US President Richard Nixon threw a 1440-guest dinner in honor of the Apollo 11 crew in Los Angeles on 13 August 1969, a day which saw the astronauts hop between New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Nixon himself oversaw details including a newly commissioned song by the Marine Drum and Bugle Corps and table decor, according to Time Magazine.

The guests included government officials, astronauts, entertainment figures and other celebrities, but notably lacked Jacquelyn Onassis, former President John F. Kennedy's First Lady, who declined Nixon's invitation. The mood, while celebratory, was also valedictory, according to space journalist Andrew Chaikin. The astronauts were well aware that Nixon was no fan of the manned space program, which he saw as a legacy of his predecessors Kennedy and Johnson. Chaikin wrote in A Man on the Moon that one cynical astronaut at the dinner raised a pre-emptive memorial toast to the moon landings: "Here's to the Apollo program. It's all over."

Continue reading "@ApolloPlus40 - It's all over" »

Posted by Lucas Laursen on August 14, 2009
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The Apollo 11 crew, along with 20 other NASA personnel quarantined with them at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston, completed their health quarantine on 10 August 1969. They emerged to cheers from 300 NASA employees and the embraces of their families, who they had seen and spoken to through windows for the duration of the quarantine.

The Apollo 11 crew's last day at home was 7 July 1969, in the run-up to the launch, and they would only enjoy a few hours back home before embarking on an international public relations tour to celebrate their mission's success.

Video: http://bit.ly/2pH6m

Photo: NASA

Continue reading "@ApolloPlus40 - Moon quarantine ends" »

Posted by Lucas Laursen on August 10, 2009
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For a few minutes during re-entry, manned spacecraft are just as isolated from communicating with Houston as when they are on the far side of the Moon. Radio signals cannot penetrate the cushion of ionized air surrounding the capsule as it falls through the Earth's atmosphere.

Eventually, drag from the atmosphere slows the capsule enough that the air around it no longer ionizes, and the astronauts regain radio contact with Houston. Unlike today's space shuttle or the Soviet Soyuz capsules, Apollo capsules returned to the sea, using parachutes to slow their final descent. There, a team of naval ships and helicopters recovered both crew and capsule.

Photo: NASA

Continue reading "@ApolloPlus40 - Splashdown" »

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 24, 2009
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Luna 15 was the last-ditch Soviet attempt to upstage the American landing on the Moon. While Armstrong and Aldrin prepared to leave Tranquility Base, the Soviet robot began its descent towards the lunar surface. At 10:51 Houston time, British observers at Jodrell Bank lost track of the radio signal. One observer commented, ""I say, this has really been drama of the highest order."

Listen to a recording of the Jodrell Bank commentary here: http://bit.ly/KbAj5

Overview of the Luna programme: http://bit.ly/11cCE1

NASA page on Luna 15: http://bit.ly/In9O9

Read more about the demise of Luna 15 - http://bit.ly/AwIko

Previous @ApolloPlus40 coverage of Luna: Odds against Luna 15, (13 July 2009) and Russian rumours (2 July 2009).

Continue reading "@ApolloPlus40 - Drama of the highest order" »

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 21, 2009
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A lunar language all its own?

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed the Eagle on the lunar surface at 15:17 Houston time on 20 July 1969. Their first words from the surface were the mundane jargon of the space age:

"Contact light."
"Shutdown."
"Ok, engine stop. ACA out of detent."
"Out of detent. Auto."
"Mode control, both auto. Descent engine command override, off. Engine arm, off. 413 is in."

Armstrong completed his checklist, saying "Engine arm is off," before pausing and delivering the words the world wanted to hear: "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."

Continue reading "@ApolloPlus40 - Tranquility Base" »

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 20, 2009
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"During the Apollo 11 mission, members of the Lunar International Observer Network (LION) made continuous observations of a lunar area where illuminations had been noted. At 18:45 GMT (2:45 p.m. EDT), the astronauts sighted an illumination in the Aristarchus region, the first time that a lunar transient event was sighted by an observer in space. The sighting was confirmed by a LION observer in West Germany."

NASA Office for Manned Space Flight, “Manned Space Flight Weekly Report - August 11, 1969.”

Some modern TLP astronomy research.
See Nature News coverage here (13 May 2009).

