Beyond the Headlines

One Small Step

Putting Man on the moon

On July 20, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong put the U.S. at the head of the space race when he became the first human to walk on the moon. The events which led to this eventful July day, which more than one-fifth of the world population watched live on television, will be the focus of this newspaper exploration.

Sputnik

Prior to October 4, 1957, the U.S. had considered itself the leader in missile technology, the most important piece of any perceived space program. The United States Naval Research Laboratory intended to use a Vanguard rocket to place the first man-made satellite into space, and was actively building and testing vehicles when they received news of Sputnik 1.

Sputnik 1 came as a devastating shock to the American psyche. The U.S. was deadlocked in the Cold War with the U.S.S.R., and Sputnik was a clear sign of Soviet technological superiority. The Sputnik launch was much more than a small satellite in space; it was a sign that America was vulnerable.

“The reports added up to confirmation: The Russians had done it. It was only at this moment, in the early hours of the morning, that the full impact of the Soviet achievement struck the men in Room 717. They had spent many months preparing to try to accomplish the same thing. They had wanted to be the first to conquer outer space. Although there was no race, supposedly, they thought they were ahead. They tried not to look disheartened as newsmen were ushered into the room. But their expressions didn’t quite match their words,” reported the Syracuse Herald Journal on October 5, 1957.

Shortly following the Sputnik launch in 1957, America tried and failed to launch two Vanguard rockets, in a hastened continuation of the original Naval Research Laboratory project. An earlier joint Army and Navy project, Orbiter, was re-commissioned and successfully sent Explorer 1 into Earth orbit, but not before the Soviet Union put Sputnik 2 into space. President Dwight D. Eisenhower realized that the U.S. needed a new agency dedicated to space exploration. On July 29, 1958, he established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and increased technology and space exploration funding exponentially.

NASA

NASA officially began on October 1, 1958. The first project, Mercury, was designed to discover if man could survive in space. Determined to put a man in space before the U.S.S.R, NASA conducted three years of experiments and tests. On May 5, 1961, the hard work paid off when Alan Shepard became the first American in space – but too late to beat the Soviets. His launch was originally scheduled for October of 1960, but poor planning delayed the launch until May of the next year. One month prior to the launch, on April 12, 1961, the Soviet Union reached another milestone before the U.S. when Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space.

“Soviet announcement of the feat brought praise from President Kennedy and U.S. space experts left behind in the contest to put the first man into successful space flight,” informed the Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune on April 12, 1961. But soon: “A heartened America cheered space pioneer Alan B. Shepard Jr. today, and stood by to give him a hero’s welcome—while the Soviets pooh-poohed his grueling trip 115 miles into space,” reported by the Moberly Monitor-Index on May 6, 1961.

On February 20, 1962, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth – again, behind the Soviets. In April of 1961, and again in August of 1961, the Soviets had sent cosmonauts into Earth orbit. America was progressing, albeit too slowly to overtake the U.S.S.R.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced the goal of putting a man on the moon by the end of 1969. With the “failure” of America to lead the space race to date, this mission was a critical point in the Cold War. Kennedy committed $25 billion to the space program, the largest financial commitment ever made by any nation in peacetime, and thus the Apollo program was born.

Apollo

The Apollo program spent the first six years in research and design. Several non-manned unnamed missions were launched as tests of the various systems and designs. Finally in 1967, NASA was ready to send man into space in a series of seven mission types, each needing to be successful before progressing to the next one, with the final goal of landing a man on the moon. The first Apollo mission, Apollo 1, met with disaster. During a training exercise, the command module burst into flame while astronauts Virgil I. Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee were aboard, killing all three. A wide number of design flaws were exposed because of this tragedy, forcing a redesign of the module. This redesign saved lives during the various Apollo missions as several accidents occurred which would have led to a similar outcome, had not the module been changed.

The next official Apollo missions, 4, 5, and 6, were unmanned missions meant to test the Saturn V rocket, used as a booster, as well as the lunar module. Each was a success, leading to the manned Apollo missions. Apollo 7 used the Saturn IB booster to put a man in orbit around the Earth, a feat accomplished years before, but not with the equipment designed to place man on the moon.

Apollo 8 was the first space mission to put a craft in orbit around the moon, and was the first manned flight using the Saturn V rocket. Apollo 9 and 10 tested the lunar module, in preparation for a lunar landing during the Apollo 11 mission.

On July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission launched. “Three men carrying the Stars and Stripes roared away from earth Wednesday for man’s most daring step into the unknown, a walk on the moon,” reported the Albuquerque Journal on July 17, 1969. Astronauts Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr., and Michael Collins took off for the first moon landing.. And on July 20th, the lunar module separated from the command module and landed on the moon. Neil Armstrong spoke the now-famous “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Armstrong made his descent to the Moon six-and-a-half hours after landing, becoming the first man to walk on the Moon’s surface. “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Stephen Carr
NewspaperArchive.com