems. Kranz was wondering which problem Lovell was reporting, as he started relaying the long list of warning indications from the spacecraft displays. Homepage with Pictures

Swigert: I believe we've had a problem here! CapComm: This is Houston. Say again, please. Lovell: Houston, we've had a problem. Homepage with Pictures:

As Lovell prepared for the thruster adjustments, Haise finished closing down the LEM and drifted through the tunnel back toward the command module and Swigert threw the switch to stir all 4 cryogenic tanks. Homepage with Pictures

Milt Windier's team at mission control quickly reviewed the status of the remaining four engines, ran the computations for the new engine cutoff times, and passed them to the crew. Homepage with Pictures

During the Apollo era, North American-Downey built the Apollo Command & Service Module. After each completed spacecraft, Nasa conducted formal reviews of the build paper work before each vehicle was accepted for flight. Homepage with pictures.

Lovell completed four space flights and is one of only three men to travel to the Moon twice. Lovell accrued over 715 hours spent in space, and he saw a total of 269 sunrises from space on his Gemini and Apollo flights. Homepage with pictures.

At thirty-six, Haise was the youngest member of the crew of Apollo 13, and his black hair and angular features made him seem younger still. Homepage with Pictures.

John Leonard Swigert Jr. aka Jack Swigert was born on August 30, 1931 in Denver, Colorado to parents John Leonard Sr. and Virginia Swigert. Homepage with Pictures.

Just before the mission began things started to go wrong. The weekend before launch Charlie Duke, the backup lunar module pilot, came down with a case of German measles. Homepage with pictures.

Targeted for touchdown on the third lunar landing was a place known as the Fra Mauro range, a stretch of rugged, Appalachian-type mounds 110 miles east of the Apollo 12 landing site. Homepage with pictures.

Ten days ago, their Saturn V rocket had blasted Bean and his crew mates out of earth's gravitational pull. Now their home planet was pulling them back at more than 24,000 miles per hour, twelve times faster than a high-speed rifle bullet. “Boy,” said Bean, “we are really hauling!” Homepage with pictures

Dick Gordon opened the tunnel to Intrepid, saw his companions floating in a dirty cloud of moon dust, and slammed the hatch closed. He called out, “You guys ain't gonna mess up my nice clean spacecraft!” Homepage with pictures

After a total of 31.6 hours on the moon, the Lunar Module ascent stage fired for about 7 minutes placing Intrepid into an orbit of 10 miles by 54 miles. Homepage with pictures

Conrad and Bean now walked north, up Surveyor Crater's 14 degree slope. Fatigue set in as Pete and Al walked up the crater wall. The hand tool carrier was nearly full of rocks now and Bean felt the full weight of it. Homepage with pictures

Surveyor 3 was now to their right, 300 feet away, gleaming in the morning sunlight. Antennas and sensors still reached upward from its tubular frame, just as they had on April 20, 1967, when the spacecraft thumped onto the moon amid blasts from its braking rockets. Homepage with pictures.

The problem with running into the sun was it was so bright that Conrad and Bean could not see the moon's surface features until they were right on top of them. Homepage with Pictures

While Conrad led the way, Bean watched the ground for something interesting. It wasn't easy to do field geology while running, and on the moon. Homepage with pictures

Pete and Al could not hear the excited shouts of the geologists in the back room down the hall from mission control, but they knew they had found something significant. Homepage with pictures

Most of the remaining moon walk time was spent collecting rock samples, making surface observations such as the small mounds or hills, and taking pictures. Homepage with Pictures

According to the checklist, Bean was allowed 5 minutes to gain his balance and learn to walk on the Moon. Bean was amazed at his new buoyancy saying, “You can jump up in the air…”  But Conrad wanted to press on saying, “Hustle, boy, hustle! We've got a lot of work to do.” Homepage with Pictutures

“The old Surveyor, yes sir. It can't be any more than 600 feet from here. How about that?” (Pete Conrad.) Homepage with Pictures

“Hey, there it is! There it is! Son of a gun, right down the middle of the road! Look out there! I can't believe it! Fantastic!”  Pete Conrad when he saw his landing site. Homepage with Pictures

There was adrenaline in Pete Conrad's voice as he counted down the last seconds before ignition. He and Bean were still weightless, but their bodies were secured to the cabin floor by harnesses. “Seven, six, five.”  Conrad pushed the PROCEED button on the computer, and a moment later Intrepid's  descent engine ignited 50,000 feet above the moon. Homepage with Pics

At 83 hours mission elapsed time, the long lunar coast was almost over. It was time for the lunar orbit insertion burn. This burn would put Yankee Clipper and Intrepid into lunar orbit. Homepage with Pics  

It was impossible to check out the entire spacecraft; that could only be done on the ground. In the short time available, Griffin's team ran a pre-maneuver check list, re-aligned the CSM platform, and discussed proceeding with the mission with the crew. Homepage with Pics.

