The Moon Landing 50 Years – Anniversary Exhibition at The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology 2019
Text: Exhibition curator
The space race
20 July 2019 marks 50 years since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the Moon. The moon landing is one of the great moments in the history of technology and science, and among the biggest media events of the last century. The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology is marking the anniversary with an exhibition that tells the story of the space race and the conquest of the Moon, and invites you to take a seat in Apollo and guide the lunar lander to a soft landing. We are reliving the lunar night when "everyone" in Norway followed what happened via TV and radio, guided by space travel expert Erik Tandberg.
Here you can read about the history of the background to the moon landing. The space race between the United States and the Soviet Union sprang from the Cold War, but ended with a handshake in space in 1975, when the Russians and Americans joined forces and began work to jointly develop the International Space Station.
Scientific and technological competition in a cold war
The space race was a competition for technological and military supremacy between the superpowers the Soviet Union and the United States after World War II. From standing together against common enemies during the Second World War, the two superpowers now fought for influence in the world. New military alliances were formed, with the Soviet Union in the Eastern Bloc and US-dominated NATO in the West.
Regional wars and conflicts and major rearmament, with missiles and nuclear weapons as the biggest threats, led to a strained relationship and serious diplomatic crises between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 was triggered by the fact that the Soviet Union wanted to place its weapons on the Soviet-allied island state very close to the United States. For the Soviet Union, this was a response to the deployment of American nuclear weapons in Europe, and other military activities in nearby Russian areas such as in the NATO country Norway. The Cold War also became an ideological war between the communist state and the liberal state, planned economy against capitalism, dictatorship against democracy, or freedom against tyranny, as US President Kennedy put it in May 1961. It is this constant threat and the tense relationship between countries that has been called the "Cold War". It is estimated that the Cold War lasted from 1945, the end of World War II, to 1991, when the Soviet Union disintegrated and the Berlin Wall fell. Having the technological advantage in the Cold War was important both militarily and ideologically. Rockets were at the pinnacle of technology, and space travel became an arena for demonstrating technological strength. Space travel was also more about positive values such as science and human achievements than war and destruction, and was therefore suitable for creating excitement and support. In addition, there was the great prestige and the military and ideological significance of space travel technology. This made space travel such a high priority area in those years that it became a space race.
Sputnik: First stab at the Soviet Union
The conquest of space was a high-priority goal in both the United States and the Soviet Union. The Americans felt in many ways superior in mastering advanced technology and in having the best scientific and technical development environments. It was therefore a big cold shower that it was the Soviet Union that managed the first great space feat: Sputnik! On 4 October 1957, an R-7 Semyorka rocket lifted a roughly 80 kilo metal ball from the Bajkonur Cosmodrome in Kashakstan into orbit around the earth. It was the world's first artificial satellite. Sputnik «Спутник» was the name, and it means exactly that: Satellite - or companion. Sputnik didn't do much other than send a beeping signal on radio waves via its four long antennas down to Earth when it passed high up there. It was more than enough for the Russians to brag about, and for the Americans to turn on the radio and get confirmation that they had lost. There was a "Sputnik shock" in the West - no one knew that the Russians had come this far, and now the fear of loss of prestige and technological backwater was as great as the fear of what the Russians might come up with to send up with a rocket next time.
Laika and other animals in space: Another stab at the Soviet Union
Just one month after Sputnik, which was still in orbit, the Russians sent a living dog into space, on November 3, 1957. Laika has gone down in space history as the first large living creature in space. Unfortunately, she died during the journey.
Laika and the other animals were sent into space long before the technology was ready to make the experimental animals survive. The Americans were the first to do this in a lower orbit, when the monkeys Able and Baker were sent out in May 1959. Baker became a contemporary celebrity, and lived until 1984. But also when it came to returning alive from orbit around the earth, the Russians won : In the Soviet Union, the dogs Belka and Strelka were launched in an early version of the Vostok craft on August 19, 1960. With American monkeys and Russian dogs safely back on earth after a space flight, it was concluded that humans would also be able to withstand such stress. Then it was ready for the next step!