This blog post is part of the @ApolloPlus40 series, which accompanies the ApolloPlus40 Twitter project by Nature News, a re-telling of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, 40 years later.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 19, 2009
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For a close-up view from a camera on the gantry, check out this video [3:31].

For a transcript and audio clips of Jack King's narration of the launch and subsequent parts of the mission, see the Apollo 11 Flight Journal.

This blog post is part of the @ApolloPlus40 series, which accompanies the ApolloPlus40 Twitter project by Nature News, a re-telling of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, 40 years later.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 16, 2009
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The day before the launch, newspapers carried profiles of the Apollo 11 crew and commentary on the scene near at the launch site.

In an article about Neil Armstrong AP writer Paul Recer revealed that as a teenager Armstrong had worked in a drugstore for $0.40 an hour in order to save up enough money for flying lessons that cost $9 an hour, the equivalent of about $110 today. His father told the AP that he had taken the boy for flights in an old Ford Trimotor instead of Sunday school, because morning flights were cheaper. Armstrong, Collin, and Aldrin and their contemporaries had trained their whole lives to prepare for the challenges of space flight, the article implied.

In another, less adulatory, article a journalist asked whether the rest of the nation was quite so well prepared for the lunar landing. A selection:

Tomorrow, men will be going to the moon. At a dock at Port Canaveral, a black, sinister-looking British submarine called the Renown waited to take on a cargo of Polaris nuclear missiles, and a few miles south a blond bronzed young god browsed, with sensual touch, through the merchandise at "Soul Surfboards," and men drank at the "Ali Bar" and "The Satellite Lounge," it being too early for the topless girls at the "Missile Lounge," and in the black ghetto of Cocoa, Fla., an old man stared wordlessly through the window of the tiny "Working Man Friend Cafe" on Magnolia Street. Tomorrow, men will be going to the moon.

Another:

"At the 'Wooden Nickel Saloon,' a man noted that all the government people coming here represent the biggest exodus of brass from Washington since the gentlemen and their ladies rode buggies out to witness the first Battle of Bull Run."

Finally:

"...tomorrow, they will be going to the moon. They seem ready. Are we?"

This blog post is part of the @ApolloPlus40 series, which accompanies the ApolloPlus40 Twitter project by Nature News, a re-telling of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, 40 years later.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 15, 2009
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After the Apollo 8 mission, which orbited the Moon in late December 1968, acting NASA administrator Thomas O. Paine called the achievement "a triumph of the squares." (See a version of the UPI wire story in the 28 December 1968 Bend, Oregon Bulletin.)

The phrase resonated throughout the press. An editorial by William Hines widely syndicated on 14 July 1969 claimed the moniker and the astronauts' clean-cut image was a good thing. He wrote:

"The Apollo program is not only run by squares, but for squares; its thrills and glories appeal to the vast majority of Americans who, at bottom, are just as square as any Armstrong on Earth-Jack or Neil or any other."

Addressing public complaints that Apollo astronauts had sworn during their missions, Hines wrote somewhat presciently that "The Apollo 11 crew can be trusted to handle the English language, if not fluently, at least aseptically."

Photo: Thomas O. Paine / NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 14, 2009
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The Reverend Ralph Abernathy (see In The Field, 7 July 2009) led 25 poor Southern families on mule-drawn wagons to the Kennedy Space Center to protest federal funding priorities. Thomas O. Paine, NASA administrator, met the group outside the gate, according to New York Times and Washington Post reports.

Abernathy asked Paine to join the fight against poverty by converting NASA's technology to find better ways of creating food. He also asked for 40 passes to the Very Important Person launch viewing area for his mule-drawn companions.

Paine gave Abernathy the entry passes, but said that "it will be a lot harder to solve the problems of hunger and poverty than it is to send men to the moon." But, "if it were possible for us not to push that button tomorrow and solve the problems you are talking about, we would not push the button."

He added that, “I want you to hitch your wagon to our rocket and tell the people the NASA program is an example of what this country can do.”

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 14, 2009
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US President Richard Nixon sent Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin a telegram in advance of the launch of Apollo 11. A selection:

“On the eve of your epic mission, I want you to know that my hopes and my prayers-and those of all Americans-go with you. Years of study and planning and experiment and hard work on the part of thousands have led to this unique moment in the story of mankind; it is now your moment and from the depths of your minds and hearts and spirits will come the triumph all men will share. I look forward to greeting you on your return. Until then, know that all that is best in the spirit of mankind will be with you during your mission and when you return to earth.”

