By Klaus Rosmanitz
In 1961 President John F. Kennedy spoke to the American people and promised that the United States would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade. America's goal was to show the world that it had the best technology and was the most powerful nation. On July 20, 1969 Apollo 11 landed on the moon and astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first human to put a foot on the lunar surface.
Before the Apollo project began NASA's Mercury and Gemini programs put astronauts into an orbit around the Earth. But Project Apollo was a very difficult and different mission. NASA needed a powerful rocket that could escape the Earth's gravity and travel all the way to the moon. After Kennedy's speech, NASA started work on such a rocket. The Saturn V booster was finished in 1967. It was the greatest rocket ever built.
The Apollo spacecraft was made up of three parts. The command module was main part. It was where the astronauts lived during the trip to the moon. It had all the instruments and computers that were needed for such a mission and it was the only part of the spacecraft that returned to Earth.
The service module had its own rockets. They were used to slow down the Apollo spacecraft when it entered the moon's orbit. Without these rockets the spacecraft would be too fast and fly right past the moon.
The third part of the Apollo spacecraft was the lunar module. It was rather small and had legs that looked like a spider's. When the astronauts got into the moon's orbit they separated the lunar module and flew it down to the moon's surface. The landing craft had two parts: the lower part was used for slowing it down so that it could land gently, the upper part would let the astronauts return to the command module.
In 1967 a tragic accident almost ended the Apollo project. A fire broke out in the Apollo 1 spacecraft during a test on the ground. All three astronauts were killed.
After more testing and some unmanned flights Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to fly to the moon. It entered lunar orbit, flew around the dark side of the moon and back to Earth again. After two more Apollo missions NASA was ready for a moon landing.
On July 16, 1969 Apollo 11 took off from Cape Kennedy, Florida. Aboard the spacecraft were 3 astronauts: Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins. Three days later they entered the moon's orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin got into the lunar module; Collins was left behind in the command module.
On July 20, 1969 the "Eagle", as the lunar module was called, touched down softly in a lowland called Sea of Tranquility. A television camera that was attached to the side of the spacecraft sent live pictures back to Earth where millions of people were watching. After checking Eagle to see if everything was all right, Armstrong lowered a ladder and stepped down on the moon's surface. It was "one small step for man, but one giant leap for mankind."
The astronauts spent about two and a half hours on the lunar surface. They put up the American flag, collected rocks and set up instruments. After lifting off from the surface of the moon they flew back to the command module and successfully joined Michael Collins. On July 24, 1969 Apollo 11 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. The first American moon mission was a success.
In the years that followed there were five more lunar landings. But not all Apollo flights were successful. Apollo 13 almost ended in disaster. During its journey to the moon one of the two oxygen tanks exploded. They were vital for breathing and for the power systems of the command module. The three astronauts had to get into the lunar module, which had its own power and oxygen, but the LM was planned only for two astronauts, not three. All unnecessary systems had to be turned off so that it could save as much power as possible. Although Apollo 13 didn't land on the moon NASA managed to bring the three astronauts back to Earth safely.
On Apollo 15 the astronauts took a battery-powered car with them. The lunar rover traveled a distance of over 27 km on the lunar surface.
Although Project Apollo cost the Americans a lot of money it demonstrated the technological power of the USA. One of its aims was also to show the western world's superiority in the Cold War. The data that the Apollo missions brought back to Earth gave scientists much information on how the moon and the solar system developed.
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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Klaus_Rosmanitz
Saturday, November 13, 2010
NASA Kelper Mission Launch - Sister Earth Planet Search
By James Hewson
The Kepler Mission is explicitly intended to appraise our area of the Milky Way solar system to unearth hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets and additionally to determine the scope of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy that may have such planets. The mission is distinctive from earlier ways of looking for planets because it will watch for the "transit" signature of planets. The scientific objective of the Kepler Mission is to examine the framework and variety of planetary systems, with a specific pre- eminence on the identification of Earth-size planets. The mission will also include the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer "WISE", which will chart the galaxy in long wavelengths, watching for star creating areas and remote high-red shift galaxies.
The NASA Astrobiology Institute was founded in 1998 to bring about combined research and development in astrobiology. The Exobiology Branch of NASA administers analysis in Exobiology attempting to increase our comprehension of the source, development, and apportionment of existence in the universe. The NASA Origins program assignment is to comprehend and defend our home planet, to research the Universe and hunt for life, and also to motivate our subsequent generation of voyagers.
Kepler's photometer, which is a tool that gauges the brightness of light, will function like a mammoth camcorder with a 37 inch width lens, operating through space. Kepler would then be a logical conduit to the next comprehensive hunt for habitable planets and existences, the so called "Terrestrial Planet Finder". A planet imaging operation intended for a 2010 launch which will benefit from data Kepler can supply about the likeliest positions in the solar system to find Earth-sized planets. Meanwhile the Kepler mission will study about 100,000 stars in an area of sky on the bearing of the constellation Cygnus for around 4 years, making brightness computations every 15 minutes, in the expectation of detecting the elusive transits. The spacecraft will be pointed towards Earth once a month to download its science information to NASA's Deep Space Network, a mass of antennas encircling the globe that aid planetary and astronomical operations.