Americans in orbit
In the Sputnik year of 1957, the Americans were well on their way with rockets in lower ballistic trajectories. They also had the plans ready for satellites in orbit around the earth, but they thought they had a bigger lead on the Russians. It was a civilian goal to launch research satellites for the International Geophysical Year in 1958. The US Navy handled this with its Vanguard rocket, which was developed for more civilian and scientific use than the US Army's more top-secret rocket programs. When the United States was caught off guard by Sputnik, the Vanguard plan was accelerated to at least reach second place by the end of 1957. On December 6, the Americans were to raise the old woman. It went badly: Vanguard exploded on the launch pad in front of packed stands and the world's cameras and microphones. Then all finesse and artificial separation between military and civilian technology were put aside and the German Wernher von Braun (who had surrendered to the Americans in 1945 along with most of his team of German rocket experts) was put to work to get the geophysical research satellite Explorer in orbit. It happened with great success on 31 January 1958. Finally, American metal was also in orbit around the earth, albeit a modest 14 kg. The Grapefruit Satellite, Soviet leader Khrushchev called it. Launched on May 15, 1958, Sputnik 3 weighed as much as a car and was packed with scientific instruments that would provide the Soviet Union's scientific contribution to the geophysical year 1958. The Americans were still behind, but in June 1958 NASA was established to collect forces, and Wernher von Braun was given the main technical responsibility for the further development also of the rockets of the space travel programmes.
First rocket to the Moon - third stab at the Soviet Union
With the satellite code cracked in both countries, new goals were set for the space race. The moon had as great an attraction on the rocket builders, space scientists and political leadership in search of a PR triumph as it has on all people throughout the ages. Technically, it was now also entirely possible to get a rocket there with a payload of instruments and preferably a plaque with a national symbol. The geophysical year was to be crowned by taking down close-ups and data from the Moon itself.
It turned out to be more difficult than one had thought to reach the Moon.
Both the United States' Pioneer probes and the Soviet Union's Luna probes struggled to reach their target. Luna 1 was the first to approach in January 1959, but a planned crash landing on the Moon turned out to be a 6,000 kilometer disk boom and the world's first artificial celestial body in orbit around the Sun. In September 1959, the Russians' plan was carried out when Luna 2 crash-landed on the Moon, dropping a series of metal discs bearing the Soviet Union's emblem and sending data back to Earth. A month later, Luna 3 placed itself in such a long orbit around the Earth that it was able to sneak behind the Moon for the first time and returned a series of images of what humans had not seen until then. With this, the Soviet Union had clearly won another victory in the race. The Americans followed up their rather unsuccessful Pioneer program with the Ranger program, where only Ranger 4 in April 1962 was a partial success in that it at least hit the Moon.
Only with Ranger 7 in July 1964 did everything go according to plan, where for the first time an American probe was in operation on the Moon and returned images as it should. The Russians' Luna program continued to overtake the Americans, i.a. by making the first successful soft landing on the Moon with Luna 9 in January 1966. The purpose of the lunar probes was to gain more knowledge about the Moon. At the same time, they demonstrated that rockets are sent to the Moon with payloads - and thus in theory also the first man.
First man to the moon!
The American plan to send an astronaut to the Moon had found a basic form as early as 1960. The first rough sketches for a three-person space capsule with a separate service module and a separate lunar landing craft were conceived, and possible trajectories for getting to the Moon thought out. The spacecraft had already been named Apollo and a very powerful rocket named Saturn was being planned by von Braun and his team. Three of America's leading aircraft factories were invited to propose technical solutions, construction and price for Apollo.
The Russians also had to think about moon travel, but the chief designer Sergei Korolev was around 1960 more interested in manned space stations in orbit around the earth, and on the other hand more ambitious goals such as manned trips to Venus and Mars. But first you had to manage to get a human into space. It had been three years since Sputnik and Laika, and the world needed more space travel sensations.
Gagarin: Fourth stab at the Soviet Union
On April 12, 1961, Soviet Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin completed a 108-minute journey that took him into orbit around the Earth as the world's first astronaut. “Poyekhali! (Let's go!)” were Gagarin's words as the Vostok 8K72K launch vehicle took off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The trip in the spherical Vostok capsule went according to plan until just before it was to land, when the speed became so high that Gagarin shot out of the capsule and landed in his own parachute. The news of Gagarin's triumph was announced to all the world's media from Moscow, and Gagarin became a folk hero.
Mercury – the first seven astronauts
One of the things that annoyed the Americans most about the Gagarin mission was that they were so close to getting there first themselves. The Mercury program began in 1958 as one of the new NASA's first responses to the Russian challenge with Sputnik. If the Russians led with satellites, the Americans should bet on manned space travel!
Mercury was also the name of the one-man space capsule launched in October 1958. It had been developed by Max Faget and established the conical capsule shape to which American spacecraft would adhere. The astronaut sat with his back to the bottom, and could operate 55 electrical switches and 35 mechanical levers. The aim was to get a human into space, and gain experience with the stresses on the astronauts during space travel. The seven selected Mercury astronauts became contemporary heroes. They were recruited from among the toughest of the military pilots. They were in hard training and ready to enter space when Gagarin got ahead of them in April 1961. To quickly bounce back, the program was sped up, and Alan Shepard became the first American in space on May 5, 1961, when he made a fifteen-minute space jump » - a ballistic trajectory up to a height of 180 km above the ground.
