NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 1

T-Minus 10 Seconds To

Mankind’s Greatest Achievement.

NASA’s Decade of

Tragedies and Triumphs.

SS310

Unit 9- Final Essay

Bob McKay

Kaplan University

Dr. Nita Evans, Professor

 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 2

Lunar Module Pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin:40 feet [altitude], down 2½ [descent rate]
Aldrin: 30 feet down, 2 ½ … kicking up some dust.
Aldrin: 30 feet, 2 ½ down, faint shadow… 4 forward , 4 forward…, drifting to the right little...
down a half…
Houston Space Center: 30 seconds [referring to the amount of fuel remaining in the descent
Stage]
Mission Commander Neil Armstrong: Forward drift?
Aldrin: Yes.
Aldrin: OK… Contact light!… OK. Engine stop. ACA out of Detent.
Armstrong: Out of Detent
Aldrin: Mode Control- both “Auto”. Descent and Engine Command Override-off. Engine Arm
off. 413 is in.
Houston: We copy you down, Eagle.
Armstrong: Houston, uh…, Tranquility Base here… The Eagle has landed.
Houston: Roger, Twan… Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys here
about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot. (nasa.gov, 1969)

Mankind’s greatest hour followed some of America’s darkest moments. The decade of the 60s

was one of social change, moral change, protests, assassinations, the Cold War, and even redemption.

Despite the incredible transformations our society witnessed, NASA’s heavenly ambitions managed to

side-step the American societal issues of war, poverty, assassinations, drugs, civil rights and more. This is

because on the Moon, there are no political boundaries, but rather, one undivided, war-free world.
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 3

Abstract

In this article, I will briefly outline the history of rocket science, beginning with Robert

Goddard’s groundbreaking research and flights, followed by the results of WW II’s Nazi V-2

rocket program and the subsequent post-war recruitment of German rocket scientists. The main

body of this article details the NACA (and its replacement, NASA) programs which contained an

ambitious plan which eventually landed twelve men on the Moon. Concurrently, there will also

be some comparisons to relevant social issues that were in place during that time period.
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 4

Yes, but can it fly? The evolution of rocketry

Nearly eight years from the day when Pres. John F. Ken nedy verbally challenged NASA

scientists to land a man on the moon and return him safely to the earth, Apollo 11 astronauts were given

the go-ahead to leave the lunar orbit, to begin braking thrusts with their engines, and to land on the

surface of the moon. Prior to their descent, the access tunnel which connected the orbiter's cabin to the

Lunar Excursion Module (or "LEM”) was not completely de-pressurized. Thus, the undocking caused a

noticeable "pop", much like a champagne cork popping. This seemingly small glitch caused the LEM,

nicknamed the "Eagle", to be on a trajectory which placed it nearly four miles from their planned lunar

landing site. Nonetheless, the successful Apollo 11 mission changed the world (and mankind) forever.

Ever since man has been able to look towards the heavens, he has had an unquenchable hunger to

explore. From the time Galileo and Copernicus gazed through their telescopes, a series of small steps led

to the eventual footprints on the moon. It began with Robert Goddard's successful 4-second flight of a

liquid-fueled rocket in a snow-covered cabbage field in Auburn, Massachusetts on a wintery March day in

1926. This was the first of a series of significant tests which led to the standardization of modern rocket

propulsion using a combination of liquid propellants and control nozzles, which entailed a seven-year-

long series of experiments immediately following the Smithsonian Institution's publishing of his

groundbreaking work, entitled "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitude." At the time, newspapers

laughed-off his new theories as mere fantasy, but on that cold March day, Goddard proved them, and

some skeptical scientists, wrong. In fact, Goddard was chosen as one of Time Magazine’s top 100

scientists of all time. (Time)

 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 5

In this photograph, Goddard is standing next to

Courtesy NASA
his primitive rocket moments before the first-ever flight

of a liquid-fueled rocket. His wife took moving pictures,

which have been fabricated into still photos such as this

one. The engine is actually at the top of the rocket and the

fuel tank is the cone-shaped container about 4 feet below

the rocket’s nozzle to provide stability. This design was

eventually scrapped, in favor of the current rocket design

which places fuel tanks above the engines after

Goddard’s subsequent tests proved there was no

difference in stability when it came to the placement of the fuel tanks, as long as stabilizing fins were

added to the base of the rocket.

