Apollo Program

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Apollo Program - Wikipedia
In-depth article on NASA's manned missions to the moon. Includes mission reports, notes on the development of the project, and links.
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The Apollo Program (1963-1972)
Information about the moon missions, from NASA.
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NASA - Apollo
... The Apollo Program ... The program also drew inspiration from Apollo 1 astronauts Gus ... Apollo Program--A List of Resources " View Key Apollo Source ...
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The Apollo Program
NASA History ... The Apollo Program Summary Report (Document # JSC-09423, April 1975): This hard ... Personal Reflections on the Apollo Program (NASA SP-4223, 1999) ...
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The Apollo program was a human spaceflight program undertaken by NASA during the years 1961 – 1975 with the goal of conducting manned moon landing missions. John F. Kennedy announced this goal in 1961, and it was accomplished on July 20 1969 by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during the Apollo 11 mission. Five other Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last one in 1972. These six Apollo spaceflights are the only times humans have landed on another world.

Apollo was the third human spaceflight program undertaken by NASA, the space agency of the United States. It used Apollo spacecraft and Saturn (rocket family) launch vehicles, which were later used for the Skylab and the joint American-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. These later programs are thus often considered to be part of the overall Apollo program.

The goal of the program as articulated by President of the United States Kennedy, — "...before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth," — was accomplished with only two major failures. The first failure resulted in the deaths of three astronauts, Virgil Grissom, Edward Higgins White and Roger Chaffee, in the Apollo 1 launchpad fire. The second was an in-space explosion on Apollo 13, which badly damaged the spacecraft on the moonward leg of its journey. The three astronauts aboard narrowly escaped with their lives, thanks to the efforts of flight controllers, project engineers, backup crew members and the skills of the astronauts themselves.

The Apollo program, specifically the lunar landings, are often cited as one of the greatest achievements in human history. As of 2007, there has not been any further human spaceflight beyond low earth orbit since the last mission in the Apollo program, Apollo 17.

Background The Apollo program was originally conceived early in 1960, during the Dwight D. Eisenhower administration, as a follow-up to America's Project Mercury. While the Mercury capsule could only support one astronaut on a limited earth orbital mission, the Apollo spacecraft was intended to be able to carry three astronauts on a circumlunar flight and perhaps even on a lunar landing. The program was named after the Apollo by NASA manager Abe Silverstein, who later said that "I was naming the spacecraft like I'd name my baby."Murray and Cox, Apollo, p. 55. While NASA went ahead with planning for Apollo, funding for the program was far from certain, particularly given Eisenhower's equivocal attitude to manned spaceflight.Murray and Cox, Apollo, p. 60. delivers a speech at Rice University on the subject of the American space program, September 12, 1962.

In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected President after a campaign that promised American superiority over the Soviet Union in the fields of space exploration and missile defense. Using space exploration as a symbol of national prestige, he warned of a "missile gap" between the two nations, pledging to make the United States not "first but, first and, first if, but first period."Beschloss, 'Kennedy and the Decision to Go to the Moon,' in Launius and McCurdy, eds., Spaceflight and the Myth of Presidential Leadership. Despite Kennedy's rhetoric, he did not immediately come to a decision on the status of the Apollo program once he was elected President. He knew little about the technical details of the space program, and was put off by the massive financial commitment required by a manned moon landing.Sidey, John F. Kennedy, pp. 117-118. When NASA Administrator James Edwin Webb requested a thirty percent budget increase for his agency, Kennedy supported an acceleration of NASA's large booster program but deferred a decision on the broader issue.Beschloss, 'Kennedy and the Decision to Go to the Moon,' p. 55.