To the Moon and back before the decade is over
On May 25, 1961, Kennedy addressed Congress and launched what has remained one of the boldest technology goals ever set by a politician: By the end of the decade, the United States would land a man on the Moon and return him safely to Earth. Congress gave its full approval and appropriated the first additional tens of millions of dollars required. The American people were not universally enthused. Opinion polls showed that 58% of the population was completely against it. The program was just as well underway, and in Houston the construction of the new center for manned space travel had begun. It was during a trip there in September 1962 that Kennedy gave one of his most famous speeches to an audience of 40,000 at Rice University: "We choose to go to the Moon, not because it is easy but because it is difficult" . With this speech, in combination with the fact that John Glenn had then also brought the Americans into orbit around the earth with his trip on 20 February 1962, the mood in the American people changed. There was moon fever and Apollo enthusiasm among more and more Americans.
The United States and the Soviet Union together to the Moon?
President Kennedy had bet big and also received criticism at home for his lunar ambitions. The conflicts with the Soviet Union, i.a. in Cuba meant that many expected more action in closer areas than in outer space. Kennedy tried several strategies in the face of this, including in June 1962 when he met Khrushchev in Vienna and proposed that the two superpowers should cooperate on the moon landing. Khrushchev is said not to have taken it very seriously. The idea was nevertheless not dismissed. As late as September 1963, it was repeated at the UN and from the podium Kennedy asked "Why should mankind's first expedition to the Moon be a competition between nations?" This time Khrushchev was more responsive. Kennedy asked the administration to investigate closer cooperation with the Russians in space travel. Ten days later he was killed, and the plans were never followed through.
Soviet Union to the Moon?
The Russians, for their part, were well underway with their lunar probes, which had already spread Soviet flags on the Moon, and returned images the world had never seen before. The Vostok program ended with another propaganda victory when the first woman in space also became a Russian. Valentina Tereshkova was one of five female pilots selected for the cosmonaut program, and on 16 June 1963 she began a two-day journey into orbit around the Earth. The next record for the Russians came with the Voskhod craft in the summer of 1964, when two men were sent into space for the first time. Voskhod 2 managed to beat the Americans' Gemini one more point when a cosmonaut Leonov made the first trip outside an orbiting spacecraft - the first "space walk", before the program was terminated early because the Russians were now gathering around the Soyuz. This new craft, which could accommodate three men, was intended as the workhorse for future Russian space travel. And that was it: Soyuz is still bringing crews out to the space station ISS.
According to the plan, Soyuz could be included in various "build kits". Assembling a lunar craft in Earth orbit was one of the possibilities the Russians came up with when they were given their marching orders to come up with a plan to send a man to the moon before the Americans. However, this did not come until 1964, and by then it was in reality too late. Further attempts to reach the Moon were to be haunted by problems for the Russians.
Apollo to the Moon
The Americans, for their part, strongly rallied behind the common goal of reaching the Moon, which Kennedy had set. Getting there before the Russians would restore honor. To accomplish this plan, the Americans had to develop and test thousands of elements and procedures both for rockets, trajectory calculations, spacecraft design and maneuvering. Astronauts had to be trained and tested to withstand the rigors of space travel. It was also an enormously large project that had to be organized and managed. It required the efforts of tens of thousands of women and men, civil industry and military branches and technology development communities, universities, hospitals and research institutions, as well as political leadership and administration. This mobilization grew violently throughout the 1960s. When the program and production were at their peak in 1965, it is estimated that more than 370,000 people were directly involved. The desire for engineering and other experts was great, and thousands of foreigners also found their way to the USA during this period, including many Norwegians.
A simple plane, a three-part spacecraft and a three-part rocket
The journey to the moon was in principle simple: A spacecraft with a three-part spacecraft, the Apollo, and a large three-part rocket, the Saturn V. Then send the Apollo into orbit around the Earth using the Saturn V, and then hurl the Apollo towards the Moon until it was caught by the Moon's gravity and entered orbit around it. From this orbit, one would travel down to the Moon and up again, before returning using the speed of the lunar orbit combined with a small rocket push and the Earth's gravity. Three days each way.
