Search

The preliminary examination team made up of NASA personnel and visiting scientists were responsible for examining the Apollo 11 lunar samples, preparing them for detailed study and allocating samples for examination by other scientists around the world. The PET employed stereo-microscopic examination of the samples in addition to a polarizing microscope, and X-ray powder defraction, as well as thin-section study of two of crystalline rocks. The following four basic groups were determined to make up the samples returned from the Apollo 11 mission. 1. Type A – fine-grained vesicular crystalline igneous rock 2. Type B – medium-grained vuggy crystalline igneous rock 3. Type C – breccia consisting of small fragments of gray rocks and fine material 4. Type D – fines

On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy addressed a joint session of Congress. Although Kennedy addressed a range of urgent national needs, one in particular electrified the nation and stunned the world. This one sentence is one often quoted from his short presidency: “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 was not so much interested in scientific advancement but wanted to finally get ahead of its Cold War rival, the Soviet Union, in the race to the Moon. Volumes have been written on the geopolitical basis of Project Apollo, but in May of 1961, the scientific benefits of Apollo were not the goal. In Kennedy’s mind, America was determined to prove that it was superior to Russia.

The site for the first manned lunar landing mission had been made from a combination of both geological and orbital mechanics factors. All the Apollo landing sites would be along the lunar equator. Possible locations for these landing sites had been photographed by orbiting probes and the mapping cameras on Apollo 8 and Apollo 10. The selection of sites was narrowed down to five possible locations. The first of the five selected was in the dark-colored Mare Tranquillitatis. The specific landing site selected for Apollo 11 was approximately 25 km southeast of the Surveyor 5 landing site.

The Soviet Union dominated the scientific and human spaceflight events of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The United States always seemed to be trying to catch up and surpass the Soviets in their space accomplishments. Eventually, the United States did indeed get behind an agenda to beat Russia in this newest phase of the Cold War. In the early years, however, the Soviet Union basked in its great scientific and human spaceflight achievements.

Among the most influential scientists involved in lunar science and the establishment of astronaut training for their missions on the lunar surface was Eugene Shoemaker. He also established a support team of many qualified geologists and geophysicists to assist in the training of the Apollo astronauts. The Apollo program drew to it, as if by some grand design, the finest engineering, scientific and management minds in the United States during the 1960s. Every one of them was vital to the success of the Apollo program. Eugene Shoemaker ensured the astronauts exploring the lunar surface could identify and rapidly collect the lunar samples that would tell the history of the Moon and, by extension, expand our knowledge of the Earth.

During the mid-1960s, as NASA, its contractors and sub-contractors were working on the designs of launch vehicles and spacecraft, the space agency was also looking into means of expanding the tools for exploration for astronauts on the lunar surface. At first, these vehicles were very large and heavy, incapable of being sent to the Moon. They were proof-of-concept vehicles and a great deal of design engineering was gleaned from these first-generation vehicles. In time, the phrase lunar roving vehicle, or LRV, was adopted.

The Rocketdyne F-1 engine project was transferred from the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory to NASA in 1958. On December 12, 1958 NASA announced the selection of Rocketdyne to develop a single-chamber rocket engine powered by RP-1 and LOX delivering 1 to 1.5 million pounds of thrust.

The Apollo program required NASA to develop engineering, manufacturing, testing and launching facilities on an awesome scale. The civil engineering and construction projects to support the program transformed the industrial landscape of the United States.

The development of the F-1 engine and S-IC first stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle succeeded essentially because of sound program management. As a whole, the Apollo program was perhaps the most complex American engineering project of the 20th century.

The F-1 rocket engine is a single-start, 1.5 million pound fixed-thrust, hi-propellant launch vehicle propulsion system. It uses liquid oxygen (LOX) as the oxidizer and RP-1 (refined kerosene) as the fuel, with a 2.27:1 mixture ratio of LOX to RP-1.

NASA formally announced the creation of Project Apollo on July 28 and 29, 1960 at a Program Plans Conference. Aerospace executives converged on Washington, D.C. for one of the most momentous industrial briefings by any government agency.

The development of the F-1 engine occupied the decade from 1955 to 1965. As the work progressed, NASA and Rocketdyne realized that the lifting capability of the Saturn V for Apollo follow-on programs would be able to be increased by uprating the F-1 engine.

When searching for the origins of what became the Saturn V launch vehicle for the Apollo program, powered by a cluster of five F-1 engines, one finds diverse threads. The evolution of the largest rocket in the ‘free world’ was not linear. Studies were performed in the late 1950s and early 1960s by the Army Ballistic Missile Agency (ABMA), the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the Department of Defense, NASA-affiliated centers, U.S. Congressional committees, and contracted private aerospace firms.

What prompted the United States to develop large, single-chamber rocket engines in a process which led to the largest and most powerful liquid propellant engine ever built: the F -1.