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to fly in space, reinforcing American fears about being left behind in a technological competition with the Soviet Union. At a meeting of the U.S. House Committee on Science and Astronautics held only one day after Gagarin's flight, many congressmen pledged their support for a crash program aimed at ensuring that America would catch up."Discussion of Soviet Man-in-Space Shot," Hearing before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, 87th Congress, First Session, April 13, 1961. Kennedy, however, was circumspect in his response to the news, refusing to make a commitment on America's response to the Soviets.Sidey, John F. Kennedy, p. 114 On April 20 Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking Johnson to look into the status of America's space program, and into programs that could offer NASA the opportunity to catch up.Kennedy to Johnson, Langley Research Center's Contributions to the Apollo Program

Choosing a mission mode Once Kennedy had defined a goal, the Apollo mission planners were faced with the challenge of designing a set of flights that could meet this stated goal while minimizing risk to human life, cost, and demands on technology and astronaut skill. Four possible mission modes were considered:

Direct Ascent: A spacecraft would travel directly to the Moon, landing and returning as a unit. This plan would have required a very powerful booster, the planned Nova rocket.
Earth Orbit Rendezvous: Two Saturn V rockets would be launched, one carrying the spacecraft and one carrying a propulsion unit that would have enabled the spacecraft to escape earth orbit. After a docking in earth orbit, the spacecraft would have landed on the Moon as a unit.
Lunar Surface Rendezvous: Two spacecraft would be launched in succession. The first, an automated vehicle carrying propellants, would land on the Moon and would be followed some time later by the manned vehicle. Propellant would be transferred from the automated vehicle to the manned vehicle before the manned vehicle could return to Earth.
Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR): One Saturn V would launch a spacecraft that was composed of modular parts. A command module would remain in orbit around the moon, while a lunar module would descend to the moon and then return to dock with the command module while still in lunar orbit. In contrast with the other plans, LOR required only a small part of the spacecraft to land on the Moon, thereby minimizing the mass to be launched from the Moon's surface for the return trip.

In early 1961, direct ascent was generally the mission mode in favor at NASA. Many engineers feared that a rendezvous, which had never been attempted in space, would be impossible in lunar orbit. However, dissenters including John Houbolt at Langley Research Center emphasized the important weight reductions that were offered by the LOR approach. Throughout 1960 and 1961, Houbolt campaigned for the recognition of LOR as a valid and practical option. Bypassing the NASA hierarchy, he sent a series of memos and reports on the issue to Associate Administrator Robert Seamans; while acknowledging that he spoke "somewhat as a voice in the wilderness," Houbolt pleaded that LOR should not be discounted in studies of the question.Brooks, Grimwood and Swenson, Chariots for Apollo, p. 71.

Seamans' establishment of the Golovin committee in July 1961 represented a turning point in NASA's mission mode decision. Hansen, Enchanted Rendezvous, p 21 While the ad-hoc committee was intended to provide a recommendation on the boosters to be used in the Apollo program, it recognized that the mode decision was an important part of this question. The committee recommended in favor of a hybrid EOR-LOR mode, but its consideration of LOR — as well as Houbolt's ceaseless work — played an important role in publicizing the workability of the approach. In late 1961 and early 1962, members of NASA's Space Task Group at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston began to come around to support for LOR. The engineers at Marshall Space Flight Center took longer to become convinced of its merits, but their conversion was announced by Wernher von Braun at a briefing in June 1962. NASA's formal decision in favor of LOR was announced on July 11, 1962. Space historian James Hansen concludes that:

Spacecraft The decision in favor of lunar orbit rendezvous dictated the basic design of the Apollo spacecraft. It would consist of two main sections: the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM), in which the crew would spend most of the mission, and the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), which would descend to and return from the lunar surface.

Command/service module The Apollo Command/Service Module#Command Module (CM) (CM) was conical in shape, and was designed to carry three astronauts from launch into lunar orbit and back from the moon to splashdown. Equipment carried by the command module included Thruster, a docking tunnel, guidance and navigation systems and the Apollo Guidance Computer. Attached to the command module was the Apollo Command/Service Module#Service Module (SM) (SM), which housed the service propulsion system and its propellants, the fuel cell power system, four maneuvering thruster quads, the S-band antenna for communication with Mission Control, and storage tanks for water and air. On Apollo 15, 16 and 17 it also carried a scientific instrument package. The two sections of the spacecraft would remain attached until just prior to re-entry, at which point the service module would be discarded. Only the command module was provided with a heat shield that would allow it and its passengers to survive the intense heat of re-entry. After re-entry it would deploy parachutes that would slow its descent through the atmosphere, allowing a smooth splashdown in the ocean.