Apollo consisted of a command module with space for three astronauts, connected to a service module with the necessary technical systems. Then there was also a lunar landing craft at the top of the Saturn rocket's third stage. This was a spaceship in itself that would be used to fly from lunar orbit down onto the Moon and back up to the command module. The lunar lander had to be connected to the command module on the way to the Moon, disconnected for the trip down to the Moon, and connected again in lunar orbit after the lunar walk. The return trip took place in Apollo's command and service module, before the service module was also disconnected and only the small command module would eventually land in the sea.
Gemini for testing and training
Although the plan was simple, there were many advanced operations that had to be developed and tested, and practiced for the astronauts in simulators but also out in space. Connecting the various modules in the Apollo craft out in space required testing and training. The Gemini program was designed for this. Gemini was a two-man spaceship that, in orbit around the earth, was supposed to teach the astronauts how to maneuver, disconnect and connect to other vessels, test spacesuits for stays outside the spaceship, test long-term space travel, etc. The very many technical solutions required for the lunar journey, from large rockets to the smallest details, were also tested in the Gemini program.
Ten Gemini missions were completed in two years - from 1965 to 1966. Among the highlights of Gemini was the pairing of Gemini 6 and Gemini 7 in space, which also set the longest spaceflight record for Gemini 7, which had to be 14 days in orbit the earth to make the meeting. "Buzz" Aldrin also distinguished himself with three long "space walks" during the Gemini-12 expedition with a total of 5.5 hours outside the capsule. The Gemini X capsule was on loan to The Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology for many years, and could be admired in the exhibitions at Kjelsås from 1986 to 2000.
Apollo from crisis to success
At the same time as Gemini's test program was carried out with great success, Apollo was developed to take the step all the way to the Moon. The first test for Apollo in Earth orbit was to take place in January 1967. It ended in a tragic accident when an explosive fire broke out inside the command section during a test on the ground. The three astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed Wright and Roger Chaffee died when they were unable to get out of the capsule. No one had thought of making an emergency opening. This and hundreds of other problems with the Apollo spacecraft were discovered and corrected. It was not until October 1968 that a manned Apollo launch was finally carried out, with Apollo 7. This was far behind schedule, and the goal of reaching the Moon within the decade seemed unattainable.
Crisis also on the Soviet side
The Russians had also experienced great problems, with the loss of human life in the quest to be the first out with a craft that could conceivably reach the Moon. It was during the first manned test of the new Soyuz capsule in 1967 that the world suffered its first fatal accident with a space rocket: Vladimir Komarov died when Soyuz 1 crashed due to a parachute failure after an otherwise troubled orbit around the earth.
Further developments of the Soyuz were greatly delayed. A version called Zond was designed to follow a long elliptical path from Earth around the Moon, and in September 1968 this was sent out on a successful mission manned with a test dummy to measure radiation on the way. Zond became the first spacecraft to return to Earth after a lunar journey, and the Russians scored another victory. The Americans became anxious that a living cosmonaut would take the doll's place very soon, and accelerated the first planned Apollo mission to the Moon.
Landing with Apollo 8
After the successful test of Apollo 7, the Americans felt more confident that they were on track to reach the Moon by the end of 1969. Further on the program were tests of Apollo's various parts in Earth orbit. However, delays in the production of the lunar lander led to the original plan being changed. The need for a confidence boost was present, along with a slight fear that the Russians would overtake them again, and thus it was decided that Apollo 8 would be sent all the way to the Moon.
Just before Christmas in 1968, Borman, Lovell and Anders were sent up in a Saturn V rocket, into orbit around the Earth and for the first time on a three-day trip to the Moon. On Christmas Eve itself, they entered orbit around the Moon and were the first humans to see both the backside of the Moon, and the sight that would become the most iconic of the entire space race: the small blue globe rising above the horizon of the Moon. "Earthrise" is an image that is almost always on Top 10 lists of the most famous and significant photographs in world history.
For many Americans, Apollo 8 was experienced as a welcome positive end to a bad year, and photography's completely new perspective as a necessary shift.
Apollo 8 also finally meant a victory for the Americans in the space race: the first men to the Moon. For the Russians, it meant a serious break in motivation in their somewhat half-hearted attempts at manned lunar travel. In reality, the Soviet Union's program for manned lunar travel was closed, and forces gathered on new space projects closer to the earth. The Americans received a perfect charge for what was to be the decisive year: 1969. Now only two attempts remained before the moon landing was to become serious. In March, Apollo 9 came to test the entire Apollo craft with the lunar lander in Earth orbit, and in May 1969, Apollo 10 carried out a full dress rehearsal to the Moon. Now everything was ready for the great test of strength: the lunar charge.
