To the moon and beyond
Since time began, man has looked to the heavens in awe. Its Creator remains a mystery, its purpose not evident, but its beauty beyond all measures. The early men of this world named these heavens, stars and some planets, that was as far as they could go. As time passed others grouped stars together and called these constellations, and yet still later in time men came forth and grouped planets and stars into galaxies. However, that was not enough for our curious minds. As this century began we manifested new ideas about space; monsters on Mars, Alien invasions on earth and exploration to other planets on rockets ships. As far fetched as it then, we did do one of these dreams; we left this planet and traveled to another. However, the only reason we did achieve was not because of curiosity, but of fear, pride, and power.The second Great War had just ended and the terrorism of Hitler and his Nazis had been wiped out. Nevertheless, a new terror arose out of the war.... Nuclear warfare. When we used the atom bomb to prematurely end the war with Japan, we showed the world it was okay to use nuclear warfare. When the Soviet Union learned this, they too created a nuclear bomb. With these factors now in play a new war began b
etween the Soviets and America, a Cold War. Both countries had enough nuclear firepower to kill the earth 20 times. With fear in the hearts of both soviets and Americans we began to show off in new ways just what kind of power each of our countries had. One country would build a powerful rocket to blow up things better; the other country would build a rocket that would reach farther distances. Finally, in 1959, it seemed as though Communist Russia had beaten us. For in 1959 they sent to space the first satellite, its name was Sputnik. It had no special powers or weapons, or any real significance in itself, but the fact that the Russians had the capability to send a rocket that high brought a new fear to the American people. Therefore, because of this small satellite, we challenged Russia in a Space Race, a race to se who could go farther fastest. After Sputnik, America raced to find new ways of getting a rocket higher and to greater distances. Meanwhile, Russia was busy at work already sending spacecraft, such as Luna 1, which took pictures of the never before seen dark side of the moon. When we did finally get a spacecraft into space and around the moon, the Russians had already put a man into space and made the first orbit of earth. In years following the mercury mission of Shepard, we had another space program called Gemini which helped us to learn how to dock in space, and kept us in space longer then ever. When it was time for our final push towards the moon, we created the Apollo space program. Before we could send a man to the moon, we had to complete a few test flights of new technology we had created. The first scheduled Apollo mission, however, became one of NASA's worst disasters. Virgil I. Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Roger B. Chaffee lost their lives on January 27, 1967 when a fire occurred during a routine checkout of the spacecraft called the "plugs out" test. After the terrible accident, people began to question if this goal was really worth trying for. A committee was created on the subject of whether or not to continue the space program or not. After countless testimonies and months later, NASA won its right to continue its exploration. Then in October 11, 1968 Walter M. Schirra Jr., Donn F. Eisele, and R. Walter Cunningham overcame tragedy to carryout the first manned mission since the tragic fire. The Apollo 7 flight lasted for nearly 11 days and the crew was able to complete all of the primary mission objectives. With each succeeding mission in the Apollo program, we became one step closer to our goal. In December of 1968 on Apollo 8 we tested our new command module, achieved lunar orbit, and took photographs of potential landing sites for later missions. In March 1969, on Apollo 9 we flew the Lunar Module (LM) for the first time. The LM was a whole new type of vehicle, specifically created to be landed on the moon. It consisted of two stages, the first would land them on the moon, the second would lift them off of lunar planet using the first stage as a launch pad. All its systems had to be made from scratch and thought of from imagination. And finally Apollo 10 on May 18th, 1969 Commander Tom Stafford, Command Module Pilot John Young, and Lunar Module Pilot Gene Cernan flew to the moo
Some common words found in the essay are:
Moon Eighty, Armstrong Aldrin, Swigert Haise, Shepard American, Walter Cunningham, Skylab Apollo-Soyuz, Assembly MESA, Roger Chaffee, Artemis Project, John Kennedy, apollo 11, command module, space program, lunar module, walter schirra jr, armstrong aldrin, landing moon, send moon, space walk, safely earth, landed moon,
Approximate Word count = 2201
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)
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