Under the leadership of Harrison Storms, North American Aviation won the contract to build the CSM for NASA. Relations between North American and NASA were strained during the Apollo program, particularly after the Apollo 1 fire during which three astronauts died. The cause of the accident was determined to be an electrical short in the wiring of the command module; while determination of responsibility for the accident was complex, the review board concluded that "deficiencies existed in Command Module design, workmanship and quality control." Report of the Apollo 204 Review Board, Findings and Recommendations

Lunar module The Apollo Lunar Module (also known as Lunar Excursion Module, or LEM), was designed solely in order to landing on the moon. It had no heat shield and was of a construction so lightweight that it would not have been able to fly in Earth gravity. It carried two crewmembers and consisted of two stages, a descent and an ascent stage. The descent stage incorporated compartments in which cargo such as the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package and Lunar Rover could be carried.

The contract for design and construction of the lunar module was awarded to Grumman, and the project was overseen by Tom Kelly (engineer). There were also problems with the lunar module; due to delays in the test program, the LM became what was known as a "pacing item," meaning that it was in danger of delaying the schedule of the whole Apollo program. Chariots for Apollo, Ch 7-4 Due to these issues, the Apollo missions were rescheduled so that the first manned mission with the lunar module would be Apollo 9, rather than Apollo 8 as was originally planned.

Boosters

When the team of engineers led by Wernher von Braun began planning for the Apollo program, it was not yet clear what sort of mission their rocket boosters would have to support. Direct ascent would require a booster, the planned Nova rocket, which could lift a very large payload. NASA's decision in favor of lunar orbit rendezvous re-oriented the work of Marshall Spaceflight Center towards the development of the Saturn 1B and Saturn V. While these were less powerful than the Nova would have been, the Saturn V was still much more powerful than any booster developed before—or since.

Saturn V Saturn (rocket family) launched Apollo 11 and her crew on its journey to the Moon, 16 July 1969.

The Saturn V consisted of three stages and an Saturn V Instrument Unit which contained the booster's guidance system. The first stage, the S-IC, consisted of five F-1 engines arranged in a cross pattern, which produced a total of 7.5 million pounds of thrust. They burned for only 2.5 minutes, accelerating the spacecraft to a speed of approximately 6000 miles per hour. Saturn V News Reference: First Stage Fact Sheet During development, the F-1 engines were plagued by combustion instability—if the combustion of propellants was not uniform across the flame front of an engine, pressure waves could build which would cause the engine to destroy itself. The problem was solved in the end through trial and error, fine-tuning the engines through numerous tests so that even small charges set off inside the engine would not induce instability.Murray and Cox, Apollo, pp. 145-51, 179-81.

The second stage, the S-II, consisted of five J-2 (rocket engine) engines. They burned for approximately six minutes, taking the spacecraft to a speed of 15,300 miles per hour and an altitude of about 115 miles (185 km). Saturn V News Reference: Second Stage Fact Sheet At this point the S-IVB third stage took over, putting the spacecraft into orbit. Its one J-2 engine was designed to be restarted in order to make the Trans lunar injection burn.Saturn V News Reference: Third Stage Fact Sheet

Saturn IB The Saturn IB was an upgraded version of the earlier Saturn I. It consisted of a first stage made up of eight H-1 (rocket engine) engines and a second S-IVB stage which was identical to the Saturn V's third stage. The Saturn IB had only 1.6 million pounds of thrust in its first stage—compared to 7.5 million pounds for the Saturn V—but was capable of putting a command and lunar module into earth orbit. Saturn IB News Reference: Saturn IB Design Features It was used in Apollo test missions and in both the Skylab program and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program. In 1973 a refitted S-IVB stage, launched by a Saturn V, became the Skylab space station.