Apollo 11
The spaceship Apollo 11 was lifted from the ground in Florida on 16 July 1969 by the world's largest rocket: the Saturn V. In the capsule on top of the 111 meter high rocket sat the three astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins. Armstrong was commander, Aldrin was the pilot of the lunar landing craft Eagle, and Collins was the pilot of the service and command module of Apollo 11, which had been named Columbia. All three had a background as military test pilots, all had been on a Gemini flight, all were 37 years old, all were 178-180 cm tall and weighed 75 kg. All three were married and had 2-3 children. They calculated that they had about a 90% chance of making it back to Earth alive, but only a 50% chance of landing on the Moon exactly as planned. If they failed, the Americans had one more chance to achieve Kennedy's goal of conquering the Moon by the end of the decade, with Apollo 12 scheduled for the fall of 1969.
Barely three hours after liftoff, after one and a half laps around the Earth, the Saturn rocket's third stage sent Apollo out of Earth's orbit and headed for the Moon.
Half an hour into the journey, Michael Collins performed the crucial maneuver they had practiced with Gemini and Apollo 9 and 10, and hundreds of hours in the simulator: Disconnect from Apollo, turn 180 degrees and connect to the Eagle lunar lander perched atop the Staturn V rocket's 3rd step. Then it was just a matter of waiting for three days while the Earth got smaller and the Moon bigger in the windows. Apollo 11 entered lunar orbit on July 19, and made thirteen two-hour orbits around the Moon while the crew prepared for the lunar journey itself. Armstrong and Aldrin moved to Eagle, and a little before seven in the evening Norwegian time on July 20, they disconnected from the command section and began the descent to the Moon and the planned landing site in the Sea of Tranquility. The landing did not go quite as planned.
The two experienced pilots took partial manual control of the craft and found a landing site more suitable than intended, which turned out to be full of large rocks. The computers responded with angry alarms that the two pilots overheard. After just over two and a half hours of travel, Neil Armstrong was able to report to NASA's command center in Houston, Texas: "The Eagle has landed". The time was 15.17 in Houston – 21.17.39 in Norway. It had been 102 hours, 45 minutes and 40 seconds since the start in Florida. According to the plan, the two astronauts were to get four hours of sleep and a meal before they prepared to go out on the Moon. But understandably, they were too excited to sleep. They suggested getting ready right away and rather do the historical walk three hours later. This would add the historic moment to "prime time" on American television, and for that reason alone it was easy for the bosses in Houston to say yes - in addition, everyone down on the ground was probably as excited and impatient as the two on board. For Norwegian TV, it didn't go quite so well, but it was perhaps an even bigger event.
NRK had planned to end the moon broadcast around midnight, and come back on at six o'clock the next morning to follow the next historic moment live. For the first time in the history of Norwegian television, the broadcast was extended - without a preset broadcast schedule. There was a night vigil without a script and almost free dressage live from Studio 1 at Marienlyst. Host Ragnar Baartvedt kept the show going with the guests, Jan P. Jansen was on the phone from Houston with his partner in the studio, space travel expert Erik Tandberg, who did not run out of facts to share while waiting. Kirsti Sparboe and Benny Borg also had several moon-related songs in their repertoire. Something like this had never happened before, and both reviewers and the general TV audience liked what they saw. Now the summer night between Sunday 20 and Monday 21 July became almost a folk festival across the country where people stayed awake to follow the events. Thousands of those who still went to bed, called the Televerket's wake-up service and ordered a wake-up call well in advance of the highlight: the moon walk itself. 400,000 kilometers from Marienlyst, Armstrong and Aldrin prepared to walk on the Moon.
It was a complicated suit to put on with many links that had to be checked and double checked, so it took a long time. At 03.39 they released the pressure in the cabin and opened the hatch. Armstrong crawled out on his stomach with his legs first. On his way down the ladder, he unfolded the TV camera that was attached to the lunar lander, and so 600 million people on Earth had the opportunity to follow what was about to happen: the very step on the Moon. At 03.56.15 Norwegian time, Neil Armstrong put his left foot into the moon dust, then his right before releasing both hands from the ladder. He had decided in advance what he was going to say, and the sentence immediately went down in world history: "That's one small step for (a) man – one giant leap for mankind". (That's one small step for a man - one giant leap for mankind.) Buzz Aldrin, who is somewhat unfairly best known for being the second man on the Moon, emerged from the hatch about 20 minutes after Armstrong.