Years later, in the waning days of World War II, Nazi Germany successfully launched explosive-

laden V-2 rockets which eventually struck targets on British soil. It turned out that Goddard’s ideas

were stolen by the Nazi’s and used, to his dismay, as a weapon of mass destruction instead his

dream of using rockets for the peaceful exploration of space. (Popular Science) The German V-2

program followed almost 5 1/2 years of launch tests and launch failures at a top-secret facility

located in the German Baltic Sea coastal town of Peenemünde. When the Allies destroyed

Peenemünde after two days of bombing, there were some valuable rocket scientists of which

both the Russians and the United States were very interested in capturing. The problem was that

a personnel movement by the Nazis had transpired a mere two months before the war ended. The

Germans had already relocated these valuable minds to a different location in Austria.
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 6

One of those scientists was named Warner Von Braun. During the war, Dr. Von Braun

was the technical director of the Peenemünde rocket research site. After the war in Europe

ended, President Truman put together an operation known as "Operation Paperclip." During this

operation, top German scientists were recruited by United States. The Russians were running a

parallel operation to recruit as many scientists as they could, as well. Pres. Truman ordered that

those who scientists had a Nazi criminal past were, supposedly, exempt from this recruitment

operation. However, some of the best minds, including Dr. Von Braun, were given "bleached”

backgrounds with papers attached to their file folders, thus, the nickname "Paperclip". This

turned out to be a good thing, because Dr. Von Braun is the man who eventually designed the

most powerful rocket ever built by man, the Saturn V-- the rocket that carried the astronauts to

the moon and back.

Von Braun was considered the foremost authority when it came to designing rockets. Thus, the

US Government flew him, along with over one hundred of his researchers and builders, to Fort Bliss, TX,

near El Paso. White Sands, NM is located just over the hill, so these two areas became the de facto rocket

research facility in the US for the ensuing fifteen years.

Courtesy NASA

Operation Paperclip Scientists at Fort Bliss, TX

 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 7

A New Direction for Avation and Aeronautics: Straight up

Since its creation in 1915, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (“NACA”) was

deemed the center of the universe for US’s flight research. After WW II ended, they continued to oversee

funding for missile programs, aircraft technology, and intensifying jet engine and rocket engine research.

“Among the legacies of World War II was a glittering array of new technologies spawned by the

massive military effort. Atomic energy, radar, antibiotics, radio telemetry, the computer, the large

rocket, and the jet engine seemed destined to shape the world's destiny in the next three decades

and heavily influence the rest of the century.” (Bilstein)

Bilstein’s words were amazingly accurate because between 1945 and 1975, those are exactly the

areas of technology which grew the fastest. By the 1950’s, the Cold War has forced Presidents Truman

and Eisenhower to give a high priority to the development of rocket-powered vehicles and also to

development of thermonuclear warheads to put onboard those missiles. This was so important to our

political leaders that in fiscal 1953, $1 Million was budgeted by the Defense Department for missile

research for the first time. By fiscal 1957, this amount had grown to $1 Billion. (Bilstein) Rockets and

missiles were big business, and NACA needed a new direction.

During that year, Russia shocked the world by announcing that they

had successfully put a 183-pound, basketball-sized satellite into Earth orbit—

the first man-made object ever to circle the globe. Although it only stayed

aloft, beeping non-stop, for 23 days, it was a stunning blow and a

psychological “gut-punch” to the morale of the people of America. After all,

we are innovators. We are the leaders in technology. We are the promoters of

NASA History Office
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 8

freedom. We are, well, Americans! At that point in time, NACA’s main focus was perfecting the

Vanguard missile, without success. Another distressing factor was that the Sputnik satellite weighed a lot

more than the Vanguard’s proposed payload of only 3 pounds. One month later, Sputnik 2 achieved orbit

at a weight of 1,100 pounds, and contained the first living creature to enter space—a dog named Laika,

who died from heat exposure and stress after only a few hours. The Russians had planned on euthanizing

her with poisoned food before re-entry, so her death was inevitable, albeit 7 days ahead of their planned

euthanasia.