Missions Mission types In September 1967, the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, proposed a series of missions that would lead up to a manned lunar landing. Seven mission types were outlined, each testing a specific set of components and tasks; each previous step needed to be completed successfully before the next mission type could be undertaken. These were:

A - Unmanned Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) test
B - Unmanned Apollo Lunar Module (LM) test
C - Manned CSM in low Earth orbit
D - Manned CSM and LM in low Earth orbit
E - Manned CSM and LM in an ellipse Earth orbit with an apogee of 4600 mi (7400 km)
F - Manned CSM and LM in lunar orbit
G - Manned lunar landing

Later added to this were H missions, which were short duration stays on the Moon with two Extra-vehicular activity ("moonwalks"). These were followed by the J missions, which were longer three day stays, with three LEVAs and the use of the lunar rover. Apollo 18 to 20 would have been J missions. In addition, a further group of flights — the I missions — were planned, which would have been long duration orbital missions using a Service Module bay loaded with scientific equipment. When it became obvious that later flights were being cancelled, such mission plans were brought into the J missions that were actually flown.

Unmanned missions Preparations for the Apollo program began long before the manned Apollo missions were flown. Test flights of the Saturn I booster began in October of 1961 and lasted until September 1964. Three further Saturn I launches carried Boilerplate (rocketry) models of the Apollo command/service module. Two pad abort tests of the launch escape system took place in 1963 and 1965 at the White Sands Missile Range.

The only unmanned missions to officially include Apollo as part of their name rather than serial number were Apollo 4, Apollo 5 and Apollo 6.Murray and Cox, Apollo, p. 238. Apollo 4 was the first test flight of the Saturn V booster. Launched on November 9, 1967, Apollo 4 exemplified George Mueller's strategy of "all up" testing. Rather than being tested stage by stage, as most rockets were, the Saturn V would be flown for the first time as one unit. The mission was a highly successful one. The launch was covered live by Walter Cronkite—due to the vibrations caused by the noise of the booster, he was forced to hold the plate glass window of his television booth in place with his hands.Murray and Cox, Apollo, p. 248.

Apollo 6 was the last in the series of unmanned Apollo missions. It launched on 4 April, 1968, and landed back on Earth almost ten hours later at 21:57:21 Coordinated Universal Time.

Manned missions captures Neil Armstrong as he becomes the first human to step on another world.. The illusion of a breeze was caused by the horizontal rod intended to hold the flag flat failing to telescope out completely, thus leaving ripples in the fabric like those seen in a flag in the wind.

By the summer of 1968 it became clear to program managers that a fully functional Apollo Lunar Module would not be available for the Apollo 8 mission. Rather than perform a simple earth orbiting mission, they chose to send Apollo 8 around the moon during Christmas. The original idea for this switch was the brainchild of George Low. Although it has often been claimed that this change was made as a direct response to Soviet attempts to fly a piloted Zond program spacecraft around the moon, there is no evidence that this was actually the case. NASA officials were aware of the Soviet Zond flights, but the timing of the Zond missions does not correspond well with the extensive written record from NASA about the Apollo 8 decision. It is relatively certain that the Apollo 8 decision was primarily based upon the LM schedule, rather than fear of the Soviets beating the Americans to the moon.

Between December 21, 1968 and May 18, 1969, NASA launched three Apollo missions (8, 9, and 10) using the Saturn V launch vehicle. Each mission had a crew of three astronauts, and the last two included Lunar Modules, but none of these were intended as Moon landing missions. The next two flights (11 and 12) included successful Moon landings. The Apollo 13 mission was aborted before the landing attempt, but the crew returned safely to Earth. The four subsequent Apollo missions (14 through 17) included successful Moon landings. The last three of these were J-class missions that included the use of Lunar Rovers. The last Apollo mission returned safely to Earth on December 19, 1972.

, was discovered and returned from the Apollo 15 mission.

Samples returned {| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="4" align="right" class="wikitable"!Lunar
Mission!Sample
Returned|-|Apollo 11|align="right"|34 kg|-|[Apollo 14|align="right"|77 kg|-|[Apollo 16|align="right"|111 kg|-|}

Apollo returned 381.7 [kilogram (841.5 lb) of Moon rocks, much of which is stored at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston.