He joked that he should make sure the door didn't slam shut. Armstrong had moved the TV camera onto a tripod on the Moon, and was also ready with his Hasselblad camera as Aldrin went down the ladder and onto the Moon. He took less time down the ladder than Armstrong, and set foot on the Moon nine minutes after the first man. Aldrin's words were "Beautiful view!" to which Armstrong replied "Magnificent view", which Aldrin supplemented with "Magnificent desolation" - "magnificent desolation", which has remained as Aldrin's first words on the Moon. The two then carried out their set program while talking to each other and to Houston about what they saw.
They tried to describe the textures and colors, the hardness of the ground, the moon dust, light and shadow as they worked to take samples of the ground that were placed in small bags that the astronauts put in their suit pockets. They then deployed a number of larger instruments and unveiled a plaque on the lunar lander that reads "We came in peace on behalf of all mankind".
After planting an American flag on the Moon, they received a call from President Nixon who congratulated them in a short speech. Armstrong then took the famous photo of Aldrin saluting the flag. Armstrong took a total of 130 photos with his Hasselblad camera.
It is mostly Aldrin who is depicted, but Armstrong's reflection is seen in the visor of Aldrin's aid in perhaps the most famous image in the series. Aldrin also borrowed the camera and took one picture of Armstrong at the lunar lander. Aldrin was the first man back in the lunar lander.
They were lifted in approx. 22 kg. samples of moonstone, and laid out a bag with commemorative symbols, i.a. a gilded olive branch and a miniature plaque with the signatures of 73 heads of state, including King Olav.. They also left the emblem of Apollo 1 in memory of the three astronauts who died in this accident, and medallions to honor the fallen Russian cosmonaut Komarov, and Yurij Gagarin - the first man in space. Armstrong ascended the ladder 2 hours and 31 minutes after descending.
They left behind parts of the moonsuits and other equipment, i.a. The Hasselblad camera, before they scaled the hatch and built up pressure and oxygen in the cabin. Now they were going to eat a little and relax a little after a 19-hour hard session. There was no sleep - Houston was constantly fussing about new data, it was very cold in the cabin, and it was difficult to find a good sleeping position. Buzz Aldrin had been given the best place lying on the floor, while Neil Armstrong sat and partially stood leaning against the starter motor. The only one of the three who got a good night's sleep was Mike Collins, alone in command section Columbia safely in lunar orbit. The next dangerous part of the journey was to transport the two astronauts back to lunar orbit.
The lunar lander's reentry module had its own rocket engine and a couple of tons of fuel, enough to get it back into lunar orbit 100 km above the surface where it would connect with Columbia. The lunar lander's undercarriage was a launch pad. A little before 19 Norwegian time, the count down from 10, and the craft shot into the air. It would take five hours, several rounds around the Moon and fine maneuvering to get to the meeting point for the two craft. The two pilots Collins and Aldrin ensured a completely successful connection in orbit above the Moon approx. at 22.30 Norwegian time, just over a day after the landing on the Moon. The hatches between the vessels were opened, and after transferring the lunar samples and film cassettes, the three astronauts could be reunited in Columbia. After two hours, Eagle was disconnected and launched into a lower lunar orbit that would steer the lunar lander into the Moon. Now Apollo 11 was ready to return to Earth.
On the night of 22 July Norwegian time, the engine was lit for 2.5 minutes, and the three-day journey home began. Just before Earth orbit was reached, the last remnant of the giant spacecraft - the service module - was disconnected. Now only the small pointed command section with the three astronauts remained. It turned upside down, so that the heat shield there could take away the enormous heat that the encounter with the atmosphere created. It fell freely until the three large parachutes were deployed. Seven minutes later - on July 24 at 17:51 Norwegian time - Apollo's command section landed in the Pacific Ocean. Finally, the really big jubilation could be unleashed in the control room in Houston: Every second of the journey was a moment of risk, and only now did you know that everything had gone well.
Kennedy's goal was accomplished: To the Moon, and back safely. The aircraft carrier USS Hornet was only 24 kilometers away, and sent the rescue helicopter that hoisted the three astronauts on board.
In case the astronauts brought harmful microbes with them from the Moon, they were put straight into a quarantine container on board the ship. After a few days, the entire container was transported ashore, and finally the three astronauts could meet their wives again - albeit with a window in between. They had to spend no less than 21 days in isolation before they were finally released completely.
On August 13, they were able to enjoy their freedom as much as possible where they were paraded through New York, Chicago and Washington in one and the same day. Hundreds of thousands lined the route and cheered. From the skyscraper windows confetti and strips of paper fell from the telex machines - "ticker-tape parades" such parades were called. Now they got a few weeks off before it started on a 45-day world tour to 25 countries, called "The giant leap tour".
