IDS-403 Space Final

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Tim Pike IDS-403 10 December 2023 Technology and the Space Race In 1962, President JFK addressed a crowd at Rice University "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." Kennedy gave a speech over 60 years ago informing Americans of his vision of going to the moon and beating the USSR in the Space Race. This was a big step for the United States testing and developing new technology and putting in years of training leading up to an expedition to the moon. Turning the clock back to February 1969 was when the United States became optimistic of sending men to the moon by the summer with the success of Apollo 7 and 8 in 1968. In an article published by NASA on Google arts and cultures it explains the preparation for Apollo 11 and the mission itself. With the upcoming flight of Apollo 9 would test the Lunar Module in Earth Orbit, followed by its test around the moon during Apollo 10 months later. If the tests were successful then that would lead to the first landing of the Apollo 11 mission as early as summer 1969. Casey Dreier from an Apollo program article wrote “Many workers assembled the Saturn V rocket; support astronauts simulated the deployment of the lunar surface experiments” (Dreier 1). Apollo 11 astronauts later took a geology training trip and the scientists and techs started a simulation of the Lunar Receiving Lab helped to prep the astronauts for life on the moon and adaption to it. Neil Armstrong was picked to be the commander, Buzz Aldrin the module pilot, and Michael Collins module pilot. The team consisted of Neil Armstrong, Buzz

Aldrin, Michael Collins, and backups James Lovell, Fred Haise, and Will Anders who trained for months to prep for the historic Apollo 11 mission. When it comes to the technology that helped make the mission possible it took much time and effort to develop technology and suits to make the mission possible. Overtime the crew spent their time stacking the stages of Saturn V. Paul Goldstein wrote in an article “Workers first mounted the S-IC first stage on its mobile launch platform in February and kept stacking the different stages overtime, other rockets were undergoing a testing phase at the time with rockets Apollo 11 CSM and LM were all being tested to see which would be the best rocket in the summer” (Goldstein 1). New technology along with the rockets were slowly under development as well as a spacecraft system which was undergoing tests to see which can land two astronauts and send them home safely. Goldstein also wrote “It was important during the Apollo 11 mission that the astronauts were to conduct three experiments on the moon which included a Surface experiment, a laser ranging reflector, and a solar wind experiment” (Goldstein 1). However, in January 1969 astronauts Harrison Schmitt and Don Lind conducted a simulation of the EASEP deployment in the Johnson Space Center. EASEP stands for Early Apollo Surface Experiment Package which was only a set of experiments at the time for the astronauts to do while on the moon which only included testing the soil, seismometer to pickup moonquakes, and collecting dust on the moon too but I don’t mean to get ahead of myself. In July 1969 Collins, Aldrin, and Armstrong launch from Cape Canaveral to go to the moon on their Saturn V rocket. LPI is another source I used which gives more details of the moon landing and stay which on the same day of July 19, 1969 “Amstrong and Aldrin make their descent to the lunar surface in their module which was called eagle. NASA picked the Sea of Tranquility on the moon which was a flat and ideal location to land the module which was

surveyed in the previous mission and a navigation error caused their module to land 7 km outside the site but still had a safe landing” (Mann 1). Armstrong took control of the module himself and manually guided it onto the surface for a safe landing. Despite the many alarms that went off back at Mission Control with their system being overloaded it was ensured to still be a safe landing. At 3:17 PM Armstrong communicated back to mission control “The eagle has landed.” And a safe landing and the module had little to no fuel left upon landing on the moon. At 9:56 PM Armstrong and Aldrin began their moonwalk on the surface and Armstrong said “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Mann also wrote “The moonwalk only lasted for over 2 hours and stayed 60 meters nearby of Eagle” (Mann 1). “At the same time the men conducted the experiments on the moon and took samples, deployed a seismometer for measurements for moonquakes, a laser to take measurements of the Moon and to Earth, and a device to collect solar wind” (Mann 1). The men also planted the US flag on the moon and put up a plaque on the module, and finally having a chat with President Nixon. There is also Collins who remained in orbit in the module, Columbia. After 21 hours the moon voyage came to an end and the Eagle made an ascent to lunar orbit and rejoined Columbia. Mann added on with “The crew was able to return to Earth on July 24 th , which they made a rough re re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere landing in the Pacific Ocean landing near Hawaii, the crew was kept in a biological quarantine following the mission afterwards” (Mann 1). When the samples made it back to the lab they were further examined and the scientists came to the conclusion that it is considered unlikely that there is life on the moon. Mission analysis showed that the samples brought back were basalt which is formed from magma and breccias which are made up of other rock and came back as lifeless and no evidence of well anything.

