*Includes pictures *Chronicles the Apollo program from beginning to end, profiling Apollo 1, Apollo 11, and Apollo 13
*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading *Includes a table of contents The Apollo space
program is the most famous and celebrated in American history, but the first successful landing of men on the Moon
during Apollo 11 had complicated roots dating back over a decade, and it also involved one of NASA’s most infamous
tragedies. Landing on the Moon presented an ideal goal all on its own, but the government’s urgency in designing the
Apollo program was actually brought about by the Soviet Union, which spent much of the 1950s leaving the United States
in its dust (and rocket fuel). In 1957, at a time when people were concerned about communism and nuclear war, many
Americans were dismayed by news that the Soviet Union was successfully launching satellites into orbit. Among those
concerned was President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whose space program was clearly lagging a few years behind the Soviets’
space program. From 1959-1963, the United States worked toward putting satellites and humans into orbit via the Mercury
program, but Eisenhower’s administration was already designing plans for the Apollo program by 1960, a year before the
first Russian orbited the Earth and two years before John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. On May
25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy addressed Congress and asked the nation to “commit itself to achieving the goal,
before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.” Given America’s
inability to even put a man in orbit yet, this seemed like an overly ambitious goal, and it isn’t even clear that
Kennedy himself believed it possible; after all, he was reluctant to meet NASA Administrator James E. Webb’s initial
funding requests. As Apollo 11’s name suggests, there were actually a number of Apollo missions that came before, many
of which included testing the rockets and different orbital and lunar modules in orbit. In fact, it wasn’t until Apollo
8 that a manned vehicle was sent towards the Moon and back, and before that mission, the most famous Apollo mission was
Apollo 1, albeit for all the wrong reasons. Over the decade, NASA would spend tens of billions on the Apollo missions,
the most expensive peacetime program in American history to that point, and even though Apollo 11 was only one of almost
20 Apollo missions, it was certainly the crown jewel. only one of nearly 20 Apollo missions conducted by NASA. And to
make Apollo 11 a success, it would take nearly a decade of planning by government officials, hard work by NASA
scientists, intense training by the astronauts, and several missions preceding Apollo 11. It also cost over $20 billion,
making the Apollo program the most expensive peacetime program in American history at the time. Apollo 12 successfully
landed astronauts on the Moon just a few months after Apollo 11’s successful mission. Apollo 12 was actually more
successful than Apollo 11 from the standpoint of fulfilling the mission objectives, but it was naturally overshadowed
since it did not come first. Another reason Apollo 12 is mostly forgotten today can be credited to the dramatic and
eful Apollo 13 mission, which took twists and turns nobody could have predicted when it launched on April 11, 1970.
Apollo 13’s mission was to land on the Moon near the Fra Mauro highlands, which were hills that had somehow formed in
the middle of a huge crater tens of miles wide. The mission was supposed to test for seismic activity and take samples
to analyze the crater and try to find an explanation for the formation of the hills. Of course, as is widely known
today, Apollo 13 never made the landing. By the end of the Apollo program, NASA had already be designing and
developing the Space Shuttle Program, which would provide reusable vehicles for manned space travel.