America did not obtain official status as a space visitor until January 31, 1958, when a device

designed by Professor James Van Allen to measure radiation was successfully launched. When the device

reached 594 miles, the radiation detectors went crazy, signaling the existence of a dense area of radiation

around the Earth. (Bilstein) Today, that area is known as the “Van Allen Belt”, and was a major concern

during the missions to the Moon.

This victory, however, started a divisive rift throughout NACA, and by March, NACA was on its

proverbial deathbed. On July 29, 1958 President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space

Act of 1958 into law, and NACA was no more. NACA’s last official chairman was James “Jimmy”

Doolittle, the famed WW II General who raised America’s morale and showed Japan a huge military

vulnerability when his “Doolittle’s Raiders” bombed the Japanese mainland mere months after the attack

on Pearl Harbor. NASA’s first administrator was T. Keith Glennan, the President of Case Institute of

Technology in Cleveland, OH. (NASA)

Setting goals- Anyone care for some green cheese?

By now, Werner von Braun had established himself as the premier rocket scientist in the

free world, and the newly-created NASA wanted to use his wisdom to set some goals beyond the

bounds of the Earth- the Moon and beyond. But Von Braun had painstakingly reminded the
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 9

fledgling NASA that it must be done in baby steps. In other words, we may be falling behind the

Russians, but the race to the Moon had only just begun. In addition, the Russians had an

unbelievably- high failure rate for their launches. From the time of their first attempt to go to the

Moon, until the time Apollo 11 safely touched down in July of 1969, the Russians had 26

failures and only 12 successful missions, compiling a cumulative failure rate of nearly 54%,

including one failed un- manned Moon mission which was launched only 3 days before Apollo

11. (Zak, 2009)

Some clear goals to achieve progress were needed. NASA already had dozens of test

pilots for their subsonic and supersonic aircraft, and it only seemed logical that these test pilots

would be best qualified to fly rockets. But without a plan to make orbital flight a reality, these

pilots were limited to fixed-wing atmospheric flight- NACA’s former forte.

NASA was going to be markedly different from NACA in two important ways. First, it

was going to be operational as well as do research. So, it would not only design and build launch

vehicles and satellites but it would launch them, operate them, track them, acquire data from

them, and interpret the data. Secondly, it would do the greater part of its work by contract rather

than in-house as NACA had done. (Bilstein) Work had already begun on the X-1 and X-15

supersonic aircraft. These were, basically, rockets with wings, capable of obtaining altitudes in

excess of 300,000 feet.

The next step- space- was broken down into three ambitious projects: Mercury, Gemini,

and Apollo. Project Mercury’s goal was simply to determine if one man could survive in space.

If that was possible, then Project Gemini would be a series of two- man learning flights to assist

with designs of docking mechanisms, to interpret the medical data gathered from the astronauts
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 10

during the multi-day space flights, to practice maneuvers, and to also study other unforeseen

problems with living in zero gravity. Apollo was a series of final tests using 3 men with the

actual moon-bound equipment- some tests performed while in Earth orbit, and others while in

lunar orbit- culminating with actual manned landings on the Moon’s surface.

In March of 1960, NASA had succeeded in the launch of the world’s first inter-planetary

probe, named “Pioneer 5”, which flew by Venus and took the first close-up photos of a celestial

body other than our Moon. It also set a communication record with a 22 Million mile distance.

By the election of 1960, most of NASA’s re-organization and planning was completed, and

contracts with developers were becoming a way of life. The use of existing large missiles simply

adapted to hold the space capsules was their design plan.

On April 12, 1961, that all changed when Soviet Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin orbited the

Earth once and safely landed. We missed being first in space by a mere 3 weeks. American had

been dealt another proverbial punch to the gut—another psychological blow to the “America

first” mindset.