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When considering critical analysis of the Apollo 11 mission it is thought of by a majority of Americans of being the greatest feat of the 20 th century other than getting back on track from the great depression and winning WWI and WWII. It is still debated today that the landing was a staged event to fool Americans. In the end it was an expensive mission and was a big footstep for America. Americans were able to compete with the Soviet Union and come out on top in victory. Much of the mission took much time and training to get the equipment down People may ask “How much did the Apollo 11 mission cost?” the answer to that question is $355 million which was put toward a handful of things which include spacecraft, vehicles, development and operations, and related programs involving training. Casey Dreier in an article wrote “In depth it cost $39 billion to develop, building a new module would run $23.4 billion, rockets and engines cost $100 billion to build, test, and launch, At the time NASA became divided into major accounts which was broken up separately which include Research and Development which funded Construction of Facilities, which supported the design, construction, and equipping of government facilities and even some administrative operations” (Dreier 1). Much of it was divided in sections and used for various purposes to make the mission possible. Much of the infrastructure investments were supportive of Apollo which led to the establishment of the Manned Spacecraft Center and Mississippi Test Facility and Kennedy Space Center expansion. Much of the accounting of the Apollo 11 program required “indirect” costs of Apollo to be included and with research and development costs. If the United States had not began making new advancements the Apollo 11 mission would not have been possible and following the next few missions to the moon and competing with the Soviet Union.

When you look at the technology used in the Apollo 11 mission a lot of the technology evolved overtime and slowly advancing. When you look at the rockets used in the mission it was important that the engine had enough thrust to get the men through the earth’s atmosphere and to the moon. Mars Kelli who wrote an article based on the prep for Apollo 11 wrote “Five of the engines had to lift the 30-story tall rocket off the launchpad and to the moon, with 1.5 million pounds of thrust on a rocket it was innovative at the time and used for various Apollo missions (Kelli 1). NASA does not build F1 engines anymore due to different procedures used then as compared to now. The National Air and Space Museum wrote “In those days, there was no computer-aided design, slide rules, and trial and error testing.” NASA chooses to build new thrusters from scratch rather than go through the old methods rather than using new methods of developing new technology that would be better than the F1 engine from 5 decades ago. Dwayne Day from Space Review published interesting info of the F1 engine and what NASA did who wrote “However, As NASA was slowly changing hardware astute leaders realized that they might need it again and resulted in the F-1 Production Knowledge Retention Program. (Day 1)” The company that built the engine looked to preserve as much technical documentation and knowledge of the engine as possible for future endeavors and missions. As I continue wondering if they did re-use the know-how of rebuilding the engine and the answer is yes. It was conducted by NASA to examine and taking apart F1 engines as part of engineering training program to study the success of the engine and better developing it in the 21 st century. The scientists also decided to play it safe and restart production for engines Delta and Atlas which have been out of production for awhile same reasons as digging into producing the F1 engines again. When looking at the F1 engines at different angles, they were a big innovation in the 60s in the Apollo missions and to me was one of the inventions that played a pivotal role in the Space

Race. The Saturn V rocket and module included was important, the space suits they wore helped the men breathe properly and used them exploring the moon helped make the mission successful. When looking at the Apollo 11 mission through the natural science lens there can be different characters to compare with the astronauts being sent off to the moon to explore unfamiliar territory and make history for America. With the air being so thin in space the men had their suits to breathe and to get around on the moon which helped them survive. With the Apollo 11 mission it helped us to learn more about the moon while staying on the moon the United States was able to have samples retrieved so we can study the moon further. Having retrieved breccia, basalts, and highland rocks from the moon helps us to study the moon further and to see if there is or was any life on the moon. From a majority of the research made from the moon NASA says right now there is no life on the moon but they still continue to debunk it learning more for future endeavors. Looking at the big picture the reliance of technology on the Apollo 11 mission made a tremendous difference on the trip to the moon having the rockets, suits, communicators, module, and lunar module made the mission possible. If we had not developed our own technology to go to the moon and using traditional methods and not testing and training then the mission to the moon would have ended in failure. I feel that without the technology that evolved overtime we would not have as many innovations in the art and design field as compared to the previous century. Many of the new technology that came out of the Cold War era helped to shape it to what it is today and changes my perception. When looking at any event I like to think about who and what was involved especially when it comes to different wars and how new technology comes along and changes the warfare in that time. With the civil war being a war of the Union vs the Confederacy they were limited at the time with supplies and weaponry like muskets and cannons which was about