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 14, 2009
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The Moon's gravity, which is only about one sixth of the Earth's, will give the Apollo medical team another new thing to study, Dr. Charles Barry told the Associated Press in an interview published on 13 July 1969.

After over 4500 hours in spaceflight, the astronauts had not had any serious medical problems. "We've knocked down one medical fear after another in manned space flight," Barry said.

For an early overview of the problems associated with manned spaceflight, check out this history of Project Mercury, the US manned space program that preceded Gemini and Apollo: http://bit.ly/

Photo: Joe Kerwin gives Pete Conrad a dental examination aboard Skylab on 22 June 1973 / NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 13, 2009
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The chances of the robotic USSR mission Luna 15 returning to earth with a lunar sample were small, NASA associate administrator Dr. George E. Mueller told reporters at the Kennedy Space Center on 13 July 1969 Exploring the Moon "remotely is more difficult than doing it with men in space. I don’t think by any means impossible, but . . . the chances of being able to carry it out on the first mission are relatively low compared to the kind of probability that we would associate with our own landings.”

Mueller added that "The first sample returned ... and the first man landing on the moon are significant events, each in their own right." Still, Luna XV threatened to steal some of Apollo 11's limelight--it was due to arrive on the Moon while the astronauts were there.

See also the ApolloPlus40 blog post reporting America's first inklings about Luna 15 (In The Field, 2 July 2009).

Photo: NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 13, 2009
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The National Academy of Sciences published a Plan for U.S. Participation in the Global Atmospheric Research Program (GARP) in 1969. It grew from a plea by US President John F. Kennedy in 1961 for "further cooperative efforts between all nations in weather prediction and eventually weather control" in a speech to the United Nations in 1961. (From the Colby College Guide to Historical Resources in Atmospheric Sciences)

GARP called for a series of regional studies leading up a global weather observation test studying the Pacific Ocean and atmosphere in 1973. The observational network would need 2 satellites, almost 1,000 balloons, 135 buoys, and a dozen aircraft . It anticipated that computers would be 100 times faster by then. It also said that developments in computers and satellites had made it possible “to advance toward the goal of accurate two-week forecasts and, eventually, toward intelligent modification of the weather.”

Photo: The first image from a weather observation satellite, taken by TIROS-1 on 1 April 1960. / NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 11, 2009
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National Geographic Society cartographer David Moore would follow the Apollo 11 launch through his backyard telescope, the Washington Evening Star wrote on 10 July 1969.

The Wheaton, Maryland, resident was one of just a few amateur astronomers NASA selected to help nearly 200 professionals, in part because he caught a rare glimpse of the previous Apollo launch, Apollo 10. He told the newspaper he would look for "small brilliant flashes when rocket engines are turned on or ‘burned’ or . . . when waste water is ejected from the spacecraft," and freezes into reflective ice crystals.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 10, 2009
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NASA has long touted the unplanned technological side effects of its cutting-edge research and engineering work.

Scientists, engineers, and contractors told the Wall Street Journal about a life raft with a bucket keel to prevent capsizing in rough water and an inner tube that inflated automatically to keep the raft afloat if its outer skin was punctured, a computer system to track down deadbeat dads, the inertial navigation systems that became standard equipment on commercial aircraft, and a thermal mapper developed for satellites used to prospect for oil, diagnose cause of sinking airport runways, and find sources of water pollution.

The list went on:

Other space age spinoffs were plastic resin marketed as commercial laminates, adhesives, and coatings ; devices to monitor internal stress in dams during earth tremors; data-processing techniques to record train traffic and to match power-generating capacities to demand; electromagnetic hammer that smoothed and shaped metal without weakening it; and luminous devices for aircraft exit signs, map reading, and gun sites. Medicine was benefiting from miniaturized electronic devices in cardiac pacemakers, remote-handling and manipulation equipment that had improved prosthetic devices like artificial limbs, space-helmet-like hoods to measure oxygen consumption while patient exercised, and computer to provide sharper x-ray photos.

For a sneak preview of the future, check out NASA's modern Spinoff website, which also has a document listing Apollo-era spinoffs [pdf].

