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The years of testing and preparation finally came to fruition in July of 1969. The large Saturn 5 rocket lifted off from the launch pad at Florida’s Cape Canaveral, carrying the Apollo 11 crew of Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, and Michael Collins. After circling the earth several times to check all systems, the crew headed toward the moon. As the astronauts approached, they fired the command module’s main engine, slowing it enough to put the craft in orbit around the moon.
Aldrin and Armstrong then crawled from the command module Columbia into the lunar excursion module (LEM) Eagle. Separating the two spacecraft, Collins continued orbiting the moon alone while Armstrong and Aidrin aimed the LEM toward the lunar surface. Throughout the world, people breathed a sigh of relief as Neil Armstrong exclaimed, "Tranquility Base here...the Eagle has landed." Aldrin and Armstrong had successfully landed on the moon's surface.
On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong descended the LEM's ladder. As he stepped onto the moon's surface, he stated, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."
The United States had bested the Soviet Union in the race to the moon and fulfilled President Kennedy's challenge to do so before the end of the decade.
The End Of An Era
After the success of Apollo 11, the Apollo program sent ten more astronauts to walk on the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972. The only mission that did not land on the moon was the ill-fated flight of Apollo 13, commanded by Ohioan James Lovell. An oxygen tank exploded as the spacecraft headed toward the moon, cutting short the mission and almost costing the astronauts their lives. Apollo 17 would bring to an end human exploration on earth's nearest celestial neighbor.
American presence in space continued after the moon landings with Project Skylab. Three separate crews lived and worked aboard the Skylab space station from 1973 to 1974. The Apollo era ended in 1975 with the Apollo-Soyuz, the first American-Russian space flight.
The only Apollo mission to launch at night, Apollo 17 took off in December 1972. Its mission, like the two preceding it, was to explore the moon using a Lunar Rover which allowed astronauts to travel across terrain that had previously been too rough for the lunar module of old. Crew members spent 22 hours in moon walks and stayed on the moon for a total of three days.
Apollo 17 would be the last mission to the moon. Apollo 18, 19 and 20 were cancelled due to budget limitations. To date, the questions those missions were to answer remain unresolved.
The Space Shuttle
Technological advances, as well as the economics involved, brought about many changes in space travel. The development of a new type of spacecraft became necessary, one that could deliver a large cargo into orbit and, at the same time, be reusable.
After years of design and testing, the space shuttle Columbia lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center on April 12, 1981. The reusable shuttle could carry up to seven astronauts and, in its cargo bay, objects as large as a school bus. On its return, it would land on a runway like an airplane.
Ohioans have continued to play an integral part in space exploration, participating in over forty space shuttle missions in all. One Ohio astronaut, Akron native Judith Resnik, along with her six crew mates gave her life when the shuttle Challenger exploded just 73 seconds after launching on January 28, 1986.
Following the Challenger disaster, the United States did not resume its shuttle missions until the fall of 1988. The U.S. space program continued to accelerate in 1990 with Discovery’s deployment of the Hubble space telescope. In 1995 a cooperative Russia-U.S. docking program began at MIR, the pennanently manned Russian space station. The data MIR has provided on extended human presence in space has been immeasurable.
The year 1998 was pivotal for the U.S. space program. It saw the final missions for both the space lab program and the shuttle-MIR dockings. This was also the year that Ohio Senator John Glenn once again captivated the world with his return to space.
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