Book Description

These official NASA history documents provide unique accounts of the Apollo lunar landing program. The first document, What Made Apollo A Success? (NASA SP-287) describes three of the basic ingredients of the success of Apollo: spacecraft hardware that is most reliable, flight missions that are extremely well planned and executed, and flight crews that are superbly trained and skilled. Contents: Introduction by George M. Low; Design Principles Stressing Simplicity by Kenneth S. Kleinknecht; Testing To Ensure Mission Success by Scott H. Simpkinson; Apollo Crew Procedures, Simulation, And Flight Planning by Warren J. North And C. H. Woodling; Flight Control In The Apollo Program by Eugene F. Kranz And James Otis Covington; Action On Mission Evaluation And Flight Anomalies by Donald D. Arabian; Techniques Of Controlling The Trajectory by Howard W. Tindall, Jr.; Flexible Yet Disciplined Mission Planning by C. C. Kraft, Jr., J. P. Mayer, C. R. Huss, And R. P. Parten. The introduction states: We will limit ourselves to those tasks that were the direct responsibility of the NASA Manned Spacecraft Center: spacecraft development, mission design and mission planning, flight crew operations, and flight operations. We will describe spacecraft design principles, the all-important spacecraft test activities, and the discipline that evolved in the control of spacecraft changes and the closeout of spacecraft anomalies; and we will discuss how we determined the best series of flights to lead to a lunar landing at the earliest possible time, how these flights were planned in detail, the techniques used in establishing flight procedures and carrying out flight operations, and, finally, crew training and simulation activities - the activities that led to a perfect flight execution by the astronauts. The First Lunar Landing As Told By The Astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins in a Post-flight Press Conference, the second document in this ebook compilation, is a transcript of the Apollo 11 conference. It's a description of man's historic first trip to another celestial body by the men who made the journey. Neil Armstrong, commander of Apollo 11, began the first-hand report to the world of the epic voyage of Eagle and Columbia to the Moon and back to Earth. After 24 hours in lunar orbit Armstrong and Aldrin separated Eagle from Columbia, to prepare for descent to the lunar surface. On July 20 at 4:18 p.m. EDT, the Lunar Module touched down on the Moon at Tranquility Base. Armstrong reported "The Eagle Has Landed." And at 10:56 p.m., Armstrong, descending from Eagle's ladder and touching one foot to the Moon's surface, announced: "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Aldrin soon joined Armstrong. Before a live television camera which they set up on the surface, they performed their assigned tasks. The third and final document, The Lunar Roving Vehicle - Historical Perspective, is a detailed examination of the success of the moon rover by an engineer at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The purpose of this paper is to raise the consciousness level of the current space exploration planners to what, in the early 1970s, was a highly successful roving vehicle. During the Apollo program, the vehicle known as the Lunar Roving Vehicle (LRV) was designed for carrying two astronauts, their tools, and the equipment needed for rudimentary exploration of the Moon. This paper contains a discussion of the vehicle, its characteristics, and its use on the Moon. Conceivably, the LRV has the potential to meet some future requirements, either with relatively low cost modifications or via an evolutionary route. This aspect, however, is left to those who would choose to further study these options.