We Choose the Moon

Apr 1961

One question. In April 1961 President Kennedy wrote to his vice president and asked where the country stood in space. Could it beat the Soviets with a laboratory in orbit, a trip around the Moon, or a landing?

25 May 1961

Before this decade is out. On 25 May 1961 Kennedy asked Congress for the Moon. He put it in the terms of the day, a battle going on around the world, and he did not hide the bill: no single project would be so difficult or expensive.

12 Sep 1962

Because they are hard. A year later, in a stadium in Houston, he gave the reason people still remember.

1 Jul 1960

The rocket man. The Moon rocket fell to Wernher von Braun. He had arrived with about 125 others at the end of the war. In 1960 he and his team became the core of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, and he became chief architect of the Saturn V.

1944

What came before. Von Braun’s V-2 rockets were assembled by enslaved prisoners of the Mittelbau-Dora camp. He had joined the Nazi Party in 1937 and become a junior SS officer in 1940. NASA’s own biography says he knew the conditions and took part in decisions about the use of slave labor.

1965

The price. Apollo cost about $25 billion in the money of the time. NASA’s chief historian says spending peaked at over 4 percent of the national budget; an earlier NASA history puts 1965 at 5.3 percent.

1962

The computer. At Langley a “computer” was a person. Katherine Johnson joined the all-black West Area Computing Section in 1953. Even with electronic machines at hand, John Glenn asked her to recheck the numbers before he flew. NASA says her calculations proved critical to the Moon landings.

27 Jan 1967

The fire. On 27 January 1967, in a test on the launch pad, fire broke out in the cabin of Apollo 1. Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee died. The cabin held pure oxygen. The board found no sign of sabotage, and called the test conditions extremely hazardous.

24 Dec 1968

Earthrise. On 21 December 1968 Apollo 8 became the first mission to take people to the Moon. On Christmas Eve, in orbit around it, the crew looked up from their work.

Jul 1969

The other side. The Soviets were building a Moon rocket too. Sergei Korolev, who had survived Stalin’s prisons and launched Sputnik, began the N-1 in 1962 and died in 1966. All four of its test flights failed.

16 Jul 1969

Liftoff. Apollo 11 left Kennedy Space Center at 9:32 in the morning on 16 July 1969, on a Saturn V.

20 Jul 1969

1202. Minutes from the surface, the crew called down a computer alarm: “It’s a 1202.” Houston told them to go on. Another alarm followed, and then the low-fuel light, 72 seconds before landing.

20 Jul 1969

The Eagle. “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” And from the ground: “You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again.”

20 Jul 1969

One small step. They spent about two and a half hours outside and collected 21.55 kg of samples. The plaque they left reads: “We came in peace for all mankind.”

18 Jul 1969

The other speech. With the crew already on their way, William Safire wrote a speech for President Nixon, to be read if the two men were stranded. It was never needed.

Apr 1970

A problem. On the way to the Moon in April 1970, Apollo 13 lost its power and oxygen supply. The lunar module became the one way home, the landing was called off, and the crew came back on 17 April.

14 Dec 1972

The last day. NASA had planned ten landings. Tighter budgets cut the list, and public attention had turned, with the Vietnam War among the reasons. Apollo 17 was the last.

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