There was great public support for President Kennedy's moon landing goal. And Congress was ready to spend the thousands of millions of dollars that a moon landing program would cost.
(MUSIC)
BARBARA KLEIN: Much happened in the months after America decided to go to the moon. New space flight centers were built. Designs for launch rockets and spacecraft were agreed on. And a new spaceflight program -- Project Gemini -- was begun. Flights in the two-man Gemini spacecraft tested the men, equipment and methods to be used in the Apollo program to the moon. Gemini let astronauts learn about the dangers of radiation and the effects of being weightless during long flights. Astronauts learned to move their spacecraft into different orbits and to join with other spacecraft.
STEVE EMBER: 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 command module. 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 would ride in it from the orbiting command module to the moon's surface. Later, the landing vehicle would carry them back to the command module for the return trip to Earth.
BARBARA KLEIN: Engineers also were working on a huge new rocket for Apollo. It needed much more power than the rockets used to launch the one-man Mercury and the two-man Gemini flights. The Apollo rocket was called Saturn. Two Saturn rocket systems were built. One was the Saturn One-B. It did not have enough power to reach the moon. But it could launch Apollo spacecraft on test flights around the Earth.
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2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25