In general the rocks collected from the Moon are extremely old compared to rocks found on Earth, as measured by radiometric dating techniques. They range in age from about 3.2 billion years old for the basaltic samples derived from the lunar mare, to about 4.6 billion years for samples derived from the Lunar highlands crust. As such, they represent samples from a very early period in the evolution of the Solar System that is largely missing from Earth. One important rock found during the Apollo Program was the Genesis Rock, retrieved by astronauts James Irwin and David Scott during the Apollo 15 mission. This rock, called anorthosite, is composed almost exclusively of the calcium-rich feldspar mineral anorthite, and is believed to be representative of the highland crust. A geochemical component called KREEP (an acronym for rocks with high abundances of potassium, rare earth elements, and phosphorus) was discovered that has no known terrestrial counterpart. Together, KREEP and the anorthositic samples have been used to infer that the outer portion of the Moon was once completely molten (see lunar magma ocean).

Almost all of the rocks show evidence for having been affected by impact processes. For instance, many samples appear to be pitted with micrometeoroid impact craters, something which is never seen on earth due to its thick atmosphere. Additionally, many show signs of being subjected to high pressure shock waves that are generated during impact events. Some of the returned samples are of impact melt, referring to materials that are melted in the vicinity of an impact crater. Finally, all samples returned from the Moon are highly brecciated as a result of being subjected to multiple impact events.

Analysis of composition of the lunar samples led to the conclusion, reached in 1984, that the Moon was created through a "giant impact" of a large astronomical body with the Earth.

Legacy in Seattle

Cancelled missions Originally three additional lunar landing missions had been planned, as Apollo 18 through Apollo 20. In light of the drastically shrinking NASA budget and the decision not to produce a second batch of Saturn Vs, these missions were cancelled to make funds available for the development of the Space Shuttle, and to make their Apollo spacecraft and Saturn V launch vehicles available to the Skylab program. Only one of the remaining Saturn Vs was actually used; the others became museum exhibits.

Apollo applications program In the speech which initiated Apollo, Kennedy declared that no other program would have as great a long-range effect on America's ambitions in outer space.

{{cquote|No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

John F. Kennedy, Special Joint Session of Congress, May 25, 1961-->

Following the success of the Apollo program, both NASA and its major contractors investigated several post-lunar applications for the Apollo hardware. The "Apollo Extension Series", later called the "Apollo Applications Program", proposed up to thirty flights to earth orbit. Many of these would use the space that the lunar module took up in the Saturn rocket to carry scientific equipment.

Of all the plans, only two were implemented: the Skylab space station (May 1973 – February 1974), and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (July 1975). Skylab's fuselage was constructed from the second stage of a Saturn IB, and the station was equipped with the Apollo Telescope Mount, itself based on a lunar module. The station's three crews were ferried into orbit atop Saturn IBs, riding in CSMs; the station itself had been launched with a modified Saturn V. Skylab's last crew departed the station on February 8, 1974, whilst the station itself returned prematurely to Earth in 1979, by which time it had become the oldest operational Apollo component.

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project involved a docking in Earth orbit between a CSM and a Soviet Soyuz spacecraft. The mission lasted from July 15 to July 24, 1975. Although the Soviet Union continued to operate the Soyuz and Salyut space vehicles, NASA's next manned mission would not be until STS-1 on April 12, 1981.

Cultural legacy " was taken by Apollo 8 astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968.

Approximately one fifth of the population of the world watched the live transmission of the first Apollo moonwalk. The Apollo program stimulated many areas of technology. The Apollo Guidance Computer design used in both the lunar and command modules was, along with the LGM-30 Minuteman, the driving force behind early research into integrated circuits. The fuel cell developed for this program was the first practical fuel cell. Computer-controlled machining (CNC) was pioneered in fabricating Apollo structural components.

, was taken on Apollo 17.

