Moonshot

After WW II the United States and Russians were in a race for the stars. October 4, 1957 dawned the beginning of an era that will forever be marked as a time of human advancement that would surprise our ancestors. The Russians launched a satellite the size of a basketball which transmitted radio signals of the ionosphere. The U.S. felt somewhat pressured as we considered ourselves leaders in the aeronautics/aerospace (rocketry) industry. Soon the U.S. launched the series of Explorer satellites into earth orbit.

The first program, launched by President Eisenhower in 1959, set out to put the first man in space. The first astronauts selected by NASA to man the first Mercury missions where: Alan Shepard, Vigil Grissom, John Glenn, Scott Carpenter, Walter Schirra, Gordon Cooper Jr. and Donald Slayton never flew in the Mercury program due to an irregular heart beat. The first American in space out of the group was John Glenn. The Russians beat the Americans to put a man on space and this started, what is now known as the race to the Moon. On May 25, 1961, President Kennedy stated in his historic speech, that he wanted the United States to send a man to the moon and bringing him back safely. The race was on.

The Russians were the first to put a man in space in April of 1961, a Russian Cosmonaut, by the name of Uri Gagarin. Soon the Americans followed by putting Alan Shepard during the Mercury mission. Mercury missions mostly tested how humans would react in space. Some of the milestones include the first human to step out of the command capsule and testing of attitudes while in the rough space environments.

The Russians, along with the Americans had a competitive space program. They were in fact the first to put a human being in space; they were also the first to put two space modules in space at the same time. They were able to prove that they could rendezvous successfully while in space. They were also the first ones to stay in space for elongated periods of time.

The Apollo program soon came and everyone was very excited to shoot for the moon. The first Apollo mission ended in tragedy, when during a full mock up testing, the command capsule caught fire due to faulty wiring. This tragic event caused the program to be put on hold while everything was checked and re-engineered to make it as safe as possible for the astronauts. Three astronauts lost their lives due tot his accident, they were as follows; Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee. Apollo 8 felt the pressure to get to the moon before the Russians, satellite pictures showed increased activity of their program to get to the moon also. NASA felt they were as ready as ever, the astronauts had the “it was now or never” attitude. The first three men to orbit the moon in Apollo 8 were: Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders. As they first saw the earth from the moon, they read a passage from the Bible, from the Book of Genesis;

William Anders

"For all the people on Earth the crew of Apollo 8 has a message we would like to send you":

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness."