Apollo program

Apollo program (USA) The launch by the USSR of the first orbital satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, and the fact that the first man in space was a Soviet citizen, Yuri Gagarin, had dented US national pride. Rather than build a space station, President Kennedy decided that the USA could demonstrate its technological lead over the Soviets during the Cold War and show its power to the world with a moon mission. In May 1961 he announced to Congress a plan to land men on the moon by 1970. By 1966, the USA had completed several orbital missions to the moon and had landed an unmanned probe on that body. The programme was set back in 1967 by the death of three astronauts, Roger Chafee, Edward White, and Virgil Grissom, who were preparing for a launch exercise at Cape Canaveral, Florida. In 1968, Apollo 8 carried three men in orbit around the moon; on 20 July 1969, Apollo 11 carried Michael Collins, Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong to the moon. The latter two became the first men to set foot on the moon, Armstrong going first. In the course of the next six moon missions, lasting until 1972, only the near-disaster in space of the Apollo 13 mission excited public interest to the same degree. On that mission, three astronauts and the NASA control centre at Houston nursed a damaged spacecraft back from the moon's orbit to land safely on earth. In 1975, the Apollo programme ended with a joint Soviet–US link-up in earth orbit. Since 1975, no human being has left earth orbit, with NASA concentrating on unmanned space missions to explore the galaxy, and the Space Shuttle programme.

http://www.nasa.gov