Explorations — aprogram in Special English by the Voice of America.
The nineteen-sixties were exciting times in space exploration.Today, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe look back at the first flightsof the Apollo program designed to land humans on the moon.
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VOICE ONE:
The decision to go to the moon was made in May,nineteen-sixty-one. President John Kennedy set the goal in a speechto Congress and the American people. He said he believed the UnitedStates, before the end of the nineteen-sixties, should land a man onthe moon and return him safely to Earth.
He said no other effort would be so important to the explorationof space. And he said no other effort would be so difficult or costso much to do.
VOICE TWO:
At the time President Kennedy spoke, the Soviet space programseemed far ahead. The Soviet Union put the first satellite intoEarth orbit. A Soviet spacecraft was the first to land instrumentson the moon. And a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, was the first manin space.
The United States had just sent an astronaut of its own intospace for the first time. Alan Shepard made only a fifteen-minuteflight in the little one-man Mercury spacecraft. But his flight gaveAmericans the feeling that the United States could pull ahead of theSoviet Union in the space race.
There was great public support for President Kennedy’s moonlanding goal. And Congress was ready to spend the thousands ofmillions of dollars that a moon landing program would cost.
VOICE ONE:
Much happened in the months after America decided to go to themoon.
New space flight centers were built. Designs for launch rocketsand spacecraft were agreed on. And a new spaceflight program –Project Gemini — was begun. Flights in the two-man Geminispacecraft tested the men, equipment and methods to be used in theApollo program to the moon.
Gemini let astronauts learn about the dangers of radiation andthe effects of being weightless during long flights. Astronautslearned to move their spacecraft into different orbits and to joinwith other spacecraft.
VOICE TWO:
While the Gemini program prepared astronauts for Apollo flights,NASA engineers were designing and building the Apollo spacecraft.
It was really two spacecraft. One was a cone-shaped commandmodule. The astronauts would ride to the moon in the command module.And they would return home in it.
The second craft was a moon-landing vehicle. Two astronauts wouldride in it from the orbiting command module to the moon’s surface.Later, the landing vehicle would carry them back to the commandmodule for the return trip to Earth.
VOICE ONE:
Engineers also were working on a huge new rocket for Apollo. Itneeded much more power than the rockets used to launch the one-manMercury and the two-man Gemini flights. The Apollo rocket was calledSaturn.
Two Saturn rocket systems were built. One was the Saturn 1-B. Itdid not have enough power to reach the moon. But it could launchApollo spacecraft on test flights around the Earth. The other wasthe Saturn five. It would be the one to launch astronauts to themoon.
Saturn 1-B rockets launched sixunmanned Apollo spacecraft. The test flights showed that all therocket engines worked successfully. They also showed that the Apollospacecraft could survive the launch and could re-enter Earth’satmosphere safely.
VOICE TWO:
By the end of nineteen-sixty-six, NASA officials considered theApollo spacecraft ready for test flights by astronauts. Threeastronauts were named for the first manned Apollo test flight.Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee.
Four weeks before the flight, thethree men were in the command module at Cape Kennedy, Florida. Theywere testing equipment for the flight.
Suddenly, fire broke out in the spacecraft. When rescuers got thedoor open, they found the flames had killed the three astronauts.Grissom, White and Chaffee were the first Americans to die in thespace program.
VOICE ONE:
Engineers redesigned and rebuilt the Apollo command module. Theydesigned a new door that could be opened more quickly. They improvedthe electrical wiring. And they used only materials that would notburn easily.
By November nineteen-sixty-seven, the moon launch rocket, SaturnFive, was ready for a test flight. It thundered into spaceperfectly, pushing an unmanned Apollo spacecraft more thaneighteen-thousand kilometers up into the atmosphere.
VOICE TWO:
The huge Saturn rocket, as tall as a thirty-six floor building,was the heaviest thing ever to leave Earth. It weighed more thantwo-million seven-hundred-thousand kilograms. The noise of itsrockets was one of the loudest sounds ever made by humans.
At the end of the test flight, thespeed of the Apollo spacecraft was increased to forty-thousandkilometers an hour. That was the speed of a spacecraft returningfrom the moon. The spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere withoutdamage.
Apollo flights Five and Six tested the moon landing module andthe Saturn Five rocket.
VOICE ONE:
Astronauts first flew in the Apollo spacecraft in October,nineteen-sixty-eight. Apollo Seven astronauts Walter Schirra, WalterCunningham and Donn Eisele spent eleven days orbiting the Earth.They tested the spacecraft systems. And they broadcast, for thefirst time, live television pictures of men in orbit.
Everything worked perfectly.
VOICE TWO:
The successful flight of Apollo Seven led NASA officials to sendthe next flight, Apollo Eight, to the moon. The launch was early onthe morning of December twenty-first, nineteen-sixty-eight. Millionsof people were watching on television.
Astronauts Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders were inthe spacecraft at the top of the Saturn Five rocket. NASA officialscounted down the seconds: five, four, three, two, one. The mightyengines fired. Slowly the giant rocket lifted off the Earth.
VOICE ONE:
Three hours later, NASA officials told the crew that everythingwas “okay” for what they called “TLI” or “trans-lunar injection. “This meant the Apollo Eight astronauts could fire the rocket thatwould send them from Earth orbit toward the moon. Less than threedays later, Apollo Eight was orbiting the moon.
The American spacecraft was just one-hundred-ten kilometers fromits surface.
On December twenty-fourth, the astronauts made a televisionbroadcast to Earth. They described the moon’s surface as a strangegray, lonely place. And, as they talked, people on Earth could seepictures of the moon on their television sets.
Apollo Eight returned to Earth without problems. It landed in thePacific Ocean near a waiting ship.
VOICE TWO:
Apollo Eight showed that humans could travel to the moon andreturn safely. The next step was to test the lunar landing craft.That was the job of the astronauts of Apollo Nine. James McDivitt,David Scott and Russell Schweickart. They spent ten days in Earthorbit during March, nineteen-sixty-nine.
During the flight, they separated the lunar lander from thecommand module and flew it for eight hours. They tested all itssystems. Then, they joined the two spacecraft together again, justas astronauts would do after a moon landing.
Engineers decided that after Apollo Nine, one more test flightwas needed. They wanted to test the landing module near the moon. Soastronauts Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan did thatduring the flight of Apollo Ten.
VOICE ONE:
They reached the moon in May, nineteen-sixty-nine. AstronautsStafford and Cernan entered the landing craft and separated it fromthe command ship.
Stafford and Cernan flew the lander down to only thirteenkilometers from the moon. They described the moon during a radio andtelevision broadcast. “It is like wet clay,” they said. “Like a dryriver bed in New Mexico or Arizona. It is a beautiful sight. “
On May twenty-third, the lander rejoined the command moduleone-hundred kilometers above the moon. Apollo Ten started for home.The final testing was done. Apollo was ready to land on the moon.
That will be our story next week.
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ANNCR:
This Special English program was written by Marilyn RiceChristiano. Your narrators were Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe. I’mShirley Griffith. Listen again next week at this time toExplorations on the Voice of America as we continue the story of theApollo moon landing program.