Less than a month later, on May 6, Astronaut Alan Sheppard became the first American

to achieve a sub-orbital flight, but this was no consolation at NASA for four reasons. First, he

only flew for 15 minutes and was simply recovered downrange in the Atlantic Ocean. Second,

his spacecraft, Mercury 1, only weighed 2100 pounds.

Gagarin’s vehicle weighed more than 10,000. Thirdly,

Sheppard flew for 300 miles, yet Gagarin flew more than

24,000. Finally, Gagarin had 90 minutes of

Courtesy NASA weightlessness and Sheppard only had about 5. A sense

 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 11

of urgency ensued in the White House.

Americans became worried that the Soviets would be placing weapons in space, or

developing missiles that could reach sub-orbital altitude and possibly rain down on the

continental United States. This aspect worried the nation’s new president, John F. Kennedy, who

was sworn- in less than three months earlier. Thus, Kennedy sent his Vice President, Lyndon B.

Johnson, to gather information about NASA’s capabilities for multiple circumlunar flights.

Johnson had served during the previous administration as Senate Majority leader, but he also had

extensive dealings with NACA and the fledgling NASA chief, Jimmy Webb. Three weeks later,

Johnson reported back to Kennedy with the positive results, and Kennedy immediately addressed

a joint session of Congress and stated, in no uncertain terms,

“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 the Earth.” (Kennedy)

This solidified our commitment to put the U.S. first in space technology. Kennedy didn’t

want a “one-shot” deal, either. He wanted a series of landings to prove we were superior to the

Russians. But, skeptics asked, how would we do it? In late 1962, NASA’s overall plan to land on

the Moon was released to the public. It entailed having a massive launch vehicle carry a

command module to act as the “tow truck” to bring a specialized Lunar Excursion Module, or

“LEM”, to a Lunar orbit. The LEM consisted of two components- a Lunar Lander, and an ascent

vehicle. The LEM would depart the orbiting command module and descend to the Moon’s

surface with the astronauts onboard. Later, an ascent vehicle would propel the astronauts back

into lunar orbit to dock with the orbiting command module, and they would leave lunar orbit and
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 12

return to the Earth. This was an ambitious plan, but NASA felt it was well within their realm of

possibility. Successful tests with Von Braun’s powerful rockets had proved it was feasible.

Kennedy’s commitment was reiterated in a speech to Rice University students and staff on

September 12, 1962, when he told them,

We choose to go to the moon… [interrupted by applause]We choose to go to the moon...

[interrupted by applause] We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other

things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard… And, this will be done in the

decade of the Sixties. (Kennedy, 1962)

On November 22, 1963, President Kennedy was scheduled to make a speech in Dallas, TX

which further supported the space program, but he was assassinated before he could reiterate his

continued commitment to have the US excel in space. After the moral butt-kicking the Russians

had given us earlier in the decade, now, the nation lost a visionary president who supported

NASA and all of its endeavors. The nation took a proverbial punch to the jaw. Psychologically,

our nation was numb. We needed something to bring us back up from the depths of shock, grief,

and anger. We needed a man on the Moon. We had the green light from Congress and the White

house, and now all we needed was some symbolic green cheese from the Moon to go with it.

Come on, baby, light my fire- Putting a man into space

John Glenn entering Mercury 7 Capsule

The Mercury program had three distinct goals: to orbit a
Courtesy NASA
man around the Earth, to investigate man’s ability to function in

space, and to recover both man and spacecraft safely. (NASA)

 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 13

The Mercury program enjoyed 6 consecutive successful launches by the summer of 1963, so the

remaining 3 launches were cancelled in lieu of commencing the Gemini Program’s aggressive

schedule of 10 flights within a 2- year period. Astronauts were beginning to become celebrities.