Norway had hijacked the Scandinavian stop, and from 10 to 12 October 1969 the three astronauts were guests in Oslo. They met Prime Minister Per Borten and other elected representatives at the Storting before being driven in an open car to lunch at the Palace with King Olav, the crown prince couple - and Erik Tandberg with his wife. There were jubilant crowds along Karl Johan, almost like in the American parades. They met the press at the Grand and Erik Tandberg interviewed them for NRK, Sveriges Televisjon and Danmarks Radio in front of a large audience in the Central Theatre. The astronauts and their wives crowned their trip to Norway with a real Norwegian cabin trip to Defense Minister Grieg Teidemann's cabin in Hemsedal and a fruitless grouse hunt. But at least they got to see something completely new - and escape the press, which was omnipresent wherever they went both at home and around the world. The three astronauts had become superstars.
Six more lunar journeys with drama and declining interest
It was not possible to top Apollo 11. But many more expeditions were planned - the Moon was large and much remained to be explored. The three touring pioneers returned home to participate in the launch of Apollo 12, and not take their attention away from it. Led by Gemini veteran Pete Conrad and crewed by Alan Bean and Dick Gordon, the Saturn V lifted off on November 14, 1969. Conrad and Bean landed on the Moon on November 19, right at the planned "Pete's parking lot" which was adjacent to the former sent out the space probe Surveyor 3. The feat was just as great this time, but of course not with the same historic buzz and media hype.
When Apollo 13 took off in April 1970, interest was even lower, and many wondered if the next flights would be stopped. However, this turned around two days into the journey to the Moon when the message "Houston, we've had a problem" came in a calm voice from commander Jim Lovell. An explosion in an oxygen tank in the service module put the astronauts in immediate danger, and the entire journey had to be changed from landing on the moon to getting the three back to Earth as quickly as possible. By using the lunar lander as a "lifeboat" and mobilizing all the forces of NASA to recalculate the trajectories and find creative solutions to problems that arose, they managed to save Apollo 13 and the three on board. A whole world followed the drama and could breathe a sigh of relief.
It was the Americans' first man in space, Alan Shepard, who was to raise the old woman as commander of Apollo 14 in January 1971. Further came Apollo 15 in August 1971, Apollo 16 in April 1972 and the last, Apollo 17 in December 1972. Fortunately, these took place without same drama.
It was an equally great achievement each time, and the programs became more if more advanced and useful for the scientific investigations the voyages could form the basis for. When Apollo 17 landed near Christmas in 1972, it had already been decided that the fully built and planned Apollo 18 would stay on the ground. The price for each expedition was sky high, and now the Americans had lost interest and the will to spend money on what was now "only" interesting for science.
Next step: Space stations
When the Soviet Union gave up on beating the Americans in the race to the Moon, they bet fully on winning the next duel, which was to launch a space station that could be manned by rotating teams of cosmonauts. The Americans had also had thoughts about space stations going back to the time before Apollo, as a possible alternative to the journey to the moon. Now the United States had started the development of a space station called Skylab - a scientific laboratory in orbit around the earth. Again, it was civilian research that faced what obviously also had military interests.
For the Russians, it was a point both to reach the finish line first and to show the world that the moon landing was only a temporary advantage for the United States.
With Lunokhod – a large remote-controlled car that explored the lunar surface with a larger radius than the Americans, the Russians had also made their mark on the moon again in 1970. But it was with the space station that the Russians were to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Gagarin, and thus get a double PR effect. And on 19 April 1971, the news came: As a big jubilee salute, the space station Saljut 1 (Russian for salute) came into orbit around the earth. It was a great triumph, but strong aftertastes appeared during the summer.
The first attempt to man the station a couple of days after the station was put in place was unsuccessful. Soyuz 10 with the three cosmonauts on board failed to dock with the station. Thus, it was the next crew with Soyuz 11 in July who received the honor of becoming the first crew to man a space station. They set a record for the number of days in space with their 22 days. It was again a great Russian triumph - and even more outrage in the United States. But it ended in tragedy: when the ground crew opened the capsule after an apparently successful and soft landing in Kazakhstan, they found the three cosmonauts lifeless. They had died shortly after disconnection from the station due to a dramatic drop in pressure as a result of the failure of a pressure valve. The news of the tragedy reached all the world's newspapers on the same day, including in this country, with unusual transparency.