John Aaron's (EECOM) next call made him a legend in Mission Control. He said quickly and confidently, “Flight, try S-C-E to Aux.” Homepage with pics

It was 68 degrees, overcast, and raining at Cape Kennedy on November 14, 1969. The ceiling was 2,100 feet and the winds were light. There was some discussion, while the astronauts were suiting-up, of scrubbing the launch, but that would mean ramping this whole thing down, draining every drop of fuel out of the Saturn, and sitting on their hands for a twenty-eight-day hold. Homepage with Pics

The Saturn V's control system was housed inside and also referred to as the Instrument Unit (IU). Marshall Space Flight Centers Astrionics Laboratory categorized the IU as the “brain” and “nerve center” of Saturn V. Homepage with Pics

Pete Conrad joined NASA as part of the second group of astronauts, known as the New Nine, on September 17, 1962. He was regarded as one of the best pilots in the group, and was among the first of his group to be assigned a Gemini mission.  

The third man to walk on the moon, Charles Conrad Jr. was born on June 2, 1930, in Philadelphia, to Charles and Frances Conrad. He was their third child and their first son. Homepage with Pictures

After completing a four-year tour of duty, he attended the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School at NAS Patuxent River, Maryland. He trained under the direction of Pete Conrad, who would later become Commander of the Apollo 12 moon flight, and who would be instrumental in getting Bean assigned to that mission. Homepage with pictures.

After graduating from the University of Washington, Gordon joined the US Navy, and after his first exposure to planes decided to become a pilot. Gordon said “Once I found what the airplane could do for me, or I could do for it, it was love at first sight.” Homepage with pictures.

At NASA Headquarters, George Mueller and other planners created a far-reaching plan that Administrator Paine made even more ambitious in adapting it for Nixon's Space Task Group. The task group's timetable called for a twelve-man space station and a reusable space shuttle as early as 1975. By 1980, the station would have grown into a fifty-man space base; five years later there would be a hundred men in orbit. Meanwhile, there would be a base in lunar orbit by 1976, with a base on the lunar surface two years later. Then, as early as 1981, the first manned expedition to Mars would depart from earth orbit. Click Here for Homepage with Pictures

The Vulcan device consisted of two major units. The first unit included various welding devices and a turn-table with samples of metals to be welded. The second unit consisted of an electric power pack, a protective shield which covered the welding unit, and a remote control console. click here for Homepage with pictures

Finally, on April 25, 1969 during a meeting of the Soyuz State Commission, it was decided that the solo and docking flights outlined for 1969 by design bureau OKB-1 would be combined into a joint flight of three spacecraft.  The plan was to fly Soyuz 6, 7, and 8 together in August of 1969; Soyuz 7 and 8 would dock and 6 would rendezvous with the docked pair and take pictures of it as well as perform a welding experiment. Homepage with pictures

The round-the-world tour began on September 29th and lasted until November 5th covering 28 cities in 25 countries in 38 days. The astronauts' wives were allowed to go along on the trip, as well as a large staff. Homepage with Pictures

On August 10th, 1969 quarantine officially ended for the Apollo 11 crew, but that did not end the duties required for a flight of such magnitude. On August 12th, the Astronauts conducted a post flight press conference. They were greeted with a standing ovation from members of the media. Homepage with Pictures and more:

The helicopter door slid open and Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins stepped out of the helicopter onto the lower deck of the carrier Hornet to the accompaniment of a brass band. They appeared to many, like men from another world. They were outfitted from head to toe in gray-colored Biological Isolation Garments. Homepage with pictures and more

At launch, Apollo 11 weighed 6,000,000 pounds, now all that was left of Columbia weighed in at a mere 11,000 pounds. Homepage with Pictures

The next critical event in the Apollo 11 mission was the Trans-Earth Injection burn. The burn involved firing the big service propulsion engine for two and a half minutes on the back side of the moon. Homepage with Pictures

The ascent of the Eagle was strikingly swift compared with the liftoff of the huge Saturn V rocket from Cape Canaveral. Of course for the Moon launch, there was no atmosphere resisting Eagle, and there was only one-sixth gravity to overcome. Homepage with Pics

Until now they had been focused on reaching the moon, landing, taking a walk on its surface, setting up experiments, exploring, and gathering evidence. With those tasks completed and their lunar bounty was board, the top priority was to fly back to Earth. Homepage with Pics

Without a word to Houston, while Buzz made his way back to Eagle, Armstrong took off running. Long strides carried Armstrong into the sun's glare to the edge of a crater that looked to be 80 feet across and 15 or 20 feet deep. Homepage with pictures

“For one priceless moment, in the whole history of man, all the people on this earth are truly one. One in their pride in what you have done. And one in our prayers that you will return safely to earth” President Nixon. Homepage with pictures