Prior to, and during the Mercury program, un- manned Moon probes would have allowed

geologists to select several potential Apollo landing sites which could yield the best scientific

data and samples for Apollo to bring back from the Moon. The major problem, however, was

that there had been 12 consecutive failures. By the time the Mercury program had triumphantly

concluded with Gordon Cooper’s 30-hour flight on May 5, 1963, the Russians had three

tesy NASA
successful Moon missions, but they were merely fly-bys to detect gravity and photograph the

backside of the Moon.

The Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, gloated about the failures of the first NASA Ranger

moon probe missions, notably Ranger 4, which crashed on the far side of the Moon instead of softly

landing on the near side. As a response to Khrushchev’s chiding, Jet Propulsion Lab’s Director, William

Pickering, retorted, "Ranger 4 was tracked by the Goldstone receiver as it passed the leading edge of the

moon. At 4:49.53 AM it crashed on the moon… If the Russians wished to confirm that fact, they could

dispatch one of their own astronauts to the spot and investigate it first-hand.” (Bilstein) Hence, the Space

Race had become a de facto entity.

Less than eight months after Kennedy’s death, NASA finally succeeded in photographing the

surface of the moon with an “impact probe” designed to transmit images until the moment of impact.

Ranger 7, 8 and 9 gave NASA, and the entire US, something to finally be proud of not only because they

were successful, but they also transmitted pictures of proposed Apollo landing sites, specifically, Ranger

8’s photos of the Sea of Tranquility.

 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 14

Let Me Introduce Our Twins- America’s Gemini Program

The Gemini mission had three objectives.

(NASA) First, measuring medical changes to a human’s

body while in space for multiple days would tell NASA

whether the Moon mission would ever occur. Until the

Gemini program began, only one of the original seven

astronauts had endured 34 consecutive hours in one

mission, albeit with no side effects. Could man handle a

Courtesy NASA
week or more in space with the same results?

Secondly, in order to make a trip to the Moon, vehicles need to be able to rendezvous with other

orbiting spacecraft, maneuvered in space, and hook together, or be “docked.” This had never been
acecraft Cutaway
NASA
attempted due to the constraints of Earth’s gravity. Small jets affixed to the outside of the spacecraft were

designed to handle this important function. Would they work? Could man ever maneuver a spacecraft in

zero gravity? Would the larger rocket be enough, or would we need a bigger one to carry two men and a

larger payload? What other unforeseen problems might appear? These questions needed to be answered.

Thirdly, NASA needed to perfect methods to re-enter the atmosphere and land at a predetermined point.

The “manned” portion of the Gemini program began on March 23, 1965 following two successful

un-manned tests of the Gemini program’s proposed rocket, a modified Titan II missile. Gus Grissom and

John Young lifted off together and orbited the Earth 3 times in 5 hours.

The year was 1965. Young Americans were heading off to war in Vietnam while, domestically,

people protested against the very same thing. In November of that year, the first large-scale draft card

burning was held. (Gosse) An ideological rift was beginning to develop in the political spectrum. Space
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 15

was their escape. Nonetheless, there were even protests against the space program. Left-leaning political

activists wanted to know why money was being spent on the space program, while domestic hunger

flourished. They wanted to know why more money wasn’t being spent on equal rights or helping the rest

of the world’s poverty. The reality is that when the Gemini program concluded in November of 1966,

NASA’s budget peaked at $5.9 Billion, or a mere 6% of the total Federal budget. By contrast, the NASA

budget in 1969, when Apollo finally landed on the Moon, was $4.25 Billion, only 2.1%. (Wikipedia), or

slightly more than the annual state budget for California. (Braastad)

Even though the Gemini missions were concurrent with a war that was intensifying in Vietnam,

there was a bright spot for some of the contractors who gave NASA their rocket technology because

missiles and solid fuel rockets were also becoming an effective weapon against the enemy in Vietnam.

Concurrently, the Soviets were increasing their research, development, and deployment of larger missiles

which could actually carry nuclear warheads to the continental United States. Europe was becoming a

proverbial huge chess game, and nuclear missiles were becoming the chess pieces for both sides. These

large missiles could actually obtain sub-orbital flight and descend within a matter of twenty minutes.

