The Eagle Has Landed: The Story of Apollo 11 (19 page)

“How this new era will go depends on the determination, comsmitment, and faith of both our countries, and the world,”
Apollo-Soyuz
mission commander Tom Stafford proudly proclaimed.

In May of 1973, the last NASA
Saturn V
rocket to lift-off in the 20
^th
century launched
Skylab
—the world’s first orbiting space station.
Skylab
was equipped with enough oxygen, water, and food to allow astronaut crews to remain in space for several weeks at a time. As large as a three-bedroom house, with 13,000 cubic feet of space,
Skylab
offered unprecedented space flight luxuries, including ovens, hot plates, showers, sinks, toilets, and a stationary bicycle. The astronauts visiting the space station were able to wear regular clothes, and were only required to don their bulky spacesuits during launch, re-entry, and extravehicular excursions.

Skylab
crews conducted a variety of zero gravity experiments on fish, mice, and spiders. On-board telescopes allowed observers to gain a clearer view of the solar system, and enabled them to take detailed photographs of the Sun. The last
Skylab
crew established a new record—84 consecutive days in space.

Skylab
was abandoned in 1974, with plans to bring it out of its dormant state, once the space shuttle program was underway. After an unanticipated deterioration of battery power, the space station began experiencing orbital decay in 1977. On July 11, 1979, during its fiery re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere,
Skylab
fell in pieces over the Indian Ocean and Western Australia.

Post-Apollo, NASA’s exploration of distant planets steadily increased. In December of 1973,
Pioneer 10
provided NASA with its first close-up photographs of Jupiter. On March 29, 1974,
Mariner 10
became the first space probe to orbit Mercury and send back detailed images of the planet closest to the Sun. On July 20, 1976, exactly seven years after the
Apollo 11
Moon landing, NASA landed a probe on Mars, marking the first successful exploration of another planet. In September of that same year,
Viking 2
also landed on the Red Planet. Since that time, numerous unmanned space probes have traveled to other planets, providing detailed information about orbital, environmental, and topographical characteristics of those extraterrestrial bodies.

In August of 2012, NASA achieved a milestone in planetary exploration, when the 2.5 billion-dollar
Curiosity
rover successfully landed in Mars’ 3.5 billion-year-old
Gale Crater.
The landing of the rover, which descended into the thin Martian atmosphere at 13,200 miles per hour, was a complex maneuver. After being slowed by a giant parachute,
Curiosity was
lowered to Mars’ surface by a specially-designed “sky crane.”

The nuclear-powered, one-ton rover (the size of an automobile) is scheduled to spend two years (and perhaps longer) exploring Mars. The vehicle will ascend
Aeolis Mons (Mount Sharp),
a three-mile-high mountain, enabling NASA scientists to gain a better understanding of the Red Planet’s geological history and provide clues as to whether the Martian environment is capable of supporting life. The rover is equipped with cameras and instrumentation to test rock and soil samples. Among
Curiosity’s
most innovative features is a rock-vaporizing laser; once the solid rocks are transformed into gas, instruments aboard the rover can identify the specimen’s chemical make-up. Data from
Curiosity
will be transmitted to the
Odyssey
satellite orbiting Mars, and then relayed back to Earth.

Attempts to visit Mars have been fraught with challenges. As of August of 2012, 41 probes have been launched by various world space agencies. In 26 cases, the missions have failed due to probes exploding in Earth’s atmosphere, straying off course, losing power in transit, crashing onto the Martian surface, or failing to operate after a successful landing.

Launched on September 5, 1977,
Voyager 1
has maintained steady progress toward visiting distant galaxies. As of June 2012, the space probe was 11 billion miles from Earth, approaching
heliopause;
the point where solar winds stop, and magnetic fields shift from the solar system to deep space. Travelling at the speed of light, microwave radio signals take 16.7 hours to travel from
Voyager
to Earth. At some point, between 2012 and 2014,
Voyager 1
will become the first spacecraft to leave the solar system. As it races through interstellar space, sometime between 2020 and 2025, the probe will gradually lose power and be unable to transmit further scientific data back to Earth.

