Imagine it is July 16th 1969, at Kennedy space center and in the distance you see a Saturn V ignite its 5 F1 engines and seconds later the roar of the engines hits the crowd and the rocket lifts off the pad. Well, this is what crowds experienced on the launch of Apollo 11.
You may be wondering “What is Apollo 11? Why does it have an 11 after the name? Apollo it is the name given to the missions to travel to the moon. The 11 is just the number of the mission. Now that this is clear, let’s blast off back in time to the story.
We are back in 1969, the rocket soaring through the sky with the first stage using its 5 engines for about 2 minutes and 41 seconds. It lifted the rocket to an altitude of 42 miles, and a speed of 6,164 miles per hour and burned 4,700,000 pounds of propellant. Then engines shut off and silence for 1 second then the 5 J-2 engines ignited. The launch escape tower was separated and the second stage burned for approximately 6 minutes, taking the vehicle and payload to 115 miles altitude on a sub orbital trajectory. The single J-2 engine turned on briefly to bump the Apollo to Earth's orbit into a lunar trajectory in a move called a trans lunar injection.
Now that the Saturn V’s job was done, the engine shut off and silenced. Then, a fairing opened and the command module and service module detached then moved a few feet and dit a 180 degree turn and docked with the lunar module also called the L.E.M. A few seconds later, the third stage of the Saturn V was detached from the Apollo spacecraft which now complete started its 3 day trajectory to the moon.
The rocket went from this...
...to this!
After the 3 day trajectory, the craft got to its target, and got pulled to lunar orbit by the moon's gravity. Soon Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong boarded the lunar module (The Eagle) while Michale Collins stayed in Colombia (the command module).
The Eagle detached from Colombia and started its descent to the lunar surface. It performed a maneuver called "The Suicide Burn," which consists of firing its engine very close to the ground. Seconds later the whole world would hear Armstrong say “Houston, Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed!”
The whole world cheered as the astronauts prepared to exit The Eagle. Seconds after the hatch was opened, everyone heard the famous words from the first man on the moon “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." They had done it! They had sent man on the moon!
Minutes later the astronauts prepared to lift off from the lunar surface. On lift off, the golden part of the ship was left on the moon while the upper part of eagle lifted off and rendezvoused with the Columbia. After, it docked with Columbia and the astronauts transferred to Columbia. The Eagle was ditched and Columbia with its 3 astronauts started up its engine and started a trans-Earth injection.
After the burn, the 3 day journey started, The service and command modules where undocked and the heat shield on the command module was revealed just in time to re-enter earth’s atmosphere. Seconds later the parachutes were deployed and the craft splashed down safely.
All that was left from a 3,000 ton rocket was a small space craft floating on the water with 3 astronauts and rock samples from the moon. The astronauts had to be taken by helicopter to recover from the sudden pull of gravity, unable to walk after such long time in space.