Robert Goddard was probably rolling over in his grave at the thought of his invention being used for that

purpose. The United States was simultaneously developing missiles for the same purpose, but the Soviet

technology was more advanced.

Although the Russians enjoyed great success with intercontinental missile development , the

Soviets were frustrated with a failure rate of nearly 64% with their un-manned Moon probes. (Zak) A lot

of the failures were due to guidance problems and, as a result, several probes simply went past the Moon

without taking a single photo. Other Soviet probes that were designed to make a soft landing on the Moon

either crashed into the surface, or missed the Moon altogether. America was slowly taking the lead in the

new Space Race. An emerging symbol of American pride was emerging, and it had the name “NASA.”

Children yearned to become an astronaut. Space had become the final frontier, and by 1966, a short-lived
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 16

television series, named “Star Trek” kept youngsters glued to their new color televisions every week.

Space was becoming a part of the new American psyche.

During the Gemini program, one pair of astronauts, Jim Lovell and Frank Borman, set a duration

record with 206 orbits accumulating over 330 hours (2 weeks) in space With the conclusion of the Gemini

program following Jim Lovell and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin’s flight of Gemini XII, NASA was looking

forward to answering President Kennedy’s challenge within the next two years. That two-year goal was

about to tragically change during the Apollo program.

She’s Got A Ticket To Ride- The Moon Awaits

During this period of the 60’s, Life magazine was a hallmark of the weekly periodical market.

With a gutsy and expensive move, they landed an exclusive contract with NASA to document and

photograph the emerging heroes of the Apollo program. To this date, the photos printed on the pages of

their magazine during that period remain some of the most iconic photographic images of our nation.

With this added publicity, astronauts were rapidly becoming big celebrities everywhere they went.

Autograph hounds, and shrieking ladies greeted some of the younger, single ones if they dared to venture

outside the Kennedy Space Center. Their crowds were not as big as some of the current rock band’s

crowds, but people, nonetheless, were awestruck in their presence. People simply wanted to know what it

took to be an astronaut, and kids wanted to eat “Space Food.”

Meanwhile, NASA put forth the Apollo program’s four objectives. NASA needed to: “establish

the technology to meet other national interests in space, to achieve preeminence in space for the United

States, to carry out a program of scientific exploration of the Moon, and to develop man’s capability to

work in the Lunar environment.” (NASA) This was a daunting task, but one which NASA dreamed of

since its creation. Footprints on the Moon were only two years away.
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 17

Dr. Von Braun supervised the development and testing of a massive rocket, consisting of three

stages which would allow the payload to enter Earth orbit, leave

Earth orbit and transit to the Moon and back. To date, it is the

most powerful rocket ever built by man, and it went by the name

of “Saturn V.” But engineers and scientists decided that testing

the individual stages, as opposed to testing the entire three-stage

rocket, would lead to faster problem-solving and would allow a

mission to the Moon by early 1968. Thus, testing began in 1961

for different combinations and engine designs. Ultimately, the

Courtesy NASA
Apollo Program used 3 variations of the Saturn Rocket: the Saturn

I, the Saturn I-B, and the Saturn V. Each model had specific payload capacities, and the early Apollo

missions had rather light payloads.

In fact Apollo 1’s mission’s goals were to simply rendezvous with their cargo and test the

Command Module’s systems, and then come back to Earth. Three weeks before their scheduled February

17, 1967 launch, Virgil “Gus” Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White were undergoing a test to

determine whether the spacecraft would operate nominally on internal power without any land-based

umbilical cords attached. As with the prior Mercury and Gemini projects, pure oxygen was used to

pressurize the cabin during this routine test. The doors on what Grissom dubbed “the lemon” only opened

inwards. Thus, while under pressure, it was impossible to open them. The builder, North American

Aviation, wanted NASA to allow the doors to open outwards, but NASA refused, citing Mercury 4’s

premature blowing of the hatch and subsequent sinking during the post-flight recovery. During the test,

and without warning, a fire erupted inside the cabin, and all 3 astronauts were killed. An entire nation,

who had fallen in love with the astronaut program from the pages of Life Magazine, was shocked.

