Apollo Missions
The first man to walk on the moon, Neil Armstrong is a point of pride brought up by every United States citizen when in an argument with a foreigner. In fact, today while playing chess with my English friend I couldn't help but bring up this fact as he berated my American intelligence. "Oh you Americans are oh so stupid with your imperial system." "Who has put a man on the moon? Who won the war?" For a split second, my normally anti-American attitude was covered as the bright light of my undying patriotism was put on display for everyone within the classroom to see.
But the moral of the story isn't that Americans are big dumb idiots and amazingly patriotic but how grand the idea of a nation putting a man on the moon truly is. Putting one of our own on a body that seems so distant to us and has influenced our religions, cultures, and way of life. As protective as Americans can be with the fact that the American flag was the first flag on the moon. This is an achievement for man not just one nation. Niel Armstrong said this is on giant leap for mankind, not just the United States of America. Moreover, the mission that is responsible for this is known as the Apollo Mission. Which was filled with immigrants.
On another note, the Apollo missions were preceded by the Gemini project. The Gemini Project was meant to see if the Apollo project was even possible by testing human spaceflight in the Earth's atmosphere. The Gemini mission tested long-term human presence in space and new robotics After finding out that reaching and even walking on the moon is possible the Apollo missions were conducted. For Christ's sake, half of the technology that we rely on on a day-to-day basis was created during the space race because of the Apollo Missions. Your cell phone: you can thank the Apollo missions. Your memory foam shoes: You can thank the Apollo missions. Your internet connection: you can thank the Apollo missions.
The point of this isn't to ramble on about the advancements that resulted from the Apollo Missions but to truly emphasize the rapid advancements that were necessary for the Apollo missions and how space exploration has been crucial to many of the technological advancements that can be attributed to the Apollo Missions.
There was a total of 14 Apollo missions conducted. But only 6 of them went to space. The other missions either resulted in failure or were tests. This is just a testament to the amount of testing and work that must go into the development of the Apollo Missions and this amount of work should be expected when working on future missions to space such as Artemis and SpaceX's Mars missions. It won't always work on the first time.
The Apollo missions used a specific type of rocket known as the Saturn rocket. The most popular of these rockets is the Saturn V rocket. The Saturn Series of rockets became progressively bigger as time passed until the Saturn V iteration was reached, becoming the biggest rocket ever created to date. Knowing this the natural question arises: what exactly was inside of this ginormous hunk of metal?
The majority of the Saturn V rocket was to hold and burn fuel. This space was necessary as fuel efficiency had not developed to the point where it is now and with the technology of the 20th century, there wasn't much of an option. Most of this fuel was burned before the astronauts would even reach the moon to break free from the gravitational pull of the Earth. After the rocket broke free from the gravitational pull of the Earth there was little use for fuel. It wasn't necessary to maneuver on the moon, that was where pressurized nitrogen came into play, and it wasn't necessary for the descent as the Earth's gravity would help with that. All that was needed was enough fuel to get off the surface of the moon after the initial burn of fuel.
For this reason, only a small fraction of the Saturn V rocket was stuffed with tools and materials with actual utility. This small part was the lunar spacecraft, where all the astronauts would live until they reach their destination. Moreover, the lunar rover, food, and several research instruments were kept in the spacecraft so that the astronauts could perform a series of scientific research on the moon. In the end, most of the objects that they left with were ultimately thrown away as they came back with only half the cargo they left with.