Photo: Dialysis machines like this one were simplified by NASA's water recycling technology / NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 09, 2009
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...nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

-Inscription on the James A. Farley post office in New York City, adapted from Herodotus

The Apollo 11 crew would deliver mail to the Moon, announced US Postmaster General Winton M. Blount on 9 July 1969. They would carry the die proof of the pictured 10-cent airmail stamp attached to an envelope and cancel it on the Moon.

When they returned, the US Postal Service would use the die to produce commemorative stamps. Of course, the hand-canceled “Moon Letter” would have to undergo quarantine, just like everything else from the mission, before it could go on public display. The stamp was designed in acrylic on board by Paul Calle with art direction from Stevan Dohanos, modeled by Robert J. Jones, and engraved by Edward R. Felver and Albert Saavedra.

Art: US Postal Museum

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 09, 2009
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From the NASA-commissioned report, Astronautics and Aeronautics, 1969 Chronology on Science, Technology, and Policy [pdf]:

Microscopic examination of dust particles collected from the spacecraft after the Apollo 10 mission and of samples collected from the inside of nine garments worn by the Apollo 10 astronauts confirmed preliminary findings that the itching experienced by the astronauts was due to the insulation in the tunnel hatch of the command module. Investigation showed the fiberglass insulation had flaked off during LM pressurization. Review of thermal conditions indicated the insulation was not essential and it was eliminated from future vehicles. [Letter] Kenneth S. Kleinknecht, [Marshall Space Center], to George W. Jeffs, North American Rockwell Corp., July 9, 1969.

For diagrams and photos of the lunar module assembly process, see Myspacemuseum.com

Photo: Apollo 15 crew member David Scott practicing opening the hatch in the docking tunnel between the Command Module and the Lunar Module. / NASA via Honeysucklecreek.net

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 09, 2009
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Congressman John V. Tunney (Democrat, California) introduced H. R. 810 on 8 July 1969, “designating the day which man lands on the moon, and the anniversary of that day each year thereafter as a national holiday to be known as ‘Space Exploration Day.‘ ”

The resolution was referred to House Judiciary Committee. Such declarations became a perennial feature of American political grandstanding in subsequent decades. A record of presidential, congressional and state declarations is available here.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 08, 2009
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NASA brought Biosatellite III back down not long after Bonnie, the pig-tailed macaque on board, refused to eat or drink despite getting 10 emergency water commands from Mission Control.

Was it a hunger strike? NASA couldn't know. But telemetry told the mission controllers that Bonnie's body temperature was dropping, his heart rate was low, he was taking shallow breaths and sleeping too much during his last days in orbit. Since his value as a biomedical experiment depended on his health, NASA decided to bring him back down.

Unlike the first Biosatellite mission, in which the retrorockets failed to ignite, stranding the crew of frogs and insects in orbit, Biosatellite III returned successfully to Earth.

Recovery aircraft were supposed to catch Biosatellite III as it parachuted through the atmosphere near the Hawaiian island of Kaui, but clouds and rainstorms made that impossible and NASA had to recover Bonnie from a tiny bobbing capsule in the Pacific, just like its human-crewed missions.

The recovery team rushed Bonnie to Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, Hawaii, where a medical team treated him and collected data from his flight. Bonny died unexpectedly at 5:04 am Houston time on 8 July 1969.

According to one report, "the science results were compromised, probably because too many bioinstruments were implanted in the monkey. Despite the failure of the mission's scientific agenda, Biosatellite III was enormously influential in shaping the life sciences flight experiment program, pointing to the need for centralized management, more realistic goals, and substantial preflight experiment verification testing."

See also the previous ApolloPlus40 post on Bonnie's mission (In the Field, 29 June 2009).

Photo: RIP Bonnie. NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 08, 2009
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Tektites are glass-like rocks first found scattered around the Earth.

"Prior to the receipt of the lunar samples, it was the scientific consensus that tektites were melted and splashed material formed during large cometary or meteorite impact events. Whether the impact took place on the Earth or the Moon was the topic of a long-standing scientific debate, which raged with particular intensity during the decade previous to the lunar landings."

-from "Tektites: A post-Apollo view," by Stuart Ross-Taylor in Earth Science Reviews, Volume 9, Issue 2, p. 101-123.

