I am wondering what Adam is going to break there. Then how many nitpicks that they are going to get from the HBers that they did not do this right or telling them how physics really works on the moon.

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If it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.
Contact Carl Sagan

http://davidsuniverse.wordpress.com/

They don't have space suits, do they?
Either way, send a big rover to the moon first and have it run them over.
For soiling the good name of unmanned probes.

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I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

How about:

1956 - Goals of Manned Orbital Flight defined by NACA, this would become the basis of Project Mercury.

1957 - At the ABMA, Von Bruan starts work on the next generation of Jupiter (Juno) Rockets, this will become the Saturn I and will lead to the Saturn Family of rockets.

1958 - NASA created from the NACA to take over and establish Project Mercury. JPL and ABMA are merged into the new organisation. Mission to follow the manned orbitial attempt is a suggested manned mission to the moon. US launches first satellite, Explorer 1.

1959 - Saturn Rockets approved for design and construction with goal of landing on the Moon.

1960 - Apollo Program signed off on by Eisenhower. Is publically announced in July.

1961 - Kennedy puts support behind Apollo. Freedom 7 launched. First test flight of the Saturn I. New Programme is announced to follow Mercury and proceed Apollo. Mercury Mark II (later renamed Project Gemini) will be used to solve the challenges that will face Project Apollo.

1962 - Saturn C-5 Rocket (later renamed the Saturn V) plans announced. Friendship 7 successfully achieves a planned 3 orbits.

1961-3 Project Mercury flies manned a total of 6 times. The final flight, Faith 7, achieving 22 orbits over 34 hours.

1964 - Ranger 7 becomes first successful US probe to impact moon. (followed in 1965 by Ranger's 8 & 9)

1965 - Gemini III launches as first US multi-man crew. Gemini IV is US first spacewalk. Gemini V is first week-long orbital cruise. Gemini VII and VI-A perform first real obital Rendezvous between separately launch manned spacecraft. Gemini VII also sets a record of nearly 2 weeks (13 days 18.5 hours) in space.

1966 - Gemini VIII performs first space vehicle docking. Gemini XI sets a new altitude record of 739.2 miles, inside the lower Van Allen Belt. Gemini XII sets a new EVA record of over 5 hours. First Test Flight of Saturn 1B. Lunar Orbiter 1 successfully orbits the moon followed by 2, 3, 4 and 5 over the next year. Surveyor 1 lands successfully, followed in 1967 by 3, 5, 6, and finally 7 which lands in Jan of 1968.

1967 - Saturn V's first launch (Apollo 4)

1968 - First Unmanned Test of LM (Apollo 5). Second unmanned Saturn V test (Apollo 6). First manned Apollo launch and CSM test (Apollo 7). First Manned Saturn V launch (Apollo 8). Apollo 8 orbits the Moon 10 times.

1961-68 - Many unmanned tests of the Apollo equipment including Saturn Rocket tests, escape rocket tests, CM drops and launches. (SA-1 - SA-5, A-001 - A-004, A-101 - A-104, and AS-201 - AS-203)

1969 - First Manned Test of LM in Earth Orbit (Apollo 9). Apollo landing dress rehersal and LM test (Apollo 10). First Lunar Landing and LM test (Apollo 11).

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Excellent, PW. I like how you included the Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter flights.

One edit: "1961 - New Programme is announced to follow Mercury and proceed Apollo." should read "to follow Mercury and preceed Apollo."

One addition: 1962 - Lunar Orbit Rendezvous selected as method to get to the Moon. Work on the Apollo Lunar Module begins.

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"Transport of the mails, transport of the human voice, transport of flickering pictures - in this century, as in others, our highest accomplishments still have the single aim of bringing men together." St. Exupery

Don't forget-
2020- We return!

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

Just to counter heresay with first-hand experience. I've had the honour of having a private morning tea with Neil Armstrong (and no "minders" were in attendance). He was perfectly happy to discuss Apollo, especially as the conversation was focussed on technical aspects.

BTW, I can imagine that he's pretty jaded with being asked the same old "what's it like to walk on the Moon" questions and less than enthusiastic about answering them over and over again.....

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The meek shall inherit the Earth: the rest of us are going into Space!

Slightly OT, but seeing Endeavour has posted, can I just say I very much enjoyed your article about Woomera in the recent Sky & Space (or Sky & Telescope - I always get them mixed up!).

Sounds like it would have been a great trip!

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"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

"Certainly, in the topsy-turvy world of heavy rock, having a good solid piece of wood in your hand is often useful." - Ian Faith

S&T is the once my school library carries, S&S isn't.
;-D

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

Thanks, Sean. Glad you enjoyed the article. Actually, I wrote articles about the Woomera anniversary and our museum tour for both magazines, so perhaps that's why you were confused?

It was a fantastic trip-you should have come along! Perhaps you can join us for the 75th anniversary!

