For thousands of years people have wondered what is beyond our planet in the night sky. Is it just stars? Are there planets outside of our home, Earth? The answer is yes not only are there planets, but moons, stars, galaxies and other solar systems. Thanks to great astronomers such as Galileo, Copernicus , Johannes Kepler, Edwin Hubble and many other great minds we have made these ground-breaking discoveries. Not until the latter half of the 20th century did we discover we could not only observe this great mystery that is space from earth but maybe we could actually explore it for ourselves.
July 29, 1958, the founding of NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration), Why was this organization created you might ask? After the Soviet space program’s launch of the first artificial satellite (Sputnik 1) in 1957 the United States realized there own lacking space efforts. So, Dwight D. Eisenhower took immediate action and created NASA. Although the Soviet Union did beat the U.S. into space that was not going to stop us. In May 5, 1961 John F. Kennedy embarrassed by this defeat launched a new program that would beat the Soviet Union in this “space race”. He planned to put a man on the moon before the end of the decade.
In 1969 the day had finally come that America’s space program had been working on since Kennedy’s challenge. NASA had constructed a 363 foot colossal rocket the Saturn V it would launch the Apollo missions that would make history. The astronauts sitting atop this rocket are Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael collins. July 16 the engines fired and Jack King (NASA chief of public information) shouted “lift off!! We have lift off!! Thirty- two minutes past the hour. Lift off on Apollo 11!! The space team was now headed towards our moon. In approximately 3 days Apollo 11 reached the moon and were headed for the sea of tranquility, a lunar mare that sits within the Tranquillitatis basin on the moon. The surface was crowded with huge boulders, Armstrong took matters into his hands and quickly maneuvered around them. With thirty seconds of fuel remaining at 4:18 p.m Armstrong breaks radio silence; “ Houston tranquillity base here. The eagle had landed.” Mission control is overwhelmed with excitement but the mission was not yet over. At 10:56 Neil Armstrong is preparing to be the first man to set foot on the moon. With over 500,000,000 people watching on television Armstrong climbed down the ladder and sounded “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” It was more like a leap for him because the shock absorbers on the lunar module did not compress. For two hours the crew explored the desolate foreign terrain of the moon collecting samples and taking pictures. Before they begin their journey back to earth, the crew leaves behind an American flag with a patch for the late apollo 1 crew who risked their lives in the same pursuit. Last but not least they leave a plaque reading, “Here men from the planet earth first set foot on the moon. July 16 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.” On July 24th off the shores of Hawaii the apollo 11 crew landed. The space race had been won by America defeating Russia. Armstrong calls this “the beginning of a new age.” In the next 3 an a half years 10 astronauts followed the same path. America was at the top of space exploration in the world and will forever be remember for this history defining feat. In the years to come, speculation started to arise among …show more content…
Was the moon landing faked? According to Science editor of the telegraph magazine if it were faked it would have been discovered within 3 to 4 years. She concludes that “ for a plot to last five years the maximum number of plotters turned out to be 2,521 and to keep a scheme operating undetected for more than a decade, fewer than 1,000 people could be involved. while a century-long deception had to include fewer than 125 collaborators.” If if it was a hoax the estimated amount of people who would have worked on such an ordeal would be upwards of