Apollo Mission Highlights (1969)

[music] [music] [music] As the crow flies at some 240,000 to 250,000 mi to the moon, the exact distance depends on the position of the moon in its orbit. Three men [music] will make that journey in a spacecraft. Two of them will land on the moon. The third will have traveled 250,000 mi and come within 92 mi of the moon. But he will share equally in the epic event of [music] our century. The first time man has set foot on the solid ground of another heavenly body. Launching the threeman Apollo [music] spacecraft will be the Saturn 5 launch vehicle. It has three separate launch [music] stages. Together, they generate enough power to lift 250,000 lb from the launchpad, 40 times the weight of Geminy, 85 times the weight of Mercury. In the left couch of the spacecraft, the commander [music] bears full crew responsibility for the mission. In the middle [music] couch is the command module pilot, the one man who will not land on the moon. Right. Couch lunar module pilot a specialist in the systems of the separate spacecraft which lands on and takes off from the moon. Attached to the spacecraft is the service module, an equipment and propulsion unit. It includes a large main propulsion engine and smaller [music] jets for maneuvering in space. The lunar module is a strange looking craft. However, it's not designed to look good, but to land in an airless atmosphere under one sixth gravity. Heat. Heat. The Apollo spacecraft is not launched directly to the moon, but first into an Earth orbit. In early stages of launch, a separate launch escape system is ready to pull the spacecraft [music] free in case of emergency. At 39 mi altitude, the first stage exhausts its fuel and [music] is jettisoned as the second stage ignites. The interstage structure falls away as does the launch escape system shown here in animation. The second stage is jettisoned. The third and final stage of the rocket is fired, inserting the spacecraft into a 115m parking orbit. The third stage is shut down, but it will be fired later a second time. Now the moment of decision looms ahead. Apollo is orbiting the Earth. Commander and crew check out the systems. I have ch. The flight director at Houston receives a constant stream of information. From the network of tracking stations comes the exact orbit from Marshall Space Flight Center. Verification that the third stage can be fired again. Flight from the doctors in mission control. The condition of the crew. Flight. Go. Final sourc. Computers make final calculations and transmit them to the spacecraft. Cabin 55. Okay. On the shoulders of the flight director rests the final responsibility for committing three human beings to a flight one quarter of a million miles into space. That decision will come most likely in the second orbit over the ocean. Crew secure in their couches. The third stage is fired automatically for 5 1/2 minutes and man is on his way. 15 minutes outwardbound on the trans lunar trajectory, the commander fires his reaction jets. He turns around and docks with the lunar module. The third stage is jettisoned. Now the large propulsion engine of the service module is free for later use. The crew is now actually coasting in the vacuum of space. Average velocity 3,300 m anph. The flight will take about [music] 3 days. The deep space tracking network monitors the position of the spacecraft and provides communications with it. Two or three midcourse corrections can be made from mission control during the flight to the moon. The commander navigates independently [music] by taking star readings as a backup to ground computations. Then, as the spacecraft swings around the moon, the service module engine is fired, reducing velocity. The crew is in an orbit 92 [music] mi above the moon. Two men, the commander and lunar module pilot, transfer to the lunar module through the [music] nose of the spacecraft. The lunar module is separated. Its descent engine lowers it near a pre-selected landing area on the moon's surface. The commander takes over the controls of his spacecraft and manually flies it to final touchdown. When they reach the surface, the astronauts cannot go out immediately. They must first check out the lunar module systems. They then put on their lunar space suits and backpacks to protect them against the outside temperature of some 200° F, random meteoroid impact, [music] and to furnish oxygen and pressure in the airless void. Some 2 hours after landing, two Americans will stand together for the first time on the moon, surrounded by the silence of 5 billion years, they will set to work. Their first major task of exploration is to set up a series of experiment packages similar to these modules being tested on a simulated moon. Powered by a small atomic generator, these scientific experiments will send information back to Earth long after the astronauts have left. Scientific data on the charged particles of the solar wind. magnetic characterist.