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The meek shall inherit the Earth: the rest of us are going into Space!

I very much hope that date doesn't slip. Or not by much anyway. Hopefully reduction in funding won't cause it to disappear completely!

I may be guessing a bit here, but if China start looking like achieving their stated aim of getting a manned mission to the moon, is that likely to add incentive to the political approach in the US and ensure NASA then have the funding guaranteed to achieve their manned return to the moon? Being a Brit I often wonder what the general public view is over in the US and how this affects funding for all things space and technology etc....

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The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm.... that's funny...'
- Isaac Asimov

Are we alone in the Universe? Are we the only intelligent life? Who knows? But the universe is so BIG, it somehow seems such a waste of space if we are ....

I'm not sure if anyone has done any polling on that topic. My gut feeling is that if it looked like China was making a serious effort to beat us back to the Moon, the public would be willing (even demand) to spend more to match them.

Yes, Americans are that petty and competitive. As a country we may not care much about doing space science, but we'll take on any stupid contest. That's why I'm rooting for the Chinese to push ahead -- I don't care if we go back to the Moon to study it or to say "So there!", just as long as we go.

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Relight the Firefly!

"It is quite clear that Occam's razor does not sharpen in your pyramid." (Nicolas)

"Still, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest." (Paul Simon)

Part of me wishes Russia had won the race to the moon. If they had, the US would not had rested until they had trumped the Russians by building a Moon Base, and probably would still be there today, instead of making plans to go back.

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"Time travel gives me a headache." - Capt. Kathryn Janeway

And may even be on Mars too! ?? ... do you think?!

__________________
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm.... that's funny...'
- Isaac Asimov

Are we alone in the Universe? Are we the only intelligent life? Who knows? But the universe is so BIG, it somehow seems such a waste of space if we are ....

Or maybe the US would've been the ones to pass on Moon missions, and be the ones to gain three decades' worth of valuable space station and zero-g living experience.

Unlikely, the US were geared up for the Moon, not a space station. In reality Skylab was almost an after thought and only done because the Soviets were already well ahead with space stations. The original plans had called or a space station to be put in orbit around 1980. With the scrapping of Apollo missions for which they had hardware and the gap between the moon landings and the Shuttle coming on line, NASA had both the equipment and the time to do a space station, so they made what was basically a modified Saturn-IVB (infact the back up station, now on display in the NASM IS a modified Saturn IVB) put it on a Saturn V and fired it into space. Even had the Soviets beaten them, they still would have gone.

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Do you want what the normal people think, or what the wierd little girls who don't eat candy and know what nitrox is think?
I'm the former, and my opinion is that space exploration is AWESOME!

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

I would expect (well, certainly I would hope!) that all members of this board at least were "normal", .... whatever that actually means .....

What I was referring to was the perception we often seem to get (rightly or wrongly) is that a significant part of the US population are not interested in anything and would rather vote against spending money, unless someone else is likely to achieve something before the US, and then they start asking questions like "why aren't we there doing it first?"

As I think I mentioned, it is funding that makes it happen. If the will to spend the funding isn't there, then neither will the votes be, therefore it doesn't happen politically. Unfortunately, the poor old government happen to get it handed to them that they didn't go out and beat so and so to it and are therfore voted out, even if it wasn' their fault in the first place!

Would that be a view anywhere near the mark? Or are we getting a skewed picture over here?

__________________
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm.... that's funny...'
- Isaac Asimov

Are we alone in the Universe? Are we the only intelligent life? Who knows? But the universe is so BIG, it somehow seems such a waste of space if we are ....

There are certainly many people in the US who care about space, including myself, but there aren't enough of us to be considered "mainstream" or "majority" by the polsters.

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek

I know there are many of you, like me, who care about space and where we are (or aren't!) going. Unfortunately we seem to be in the minority wherever we are these days.

As I have said before, I was around at the time of Apollo, and it seemed that a significant percentage (but by no means everyone, not by a long way!) of the population were generally fascinated by it and most of those were generally for it.

These days that group has seemingly slipped to a very small percentage of the population, and with no signs of improving yet a while. Lets just hope with China, possibly Japan, and the US looking like going back to the moon this will increase once more. We can always hope!

__________________
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm.... that's funny...'
- Isaac Asimov

Are we alone in the Universe? Are we the only intelligent life? Who knows? But the universe is so BIG, it somehow seems such a waste of space if we are ....

Yes! We can try our darndest and never give up hope! I recently did a survey of 5-to-8 year old children in my neighborhood and was amazed by how much they knew about Mars.

__________________
I want to go back to the moon.
I don't care which rocket you use, whichever one you pick, I'll like it, I swear.
"If you think the LHC will create black holes, you might as well believe Hobbits are at the bottom of your garden."- Dr. Mike Inglis
Rovers forever! - ToSeek