On 6 July 1969 Dean R. Chapman [pdf], a physicist at NASA Ames Research Center, explained the lunar origin to a reporter from the Los Angeles Times, and suggested that the rocks brought back by Apollo 11 would not be the first lunar samples studied by scientists.

Photo: Typical tektites. NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 07, 2009
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Newsweek ran a special on 6 July 1969, asking prominent figures to weigh in on space exploration. The opinions were not all positive.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference President and civil rights activist the Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy said:

“A society that can resolve to conquer space; to put man in a place where in ages past it was considered only God could reach; to appropriate vast billions; to systematically set about to discover the necessary scientific knowledge; that society deserves both acclaim and our contempt . . . acclaim for achievement and contempt for bizarre social values. For though it has the capacity to meet extraordinary challenges, it has failed to use its ability to rid itself of the scourges of racism, poverty and war, all of which were brutally scarring the nation even as it mobilized for the assault on the solar system.”

Philosopher Lewis Mumford said: “Space exploration . . . is strictly a military by-product; and without pressure from the Pentagon and the Kremlin it would never have found a place in any national budget.” On the bright side, he thought “that this colossal perversion of energy, thought and other precious human resources may awaken a spontaneous collective reaction sufficient to bring us down to earth again. Any square mile of inhabited earth has more significance for man’s future than all the planets in our solar system.”

NASA hosts a collection of space-age magazine covers here.

Photo: Ralph Abernathy at National Press Club luncheon. Photograph by Warren K. Leffler, 1968 June 14. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, U.S. News and World Report Collection: LC-U9-19265

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 07, 2009
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Mike Collins was the only crew member of Apollo 11 who would not land on the Moon, since his role as command module pilot required him to stay aboard Columbia while Armstrong and Aldrin took Eagle to the surface.

He told reporters "I’m going 99.9% of the way there, and that suits me fine,” and that he was not the "slightest bit frustrated" by his role, though he may have been frustrated with the continual questions about his feelings. Like John Young on the Apollo 10 lunar landing dress rehearsal mission, Collins would experience the privilege of solo flight around the Moon. He later wrote Carrying the Fire about his experience.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 05, 2009
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A contemporary article in Science discussed how geologists might use lunar samples to establish the age of the lunar crust: [pdf]. The age of such rocks and their chemical composition could help geologists determine whether the Moon was formed gradually from dust in the solar system, or formed by a cataclysmic encounter between pre-existing planets in the early solar system.

For a modern overview of Moon formation theories check out this NASA site: http://bit.ly/dxoUE

The Moon's history is intimately tied to Earth's. Photo: NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 04, 2009
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Dr. Lee A. DuBridge, the Presidential Science Adviser, gave an Independence Day speech in Dearborn, Michigan. A biography of him is available here: [pdf]. Selections from his speech below:

“For untold millions of years the human animal was chained to the earth. Sixty years ago he found a way of soaring into its atmosphere. Ten years ago he learned to break the chains of gravity and to soar out into space. This month the first man will set foot on another world. Later this month two spacecraft will reach Mars and send back new information about that Planet. Americans will have no reason to be ashamed of their nation on those days. Is it worth while? Is it worth while to lift the spirits of millions of human beings? If not, what else is worth while?”

“The laws of nature which made it possible have been well known for a long time. The engineering skills required ... were available and were brilliantly organized. Hundreds of thousands of Americans worked together to make this dream come true. They had faith and they had hope.

“The problems of our cities and the other social problems which beset us are not all that easy. In this area human beings are not working together but are in conflict. We find that we do not yet know the cause of these troubles nor do we yet have the mechanisms for curing them. Hence we must study, we must experiment, we must try and we will often fail. . . . And we shall learn from our failures.”

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 04, 2009
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Apollo 11 astronauts would leave a miniature inscription, an American flag, and a plaque on the Moon to commemorate their landing, according to a NASA press release.

The inscription contained quotations from US Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, messages of goodwill from the leaders of 73 countries, the names of congressional leaders and members of four congressional committees responsible for NASA legislation and the names of NASA’s management, past and present. The message was shrunk 200 times and etched on a 3.6 cm silicon disc using electronic circuit-board-making techniques.

The crew would also erect a US flag held up with tubing.

