On May 25 1961, just twenty days after Alan Shepards fifteen minute sub-orbital flight, President John F. Kennedy said “I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth.” Eight years later Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the Moon.
Apollo is without a doubt one of the most amazing accomplishments of the human species. By the end of 1972, twenty-four men had travelled a quarter of a million miles from the Earth to the Moon, three made the trip twice, and twelve of them walked on the Moon.
Thousands of photographs, hours of video, and about 841 pounds of Moon rock were returned to Earth by the astronauts. Many scientific experiments, including a laser reflector used to messure the distance between the Earth and Moon, were left on the lunar surface and some of them are still used today.
Apollo wasn’t all about the Moon though. In 1973 the Skylab space station was launched on top of a Saturn V rocket, and in 1975 the United States and Russian docked their Apollo/Soyuz spacecrafts.
Main Objectives
- Land a man on the moon and return him safely to the Earth
- Gather lunar rocks and soil samples
Mission Assignments
- Apollo 1
January 27, 1967
Virgil “Gus” Grissom (CDR), Edward White (SP), Roger Chaffee (P)
- Apollo 7
October 11-22, 1968
Walter Schirra (CDR), Donn Eisele (CMP), Walt Cunningham (P)
- Apollo 8
December 21-27, 1968
Frank Borman (CDR), James Lovell (CMP), William Anders (P)
- Apollo 9
March 3-13, 1969
James McDivitt (CDR), David Scott (CMP), Russell Schweickart (LMP)
- Apollo 10
May 18-26, 1969
Thomas Stafford (CDR), John Young (CMP), Eugene Cernan (LMP)
- Apollo 11
July 16-24, 1969
Neil Armstrong (CDR), Michael Collins (CMP), Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin (LMP)
- Apollo 12
November 14-24, 1969
Charles “Pete” Conrad (CDR), Richard Gordon (CMP), Alan Bean (LMP)
- Apollo 13
April 11-17, 1970
James Lovell (CDR), John Swigert (CMP), Fred Haise (LMP)
- Apollo 14
January 31 – February 9, 1971
Alan Shepard (CDR), Stuart Roosa (CMP), Edgar Mitchell (LMP)
- Apollo 15
July 26 – August 7, 1971
David Scott (CDR), Alfred Worden (CMP), James Irwin (LMP)
- Apollo 16
April 16-27, 1972
John Young (CDR), Thomas K. Mattingly (CMP), Charles Duke (LMP)
- Apollo 17
December 7-19, 1972
Eugene Cernan (CDR), Ronald Evans (CMP), Harrison Schmitt (LMP)