The transit approach will be used by Kepler to discover these extrasolar terrestrial planets, which is a means by which studies the diversity of brightness of a specific star when a large entity, such as a planet passes in front of the star. Transits take place when planets in their orbits encircling their guardian stars cross the line of vision among us or in this case, the cameras located within the spacecraft and the star. Each transit will cause the star to darken faintly in luminosity. An intermittent drop in light strength may conclude the company of an concealed planet moving across the front of the star hindering some degree of light output. The Keck telescopes are a division of NASA's Origins project, which also contains the TPF and the SIM operations. Each of the telescopes have a reflector with a width of about 10 meters. When merged the telescopes will be capable of working as a single telescope with a width of hundreds of meters. The observatory will be efficient at taking images 100 times more comprehensive than the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Kelper mission will study the extended solar locality to discover and distinguish hundreds of terrestrial and bigger planets in or near the 'habitable zone', characterized by scientists as the distance from a star where liquid water can subsist on a planet's surface. Exclusively in the last few years have the technologies required to conduct a quest for small rugged, or earthly, planets with high accuracy reached maturity. In 10 years astronomers have discovered around 150 extrasolar planets, and the proportion is speeding up each year. Currently, observatories such as the Keck telescopes, which are ground based mechanisms, and the Spitzer telescope which was constructed in the expanse of Space itself, will assist astronomers in their hunt for extrasolar planets.
The Kepler mission is attractive in its straightforwardness in the understanding that it will study a broad area of sky for an extended period. The mission is fuelling growing exhilaration between space scientists following the discovery of more than three hundred planets orbiting additional stars in the past Fifteen years. The program is anticipated to uncover fifty to sixty extrasolar planets with a equivalent distance from their guardian stars as the World is from the Sun.
The Kepler Mission, which was originally scheduled for a March 5th launch, will now be launched on Friday, March 6, from Pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. NASA have stated that the Kepler Mission will have two launch windows that day, from 10:49 - 10:52 pm and 11:13 - 11:16 pm EST. Delta II rocket will be the launch vehicle of the Kepler Mission.
UK Area 51 is a website dedicated to unexplained events and emerging sciences concerning a wide variety of topics. Our aim is to provide rich, diverse and stimulating articles around the issues that face mankind now and in the future. Please visit our main site for many more intriguing articles at UK Area 51.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Hewson
The Kepler Mission is explicitly intended to appraise our area of the Milky Way solar system to unearth hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets and additionally to determine the scope of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy that may have such planets. The mission is distinctive from earlier ways of looking for planets because it will watch for the "transit" signature of planets. The scientific objective of the Kepler Mission is to examine the framework and variety of planetary systems, with a specific pre- eminence on the identification of Earth-size planets. The mission will also include the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer "WISE", which will chart the galaxy in long wavelengths, watching for star creating areas and remote high-red shift galaxies.
The NASA Astrobiology Institute was founded in 1998 to bring about combined research and development in astrobiology. The Exobiology Branch of NASA administers analysis in Exobiology attempting to increase our comprehension of the source, development, and apportionment of existence in the universe. The NASA Origins program assignment is to comprehend and defend our home planet, to research the Universe and hunt for life, and also to motivate our subsequent generation of voyagers.
Kepler's photometer, which is a tool that gauges the brightness of light, will function like a mammoth camcorder with a 37 inch width lens, operating through space. Kepler would then be a logical conduit to the next comprehensive hunt for habitable planets and existences, the so called "Terrestrial Planet Finder". A planet imaging operation intended for a 2010 launch which will benefit from data Kepler can supply about the likeliest positions in the solar system to find Earth-sized planets. Meanwhile the Kepler mission will study about 100,000 stars in an area of sky on the bearing of the constellation Cygnus for around 4 years, making brightness computations every 15 minutes, in the expectation of detecting the elusive transits. The spacecraft will be pointed towards Earth once a month to download its science information to NASA's Deep Space Network, a mass of antennas encircling the globe that aid planetary and astronomical operations.
The transit approach will be used by Kepler to discover these extrasolar terrestrial planets, which is a means by which studies the diversity of brightness of a specific star when a large entity, such as a planet passes in front of the star. Transits take place when planets in their orbits encircling their guardian stars cross the line of vision among us or in this case, the cameras located within the spacecraft and the star. Each transit will cause the star to darken faintly in luminosity. An intermittent drop in light strength may conclude the company of an concealed planet moving across the front of the star hindering some degree of light output. The Keck telescopes are a division of NASA's Origins project, which also contains the TPF and the SIM operations. Each of the telescopes have a reflector with a width of about 10 meters. When merged the telescopes will be capable of working as a single telescope with a width of hundreds of meters. The observatory will be efficient at taking images 100 times more comprehensive than the Hubble Space Telescope.
The Kelper mission will study the extended solar locality to discover and distinguish hundreds of terrestrial and bigger planets in or near the 'habitable zone', characterized by scientists as the distance from a star where liquid water can subsist on a planet's surface. Exclusively in the last few years have the technologies required to conduct a quest for small rugged, or earthly, planets with high accuracy reached maturity. In 10 years astronomers have discovered around 150 extrasolar planets, and the proportion is speeding up each year. Currently, observatories such as the Keck telescopes, which are ground based mechanisms, and the Spitzer telescope which was constructed in the expanse of Space itself, will assist astronomers in their hunt for extrasolar planets.
The Kepler mission is attractive in its straightforwardness in the understanding that it will study a broad area of sky for an extended period. The mission is fuelling growing exhilaration between space scientists following the discovery of more than three hundred planets orbiting additional stars in the past Fifteen years. The program is anticipated to uncover fifty to sixty extrasolar planets with a equivalent distance from their guardian stars as the World is from the Sun.
The Kepler Mission, which was originally scheduled for a March 5th launch, will now be launched on Friday, March 6, from Pad 17-B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. NASA have stated that the Kepler Mission will have two launch windows that day, from 10:49 - 10:52 pm and 11:13 - 11:16 pm EST. Delta II rocket will be the launch vehicle of the Kepler Mission.
UK Area 51 is a website dedicated to unexplained events and emerging sciences concerning a wide variety of topics. Our aim is to provide rich, diverse and stimulating articles around the issues that face mankind now and in the future. Please visit our main site for many more intriguing articles at UK Area 51.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Hewson
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