NASA’s space shuttle program took flight in 1981. For the first time in manned space exploration history, a reusable, rocket-launched spacecraft was engineered to fly back to Earth and land on a runway. To provide additional thrust, shuttles were equipped with two strap-on solid rocket boosters, as well as a large external fuel tank. The 154-feet-long tank contained 385,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and 140,000 gallons of liquid oxygen, which fueled the spacecraft’s three internal engines. The solid rocket boosters were designed to be jettisoned two minutes after lift-off and parachuted into the Atlantic Ocean, where they would be retrieved and refurbished for future flights. Eight minutes after launch, the external fuel tank would be jettisoned, burning up during re-entry. The less costly external fuel tank design was criticized by some engineers as too risky, foretelling future catastrophe.

The inaugural space shuttle mission occurred on April 12, 1981, when
Columbia,
piloted by astronauts Robert L. Crippen and John Young (a veteran
Apollo
Moon walker), was launched from Cape Canaveral. Circling Earth 36 times over the course of two days, the mission was deemed a success. Though overlooked as a minor problem at the time, NASA engineers noted that 16 of the shuttle’s outer protective tiles had been lost during lift-off (another 148 were damaged).

The space shuttle, much larger than previous spacecraft, was designed to accommodate a nine-person crew, and capable of carrying much larger payloads, including full-sized satellites. In addition to astronauts, space shuttle crews included
mission
and
payload specialists,
including scientists, teachers, and technicians.

On June 18, 1983, Sally Ride became the first American woman to fly in space, serving as a mission specialist aboard
Challenger.
On launch day, enthusiastic spectators, celebrating another milestone in equal rights, waved signs: RIDE, SALLY RIDE. Since that time, a number of other women have ventured into space. On October 11, 1984, Kathy Sullivan became the first American woman to walk in space.

While the early years of the shuttle program proved highly successful, the often-overlooked, but dangerous realities of space exploration were cruelly exposed on January 28, 1986, when
Challenger
exploded, 73 seconds after launch. A rubber O-ring on the right solid rocket booster, which had been hardened by unseasonably cold Florida weather, ruptured during lift-off, causing the booster to leak flames during the shuttle’s ascent. At an altitude of 48,000 feet, the malfunctioning booster came completely loose and slammed into the external fuel tank, igniting 300,000 gallons of liquid hydrogen and 100,000 gallons of liquid oxygen. The force of the explosion, which the astronauts may well have survived, propelled the crew compartment 17,000 feet higher. Free falling from an altitude of 65,000 feet, the still-intact portion of the shuttle struck the Atlantic Ocean at a velocity of 207 miles per hour, which would have most certainly killed the crew; even if they had survived the fuel tank explosion.

Following the
Challenger
disaster, the entire space shuttle fleet was grounded for 32 months. During this hiatus, changes in shuttle design were affected and new safety measures were adopted. The updated space shuttle took flight again in 1988, highlighted by 77-year-old Ohio Senator John Glenn’s return to space, 36 years after he became the first American to orbit the Earth.

On February 1, 2003, another grim reminder of the hazards of space travel unfolded over the skies of Texas and Louisiana. The space shuttle
Columbia
broke into pieces during the re-entry process, killing its seven-member crew. The cause of the tragedy was attributed to the long-identified, but largely ignored problem of protective tile loss and damage during launch. Further safety revisions followed, and the space shuttle remained America’s lone manned spacecraft until its retirement in 2011.

On February 24, 2011,
Discovery
lifted off from Cape Canaveral’s launch pad 39-A, marking its 39
^th
and final flight into space. The space shuttle transported an American-built space station module, spare parts, a robot, and six-person crew to the International Space Station (ISS). When
Discovery
docked at the space station alongside a Russian
Soyuz
spacecraft and unmanned spaceships from Europe and Japan, it marked the first time in history that vehicles from every country capable of traveling to and from space were parked side-by-side. On March 9
^th
,
Discovery
returned to Earth for the final time. Having flown for 27 years,
Discovery
spent a total of 365 days in space, traveled 148,000,000 miles, and orbited Earth 5,830 times.

In July of 2011,
Atlantis
landed at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, formally ending the 30-year space shuttle program. Over the course of the shuttle’s lengthy history, nearly 15,000 people worked on the project.