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all they used in the time and jumping to WWI it was an entirely different scenario with trenches, automatic weapons, grenades, and planes being involved now and wars were beginning to take shape with an introductory to new weapons. Much of the tech that was developed by NASA for the Apollo mission is used in our everyday life. In an article by Bill Hurley from Tech Briefs write “The camera in your cell phone is a spin off from NASA. The digital imaging sensor, known as a CMOS sensor, or complementary metal-oxide sensor, was originally created by NASA engineer to make a smaller camera for space than existing CCD tech” (Hurley 1). Much of the technology we use including free dried food, cameras, memory foam, and fiberglass fabric are a primary material in much of our clothes and etc. Food safety is another which is known as Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point concept. Bill Hurley added “When NASA was sending astronauts on expeditions and to avoid stomach bugs freeze dried food was sent along with the astronauts and also Pillsbury began using the standard too which is now an industry standard practice” (Hurley 1). Other innovations that I have not thought of are also used today like the fly by wire systems which would be controlled by a joystick which would move through cables and physical parts. This would allow the pilot to control the plane by moving physical parts around. Hurley continued with “But if you look at the idea of having a flight computer which is to contain the input from the pilot who is to send out signals, control parts through this digital connection which came in order to enable the Apollo guidance computer a necessity for the Apollo missions” (Hurley 1). With that technology the computer and not the pilot had the power to do so and made air travel a breeze. With that it is commonly used and every commercial aircraft is using it which is known as fly-by wire. One other piece was having a blanket that can withstand the extreme temperatures of space. This is referred as the emergency blanket also made popular by the Apollo missions which

is a thin, highly reflective metal sheet or the technical term radiant barrier insulation which came from the research into how insulate spacecraft and astronauts in the temperatures of space. Hurley also wrote “If you had an astronaut out in the extreme temperatures of space, and you used typical insulation, you need a spacesuit that was feet thick, rather than inches” (Hurley 1). Another is zinc batteries which is known to be a NASA spin off but which they have been using rechargeable silver zinc batteries which had continued research on it but eventually dropped it which was not heavily relied on. The Space Race played a big role in the 20th century with the USSR launching Sputnik and marked the beginning of the Space Race and grew into a battle over superiority in space and who was going to get there first. JFK had a vision for America and he challenged the new division NASA to land men on the moon and to bring them home in his speech at Rice University. If it wasn’t for having a leader like Kennedy then America might have lost the Space Race without Kennedy and his determination to be involved in Space Exploration. It was unfortunate that JFK did not get to see his mission become a reality and being carried out by multiple presidents and was continuing to be funded. This was truly a great accomplishment for our country and changed much of our daily life from the Apollo Missions. President Kennedy challenged every American with his question which I do the same “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

Work Cited Dreier, C. (2022a, March 24). An improved cost analysis of the Apollo program. Space Policy. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0265964622000029 Day, D. (n.d.). A Mighty Thunderous Silence: The Saturn F-1 engine after Apollo. The Space Review: A mighty thunderous silence: The Saturn F-1 engine after Apollo. https://www.thespacereview.com/article/3724/1 Engineering the communications system for Apollo 11. General Dynamics. (n.d.). https://gdmissionsystems.com/space/apollo11 Goldstein, P. (2023, November 13). Computing power of Apollo 11 & The Tech Behind it. Technology Solutions That Drive Government. https://fedtechmagazine.com/article/2019/07/computing-power-apollo-11-tech-behind-it Hurley, B. (2019, December 13). The Apollo 11 “spinoff” technologies we still use Today. Tech Briefs. https://www.techbriefs.com/component/content/article/tb/stories/blog/34789 Knapp, A. (2019, July 20). Four ways apollo 11 paved the way for the internet economy. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexknapp/2019/07/19/four-ways-apollo-11-paved-the- way-for-the-internet-economy/?sh=329afcfb75f3 Lunar - missions - Apollo 11 Mission. Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI). (n.d.). https://www.lpi.usra.edu/lunar/missions/apollo/apollo_11/#:~:text=Apollo%2011%20was %20launched%20on,the%20afternoon%20of%20July%2019.

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Mann, A. (2020, June 25). The apollo program: How NASA sent astronauts to the Moon. Space.com. https://www.space.com/apollo-program-overview.html Mars, Kelli. “50 Years Ago: Apollo 11 Preparations February 1969 - Google Arts & Culture.” Google, Google, artsandculture.google.com/story/50-years-ago-apollo-11-preparations- february-1969-nasa/pwWxim0Wb24zLw?hl=en. Accessed 7 Dec. 2023. “Rocket Engine, Liquid Fuel, F-1.” National Air and Space Museum, airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/rocket-engine-liquid-fuel-f-1/nasm_A19700271000. Accessed 8 Dec. 2023.

IDS-403 Space Final

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