Finally, the descent stage of the Eagle, which would be left behind, bore a plaque with images of the Earth and read: "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon July 1969, A.D. We came in peace for all mankind." President Nixon's name appeared beneath the names of the Apollo 11 crew.

Photo: NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 03, 2009
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Apollo 8 commander Frank Borman took a "sight-seeing" tour of the Soviet Union in the early summer of 1969. His visit coincided with the Moon landing, the culmination of the long space race, but on 3 July his focus was on lobbying for a joint Soviet-American mission, a topic his Soviet counterparts had alternately encouraged and discouraged in previous years.

The two countries did eventually run a joint mission, the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, docking a surplus Apollo command module from a cancelled lunar mission to a Soyuz capsule in1975. NASA provides a history here: http://bit.ly/xIIDP with specific reference to the personal relationships between astronauts and cosmonauts here: http://bit.ly/pxLvp

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 03, 2009
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The Associated Press picked up rumours that the USSR would make a third attempt at a lunar sample-return mission on 10 July, almost a week before Apollo 11's scheduled launch. If successful, the Luna mission would land on the Moon, scoop up some lunar soil and make other measurements while on the surface, and then a small rocket would return the soil sample to Earth for study.

The Soviet space programme made no secret of its secrecy, preferring to hide its failures and bask in the publicity of its successes, but occasionally negative information did leak out. The AP reported that the first Luna mission exploded on the launch pad at Baikonur, the Soviet launch facility, in early April 1969, and the second exploded in flight on 14 June 1969. A source told the AP that Soviet space officials were "very disturbed over the success of the American Apollo program. Losing the moon race will be a terrible blow to them." (Via NASA/Library of Congress history: [pdf])

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 02, 2009
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Time-Life, Inc., offered $400,000 for exclusive book rights to the Apollo 11 story, reported the Washington Daily News.

The fee would be split equally into 60 shares for the 52 active astronauts and the widows of 8 deceased astronauts. The arrangement reflected earlier exclusive publishing deals negotiated by Time-Life with the astronauts. Other press outlets complained about the arrangement to NASA, but NASA argued that since the exclusivity only covered the astronaut's private lives, there was no breach of NASA's outreach duty.

A NASA history explains that the first deal was set up before Project Mercury even got off the ground:

The astronauts were to receive $500,000, to be divided equally, without regard to who was to be the first American —and, it was hoped, the first human— in space. The stories, to be written by Life staff, were to be presented under first-person bylines, and the astronauts and their wives had final approval over the contents. Life's intention was to make the astronauts and their families look good. The astronaut's wives were full partners in the deal and in the stories that were told." From The Collier as Commemoration: The Project Mercury Astronauts and the Collier Trophy by Jannelle Warren-Findley

Posted by Lucas Laursen on July 02, 2009
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Astronaut food has been a hot topic since its earliest days, when the tangerine-flavored drink Tang was the astronaut's beverage of choice. The Apollo crews had hot water, a luxury they could only dream about on the Mercury missions, when astronauts had to squeeze food from tubes, or the Gemini missions, when they ate bite-sized, gel-covered cubes of food.

The Apollo 11 astronauts would be the first to eat on another planetary body. A breathless headline in the Benton Harbour, Michigan News-Palladium declared that "Moon Spacemen Won't Eat Green Cheese." The article explained that local industry was providing the first Moon meal:

"Their first scheduled meal to be eaten on the moon will consist of bacon squares, peaches, sugar cookie cubes, pineapple grapefruit drink and coffee. The second meal will contain beef stew, cream of chicken soup, date fruitcake, grape punch and orange drink. In addition to the meals, other snack items such as dried fruit, candy, extra beverages, wet packs, sandwich spread, and bread will be included.

Unlike other missions, Apollo 11 will carry pre-planned menus for only the first five days of the flight. For the duration of the flight, the astronauts may select individual food items from a pantry. Pantry items are foods which are not assembled by means but merely packaged in categories such as Desserts, Beverages, Breakfast Items, Bite-size Cubes and Salads and Meats. The pantry system enables the astronaut to select at random whatever food item they desire. Other pantry items include: Rehydratable dessert items: banana pudding, butterscotch pudding, applesauce and chocolate pudding. Rehydratable beverages: orange drink, orange grapefruit drink, pineapple grapefruit drink, grapefruit drink, grape drink, grape punch, cocoa and coffee."