Many astronauts and astronaut have commented on the profound effects that seeing Earth from space has had on them. One of the most important legacies of the Apollo program was the now-common, but not universal, view of Earth as a fragile, small planet, captured in the photographs taken by the astronauts during the lunar missions. The most famous of these photographs, taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts, is "The Blue Marble". These photographs have also motivated many people toward environmentalism and space colonization.

The cost of the program is estimated at $135 billion (2006 United States dollar) ($25.4 billion in 1969 dollars). The Apollo spacecraft cost $28 billion (2006 dollars) to develop: $17 billion for the command and service modules, and $11 billion for the Lunar Module. The Saturn I, IB and V launch vehicle development cost about $46 billion.

It appears that much of the original film and telemetry data for the Apollo 11 mission is missing. For more information see Apollo program missing tapes.

Influence on future human space exploration moon rock, collected by Apollo 16. Since the only sources of moon rocks on Earth are those collected from the Apollo program, the former Soviet Union's Luna programme, and lunar meteorites, future missions manned or unmanned would provide the opportunity to collect more.

As of 2007, it has been thirty-five years since any human has walked on the Moon, with the last mission being Apollo 17 in 1972, and Eugene Cernan being the last person to walk on the Moon.

Several nations have planned List of future lunar missions#Human, and several space agencies also intend to build Lunar outpost.

Constellation program In a speech on January 14, 2004, President of the United States George W. Bush announced a new Vision for Space Exploration, which included plans for the United States to return astronauts to the Moon no later than 2020 (with the first human landing -- Orion 17 -- currently planned for 2019). This mission would be a part of Project Constellation, NASA's program to create a new generation of spacecraft for human spaceflight.

Replacing the Space Shuttle following its retirement in 2010 will be the Orion (spacecraft) crew capsule, which closely resembles the Apollo command module in its aerodynamic shape. NASA administrator Michael Griffin has described the capsule as "Apollo on steroids," and the New Scientist magazine reports that "some critics... say the whole Orion program is little more than a throwback to Apollo-era technology."http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn9895-nasa-to-boldly-go-with-lockheed-martin.html In other respects, however—including its cockpit displays and its heatshield—Orion will be employing new technology.http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=17482 More closely based on Apollo designs is the upper stage of the Ares I, the launch vehicle designed to take Orion into orbit. It will be based on a J-2_%28rocket_engine%29#J-2X engine, a redesigned version of the J-2 engine used in the Saturn family of boosters. In working on the J-2X, NASA engineers have visited museums, searched for Apollo-era documentation and consulted with engineers who worked on the Apollo program. "The mechanics of landing on the moon and getting off the moon to a large extent have been solved," said Constellation program manager Jeff Hanley. "That is the legacy that Apollo gave us."http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2006-08-14-nasa-apollo_x.htm?csp=34, the crew of Apollo 17 left this plaque as was done on all the previous landings.

Like Apollo, Orion will fly a lunar orbit rendezvous mission profile, but unlike Apollo, the lander, known as the Lunar Surface Access Module (Project Constellation), will be launched separately on the Ares V rocket, a rocket based on both Space Shuttle and Apollo technologies. Orion will be launched separately and will link up with the LSAM in low earth orbit like that of the Skylab program. Also, Orion, unlike Apollo, will remain unmanned in lunar orbit while the entire crew lands on the lunar surface, with the lunar polar regions in mind instead of the equatorial regions explored by Apollo.

Neil Armstrong, the commander of the first successful landing Apollo 11, is often asked by the press for his views on the future of spaceflight. In 2005, he said that a human spaceflight to Mars will be easier than the lunar challenge of the 1960s: "I suspect that even though the various questions are difficult and many, they are not as difficult and many as those we faced when we started the Apollo (space program) in 1961."