The grief was great in the Soviet Union and the compassion correspondingly on the other side, especially among the many American astronauts and others in the space program who knew how high the risks involved in space travel. . It had not yet been a year since the astronauts almost lost three of their comrades in Apollo 13. The margins were slim, and an astronaut and a cosmonaut were closer to each other than anyone else in feeling this firsthand. While the Russians worked to get their space station program back on their feet after the tragedy, the Americans succeeded with their Skylab, which entered orbit in May 1973. Experienced lunar explorers such as Pete Conrad and Alan Bean each led the first two crews of three to man Skylab. A third crew stayed in the space station for almost three months. Both the Russians and the Americans gained good experience which was taken on board in the planning of larger and longer lasting space stations. The plans for such were so ambitious that it was natural to think about international cooperation. It was time to move from competition mode to cooperation in the room.
A handshake in space for a new era
The intense competitive climate between the two superpowers of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union, was changing. The space race was to turn into space cooperation. The first initiative came when US President Nixon met Soviet Union leader Leonid Brezhnev in Moscow in 1972. The two heads of state decided that the next major event in space should be something that both countries could be equally proud of, and that could point forward to a new era: a cosmonaut and an astronaut were to meet in orbit around the earth and physically connect the two countries' flagships in the space race, Soyuz and Apollo. This is how colleagues from each side of the Cold War were supposed to meet and exchange warm handshakes.
The two spacecraft lifted off on July 15, 1975, and after two days in separate orbits, the experienced captains steadily maneuvered into a perfect pairing.
The three Americans who were handpicked for the mission were Tom Stafford, Vance Brand and Deke Slayton. Commander Stafford was a veteran with two Gemini voyages behind him in addition to the important dress rehearsal for the moon landing, Apollo 10. Deke Slayton was just as legendary: he was one of the Mercury Seven - the seven selected first astronauts for Mercury. The two cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Valeri Kubasov were both among the most experienced Soviet cosmonauts. Leonov and Stafford's historic handshake finally took place on July 17, in the connecting tunnel between Apollo and Soyuz.
It was a cordial reunion after several training sessions beforehand where the five space travel veterans had managed to become good friends. They also handed out gifts, i.a. they exchanged seeds for trees that were planted in the two countries after the landing. They also chatted together, both in American and Russian, or "Oklahomski", as Leonov jokingly called Stafford's experimental Russian. They also worked their way through a large planned program of joint scientific experiments. In total, the two countries' astronauts spent 44 hours together. The reverberations of the handshake and the Apollo-Soyuz meeting lasted a long time.
The last Apollo journey also became historic with the connection, which is referred to by many as the journey that ended the space race that had started with Sputnik in 1957. It took almost 20 years before the next major collaborative project.
The Russians ventured out on their own with the space station project MIR, and the Americans focused on their Space Shuttle program, which also had a space station element with Space-lab. They also had plans for a larger space station called Freedom. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the MIR project had already acquired a greater international character.
American astronauts had also had longer stays on board the Russians' pride. The climate of cooperation from the 1970s was rediscovered, and Russia and the USA decided to drop their own space station plans with MIR 2 and Freedom, and invest in what would become the International Space Station - ISS. Construction of this began in 1998, and since 2000 it has been continuously manned by an international crew from the USA, Russia, Canada, Japan and the European ESA. Swedish Christer Fuglesang and Danish Andreas Mogensen have been Scandinavia's representatives - we are still waiting for the first Norwegian astronaut. Now the US, Russia, Europe and China are preparing a return to the Moon.
China distinguished itself at the entrance to the anniversary year 2019 by landing a craft on the back of the Moon, loaded with various cameras, instruments and experiments, including potato plants. Later in the year, an Israeli company sent a partially privately funded probe to the Moon with the American company Space X his rocket. At the state level, the United States, Canada, Russia, Europe, Japan and China are also collaborating on a possible return to the Moon. One possibility is a lunar base for research and possible utilization of resources on the Moon for further journeys in space, e.g. to March. A lunar base can be a station in orbit around the Moon or a structure down on the surface. No specific plans or deadlines for this have been launched, but the US initiated a program in 2017 which is being actively worked on, and which has in turn increased the flow of money to the US space programme. Maybe it will end in another moon landing before the next decade is over?
Sources:
NASA various websites, e.g. transcribed communication logs, history pages, etc.
Armstrong, Aldrin, Collins: "First on the moon"
Tandberg, Erik: Div. books i.a. The Roman Age, as well as articles on Store norske leksikon (Great Norwegian Encyclopedia) . Erik Tandberg has also assisted with comments on this script, without being responsible for the content.
Logsdon, John: Kennedy and the race to the moon
Other about miscellaneous. voyages and expeditions: Wikipedia
