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Jfk Space Exploration

Decent Essays

Space Exploration: Apollo missions

By Kenneth Hanks FDSCI 101 41 fall 2015 10/30/2015

What was the motivation that led to the discovery?

The Apollo program was conceived during the Eisenhower administration in 1960. Up until this time the US space program had only supported one astronaut in flight. The Apollo program would carry 3 astronauts. The motivation was to be able to orbit 3 instead of 2 or 1. At the beginning of the research and design into Apollo, the trips to the moon were not anticipated until the far future. The US was perceived to be behind the USSR in space exploration. President Kennedy changed all that.

What questions were asked?

President Kennedy on May 25th 1961 proposed a manned Moon landing in this special message …show more content…

Johnson was to look into the status of America’s space program. He had promised the American people that we would catch up in space exploration. Johnson reported back 1 week later that we are not making maximum effort nor achieving the results that are necessary to reach a position of leadership. As a result of this report Kennedy delivered the above message. This was the start of the monumental effort that went into the Apollo program and achieved the first manned moon landing.

What was the significance of the discovery?

The first decision was to reconfigure the Apollo program to be the vehicle for the first moon landing. Massive inventions in hardware and software and organization were needed to succeed. A launch control center named launch Complex 39, a vertical Assemble Building (VAB), a mobile launcher platform, a transporter, an operations and checkout building (OCB), and 2 vacuum chambers would need to be designed and built for the Apollo program to succeed in a moon landing.

Talented scientist, engineers, and administrators were recruited to organize and direct the effort to invent the needed changes to the existing Apollo design. There were 4 proposals on how Apollo would be …show more content…

Some of those are: John Houbolt at Langley Research Center; Robert Seamans; Nicholas E. Golovin, Joseph Shea; Wernher von Braun; Jerome Wiesner; and many others contributed to the final decision of LOR (Lunar Orbit Rendezvous) for the Apollo program.

Space historian James Hansen concludes that:

“Without NASA's adoption of this stubbornly held minority opinion in 1962, the United States may still have reached the Moon, but almost certainly it would not have been accomplished by the end of the 1960s, President Kennedy's target date.”

Mr. Hansen is speaking of the LOR

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