Discovery
will spend its retirement years at the
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
at Washington D.C.’s Dulles Airport, as one of the exhibits featured at the Smithsonian Institute’s National Air and Space Museum. The test shuttle
Enterprise
will be displayed at the
Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum
in New York City.
Atlantis
will remain at Cape Canaveral’s
Kennedy Space Center
Visitor Center, while
Endeavor
will reside at the
California Science Center
in Los Angeles.

In the late 1990s, construction was begun on the International Space Station (ISS); aJointventure between the United States, Soviet Union, Canada, Japan, and the 17-country European Space Agency. A Russian service module serves as the control center and living quarters for crews aboard the ISS, and is connected to a separate orbital laboratory. Upon completion, the interior of the ISS will be as large as a
Boeing 747
jet airliner. Solar panels generate energy for the space station, and a large robotic arm is utilized for payload transfers and construction work. The 100 billion-dollar ISS remains under active construction and renovation. Crews remain in orbit for five months, until a new group arrives, allowing the ISS to maintain continuous operation. A Russian
Soyuz
spacecraft remains docked at the orbital station to serve as a “life boat” in the event of an emergency.

On March 13, 2009, ISS crew members were forced to seek shelter in the
Soyuz
spacecraft, when orbiting debris (pieces of on old rocket) threatened to strike the space station. Fortunately, the
space junk,
traveling 17,500 miles per hour, missed the ISS. Had the debris collided with one of the space station’s pressurized modules, the crew would have been left with only 10 minutes of oxygen, forcing them to return to Earth.

By today’s estimates, some 500 pieces of debris orbit the Earth. NASA currently utilizes radar maps that can pinpoint orbiting objects as small as five centimeters, hoping to avert potentially catastrophic collisions.

In the 1990s, the
Hubble
space telescope was launched into orbit from the payload section of a space shuttle. Three years later, a shuttle crew repaired the telescope’s focusing mechanism, which dramatically improved image quality. Orbiting 375 miles above Earth,
Hubble
has enabled observers to view 40 billion new galaxies and observe a
black hole
for the first time. Without having to penetrate the haze of Earth’s atmosphere, the tractor trailer truck-sized telescope can magnify distant objects more clearly than any landbased instrument. The
Hubble
telescope operates in conjunction with the European Space Agency, and is radio controlled from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The James Webb
space telescope is scheduled to be launched no later than 2018. Twenty-one feet-wide and 100 times more powerful than
Hubble,
the
Webb
telescope is projected to cost 6.8 billion dollars by the time it is fully constructed.

The United States and Russia remain parties to the
Outer Space Treaty.
The pact specifies that no country can claim ownership of the Moon, which is under the same jurisdiction as international waters. The treaty also restricts the use of the Moon for peaceful purposes, banning the installation of military stations and weapons of mass destruction.

In April of 2001, American businessman Dennis Tito paid 20 million dollars to fly to the International Space Station aboard a Russian
Soyuz
spacecraft, inaugurating the private-sector’s involvement in space exploration. On June 21, 2004,
Space Ship One,
piloted by Mike Melvill, became the first private vehicle to carry a human into space. Private funding will be an essential component of future space exploration, but space enthusiasts worry that free market investors will be unwilling to spend the billions of dollars needed each year necessary to match NASA’s level of investment. Private-sector critics are also concerned about the safety and reliability of rockets and spacecraft designed without NASA’s supervision.

While seeking active collaboration with the private-sector, NASA has established strict guidelines for space exploration. To preserve historical integrity, the space agency has warned future lunar explorers not to disrupt the relics from the six
Apollo
Moon-landing missions.

On May 22, 2012, the California-based company
SpaceX
utilized its
Falcon 9
rocket to launch an unmanned
Dragon
capsule into orbit. The 180-feet tall rocket, weighing over 700,000 pounds and powered by nine
Merlin 1C
engines, performed flawlessly; and, for the first time in history, a private-sector company spacecraft rendezvoused with the International Space Station. After the
Dragon
docked with the ISS, the six astronauts aboard the space station unloaded 1,000 pounds of cargo from the visiting spacecraft, including food, clothing, batteries, a lap top computer, and 15 student-designed experiments. After nearly a week in space, the
Dragon
capsule returned to Earth with 1,455 pounds of cargo collected from the ISS (including personal items, old equipment, and completed experiments), splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.