Here's a summary of the history of space food from NASA.

Or check out a more pop-culture-savvy take at RetroFuture or a photo-rich website aimed at kids at Spacekids.co.uk.

Photo: Spacekids.co.uk

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 30, 2009
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The Manned Orbiting Laboratory was a US Air Force initiative to build a space station in Earth orbit for surveillance and research purposes.

It would have used Gemini capsules to deliver pairs of Air Force astronauts for missions lasting up to 4 weeks, but funding problems, particularly competition from the Apollo programme and the Vietnam war, eventually scuttled the programme.

Deeper background:

"The Best Laid Plans: A History of the Manned Orbiting Laboratory" a history provided by the Aerospace Corporation.

Some of the equipment is on display at the Air Force Museum.

Photo: US Air Force

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 30, 2009
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Anthony Turkevich was a University of Chicago chemist who studied the composition of the lunar soil during the 1960s. Using measurements made on the robotic Surveyor lunar missions, he found oxygen trapped in some of the soil.

Turkevich told UPI that extracting the oxygen to use by astronauts on the Moon, which would have been useful if NASA had established a long-term manned presence. For the Apollo missions, oxygen came from fuel cells aboard the spacecraft.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 30, 2009
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The space race gave federal science funding new impetus. According to a 1970 Library of Congress document [pdf]:

"Professional scientific and technical personnel in Federal Government numbered 204,200 in October 1967- 5% increase over October 1966. Engineers, numbering 81,200, were largest of [the] three major groups-scientists, engineers, and health professionals- comprising 40% of 1967 total. DOD [Department of Defence] continued as major Government employer, with 76,900 scientific and technical employees, of which 9392 were engineers and scientists."

A 2009 National Science Foundation report covering the period from 2003-2005 found about 200,000 scientists and engineers in federal employment (Federal Employment of Scientists and Engineers Remained Steady from 2003 to 2005).

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 30, 2009
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“Actions that were taken billions of years ago in setting up the relationships of the moon and the earth and the sun,” was Apollo 11 mission director George Hage's answer to press queries about why the first Moon landing would appear in black and white television instead of colour.

The long answer is that the crew needed shadows to distinguish surface features for their landing, so the landing was scheduled for the lunar morning when the contrast between lit and shadowed regions was high (a full lunar day lasts 710 hours). While the crew did have a colour television camera small enough for use inside the spacecraft, it was not robust enough to operate in the extreme temperatures and vacuum of the lunar surface and handle the high-contrast light and shadows outside the Eagle. By the time of the Apollo 12 mission such a camera was ready, but an error disabled it from sending colour, and Apollo 13 never landed, so it was Apollo 14 which sent the first colour television transmissions from the Moon.

You can read a pair of contemporary news stories about the problem: "Color TV Not Ready For Landing on Moon" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and "Moon Step at Early Hour" in the San Antonio Express.

More on TV from the Moon:
A pretty comprehensive NASA roundup on the Lunar Surface Journal site.
How the live TV signal was sent around the Earth once it arrived, from the Parkes Observatory in Australia
How early Moon TV cameras worked, from the Hawes Mechanical Television Archive
How Westinghouse engineers decided which type of TV camera to send to the Moon, from American Heritage
And now there's even a TV documentary about the original Apollo TV transmissions: Live From The Moon

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 29, 2009
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Bonnie didn't know it, but he was brave to fly on the third Biosatellite in 1969. The programme had a mixed record of success: the first Biosatellite, which contained insects, frog eggs and microorganisms, failed to return from orbit because its retrorockets would not respond to NASA's commands.

Biosatellite II, launched 7 September 1967, was successfully recovered on 9 September 1967, and demonstrated that "plants required gravity to maintain orientation and showed effect of radiation on living organisms" according to a NASA release.

The goals for Biosatellite III included studying Bonnie's brain wave patterns, circulatory and urinary systems and his memory and hand-eye coordination. Photos here: http://bit.ly/18NFtP

The plan was to recover him near Hawaii after a month in orbit and then launch three more Biosatellite missions with other non-human crews...stay tuned to ApolloPlus40 on Twitter to learn how his mission went!