See also

Notes References

"Discussion of Soviet Man-in-Space Shot," Hearing before the Committee on Science and Astronautics, U.S. House of Representatives, 87th Congress, First Session, April 13, 1961.
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Gene Kranz, Failure is Not an Option. Factual, from the standpoint of a chief flight controller during the Project Mercury, Project Gemini, and Apollo space programs. ISBN 0-7432-0079-9
Chaikin, Andrew. A Man on the Moon. ISBN 0-14-027201-1. Chaikin has interviewed all the surviving astronauts, plus many others who worked with the program.
Cooper, Henry S. F. Jr. Thirteen: The Flight That Failed. ISBN 0-8018-5097-5. Although this book focuses on Apollo 13, it is extremely well-researched and provides a wealth of background information on Apollo technology and procedures.
Wilhelms, Don E. To a Rocky Moon. ISBN 0-8165-1065-2. Tells the history of Lunar exploration from a geologist's point of view.
Pellegrino, Charles R.; Stoff, Joshua. Chariots for Apollo: The Untold Story Behind the Race to the Moon. ISBN 0-380-80261-9. Tells Grumman Aerospace Corporation story of building the Lunar Modules.
Jim Lovell; Kluger, Jeffrey. Lost Moon: The perilous voyage of Apollo 13 aka Apollo 13: Lost Moon. ISBN 0-618-05665-3. Details the flight of Apollo 13.
Michael Collins (astronaut). Carrying the Fire; an Astronaut's journeys. Astronaut Mike Collins autobiography of his experiences as an astronaut, including his flight aboard Apollo 11, the first landing on the Moon
Richard W. Orloff SP-4029 Apollo by the Numbers: A Statistical Reference
Deke Slayton; Cassutt, Michael. Deke! An Autobiograpy. ISBN 0-312-85918-X. This is an excellent account of Deke Slayton's life as an astronaut and of his work as chief of the astronaut office, including selection of the crews which flew Apollo to the Moon.
From origin to 7 November, 1962
8 November 1962 - 30 September 1964
1 October 1964 - 20 January 1966
21 January 1966 - 13 July 1974

External links

Official Apollo program website
Apollo photo gallery at NASA Human Spaceflight website (includes videos/animations)
Apollo Image Atlas almost 25,000 lunar images, Lunar and Planetary Institute
Project Apollo at NASA History Division
The Apollo Lunar Surface Journal
The Apollo Flight Journal
Project Apollo Drawings and Technical Diagrams
The Apollo Program (National Air and Space Museum)
Apollo 35th Anniversary Interactive Feature (in Adobe Flash)
Exploring the Moon: Apollo Missions
Apollo Archive - large repository of information about the Apollo program.
Apollo Flight Film Archive - repository of scanned Apollo flight film (in high resolution).

The Apollo Program (1963 - 1972)
NASA's portal to data on the Apollo lunar missions. Mission summaries, data, and links to related NASA material.

The Apollo Program
NASA History ... NASA Links About Apollo. Apollo Program Overview at the Kennedy Space Center:

The Apollo Program
The National Air and Space Museum's online Apollo Program exhibit provides mission histories, mission patches, and imagery from the various orbital and lunar flights.

Apollo program - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Apollo program was a human spaceflight program undertaken by NASA during the years 1961 – 1975 with the goal of conducting manned moon landing missions.

NASA - Apollo
Text and Audio Versions of President Kennedy's Speech + The Apollo Program--A List of Resources + View Key Apollo Source Documents + History of Human Space Flight

The Apollo Program
Page Last Revised: Page & Curator Information: 01/04/2005 Curator: Kay Grinter (kay.grinter-1@ksc.nasa.gov), InDyne

Project Apollo
Project Apollo Program Overview. Apollo Goals; Apollo Spacecraft; Apollo Flight Summary; Apollo Press Kits; Project Apollo Drawings; JSC's Apollo Image Directory. GSFC Apollo ...

Human Space Flight (HSF) - Apollo History
The Apollo program included a large number of uncrewed test missions and 11 crewed missions. The 11 crewed missions include two Earth orbiting ...

Human Space Flight Web Gallery
Apollo Gallery: IMAGES NASA Public Affairs image collection

The Apollo Program.
Project Apollo began in 1963 and culminated with six successful manned missions to the moon. The overall goals of the program were to send astronauts to the moon and return ...