America had its first space tragedy, and it did not even occur during a flight.
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 18

Days later, a shocked nation solemnly watched as two flag-draped coffins containing Gus

Grissom and Roger Chaffee were laid to rest in Arlington Cemetery. Ed White was given the same honors

at West Point Cemetery in West Point, NY. NASA suddenly had some investigating and explaining to do.

Congress would certainly see to that. Eventually, the cause of the fire was not determined, but the deaths

were attributed to several factors. Velcro, a combustible material, was used extensively inside the cabin to

secure astronaut’s personal items. In addition, some of the wiring did not have fireproof insulation.

Finally, the inward-opening hatch prevented the technicians from blowing the bolts to facilitate a launch

pad rescue. These three major design flaws caused a two-year delay before the next launch with a re-

designed Command Module.

December 21, 1968 marked the first launch of a manned Apollo mission. This ambitious mission

was the first visit to another world with humans as

Courtesy NASA Courtesy NASA

passengers. Life magazine published one of the most

iconic images of Earth ever photographed after

Lunar Module Pilot, Bill Anders photographed a

Christmas Eve Earthrise above the Moon’s surface

after the three-day trip to the Moon. Frank Borman actually took the first photo of an Earthrise one

minute earlier, but it was in black and white. A short time later, the crew read the first 10 verses of

Genesis to a live television audience to commemorate Christmas Eve on Earth.

 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 19

Between the period when Apollo 8 was launched and before Apollo 11’s historic launch in July

of 1969, there were two other missions to test the equipment and docking procedures. By November’s

successful completion of Apollo 12, the decade of the 60’s was coming to a close. During that timeframe,

our nation had experienced 3 assassinations, civil rights reform, protests against our government in

unparalleled participatory levels, and an unpopular war in which we won nearly every major battle on the

ground, but lost the war in the press at home. We were a nation changed forever by music, drug usage,

youth movements, long hair, and diametrically-opposed political beliefs. One thing, however, brought us

as a nation, and the world as a people, together. It was only for a fleeting moment, and that moment was

hearing Neil Armstrong say, “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” from a

celestial body that man has gazed upon for several million years.

Courtesy NASA

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Salutes the

American Flag on the surface of
the Moon July 20, 1969
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 20

References:

Bilstein, Roger (1989) Orders of Magnitude, Retrieved August 29, 2009 from:

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-4406/contents.html

Braastad, Richard (2009), Putting NASA's Budget in Perspective, Retrieved on August 21, 2009 from:

http://www.richardb.us/nasa.html#graph

Gosse, Van (2005) The Movements of the New Left 1950-1975,

Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's

Kennedy, John (1961), Kennedy Addresses a Joint Session of Congress, May 25, 1961,

retrieved on August 27, 2009 from:

http://www.homeofheroes.com/presidents/speeches/kennedy_space.html

Kennedy, John (1962), Kennedy’s Speech to Rice University,

retrieved on August 27, 2009 from:

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003PO

F03SpaceEffort09121962.htm

Kluger, Jeffery (1999), Robert Goddard

http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/goddard.html

NASA (2009), Mercury Mission Statement, retrieved on August 27, 2009 from:

http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/history/mercury/mercury-goals.txt
 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 21

NASA (2009), Gemini Mission Statement, retrieved on August 27, 2009 from:

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 NASA’s Decade of Tragedies and Triumphs 22

Grade:
Numeric grade: 230/230 Letter grade:

Grade Details | INBOX Date & Time

Reviewed by: VeraBenita PhillipEvans 6 Sep 09 4:30 PM MST

Attachments: None

Comments:

Bob, wow! The word requirement was 1800-2400. You have 5126. I like the pics! Adds a lot to
the paper, which is the most detailed assessment a student has ever done of NASA. Without a doubt you
met all of the requirements for this assignment. Your use of concepts and integration of theory is
outstanding. It has been a pleasure reading your work. I value and applaud your work ethic. I wish more
students had it. It was a pleasure having you in the class. All the best! See you on fb.