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 29, 2009
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Laws reached into space very soon after humans did, beginning with a United Nations resolution in 1963. The first major landmark may have been the 1967 Outer Space Treaty which established the use of space for peaceful purposes and forbade sovereign territory claims and nuclear weapons in space.

On 27 June 1969 a subcommittee of the Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space concluded that international law would govern liability for damage to property caused by spacecraft. While most launch sites were near the sea or in remote areas, failed or old satellites and parts of manned spacecraft could fall from orbit anywhere on Earth.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 27, 2009
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In the cramped quarters of the Lunar Module, astronauts would not have much space to argue over who got out first. But that didn't stop journalists and Apollo fans from debating whether commander Neil Armstrong would pull rank on lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin or whether NASA would make the decision for the astronauts.

Apollo Spacecraft Program Office manager George M. Low wrote a rather vague letter in response to press inquiries on 27 June 1969:

"Some time during the middle of the night, I had a call from Associated Press informing me that they had a story that Neil Armstrong had pulled rank on Buzz Aldrin to be the first man on the surface of the moon. They wanted to know whether it was true and how the decision was reached concerning who would get out of the LM first.

To the best of my recollection, I gave the following information:

a. There had been many informal plans developed during the past several years concerning the lunar timeline. These probably included all combinations of one man out versus two men out, who gets out first, etc.

b. There was only one approved plan and that was established 2 to 4 weeks prior to our public announcement of this planning. I believe that this was in April 1969.

c. The basic decision was made by my Configuration Control Board. It was based on a recommendation by the Flight Crew Operations Directorate. I am sure that Armstrong had made an input to this recommendation, but he, by no means, had the final say. The CCB decision was final."

Andrew Chaikin wrote in his book A Man on the Moon that the location of the hatch and the astronauts after they put on their bulky spacesuits might have factored in the decision to let Armstrong out first, though it is hard to imagine Armstrong giving up the chance to go first.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 26, 2009
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NASA relied on 3 stations scattered around the world to communicate with its spacecraft. It used a station near Madrid, Spain to track the Apollo 11 launch, and continued to follow the mission from the other 2 deep space tracking stations, Honeysuckle Creek (also known as Tidbinbilla) in Australia and Goldstone, California.

The sites were built in the early 1960s to replace a mobile radio network first deployed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1958 to track Explorer 1, the first US satellite. NASA has a history of the entire deep space tracking network here and a photo album here.

More photos from the Deep Space Network's early years are available on the website honeysucklecreek.net.

Photo: NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 25, 2009
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18 July 1969: The Apollo 11 astronauts were woken up this morning and asked to practice their flight checklist by their doctors, 8 hours after they took Seconal to go to sleep.

"We want to know how alert they are after taking Seconal. Later in the week we'll give them another pill and wake them up after one hour. Later we'll give them another test after a 4-hour sleep," the astronauts' chief physician Charles A. Berry told the Associated Press. The astronauts would be expected to use sleeping pills during their mission to ensure they had enough sleep for critical stages such as the lunar landing.

Check out the front page of the 18 June 1969 Daily Capital News of Jefferson City, Missouri, which carried the AP story on the astronauts' training regime.

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 18, 2009
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17 June 1969: NASA completed a 7-day simulation of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas, about a month before the Apollo 11 mission put humans on the Moon.

"The test simulated processing of lunar samples, operation of the mobile quarantine facility and crew reception area, and biolab activities. Action was under way to overcome procedural and equipment difficulties encountered in the vacuum laboratory." (Manned Space Flight Weekly Report - June 23, 1969)

Now you can read a 1975 NASA report on the biomedical results of the entire Apollo quarantine programme here, and check out an image of the astronauts' quarantine digs below.

Continue reading "@ApolloPlus40 - Quarantine facility passes test" »

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 17, 2009
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Nature News twitters the Apollo 11 moon mission as it happened -- 40 years on. Followers can read about technical milestones, political challenges, and related events in the space race starting today, just over a month before the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing.

The Tweets, located at http://twitter.com/ApolloPlus40, will follow Apollo 11’s crew to the moon and back, and taper off during the weeks following the mission to give followers the context surrounding the moon mission and its fallout for science and the wider world. Accompanying information will also be available on this blog.

Photo: NASA

Posted by Lucas Laursen on June 17, 2009
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