Project Apollo
Project Apollo is the pride of American spaceflight. It began when United States President John F. Kennedy proposed that America put a man on the Moon by the end of the 1960s. In 1969 his dream came true with Apollo 11 when Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the moon. However, this success was not without costs. Less than a year later, the aborted mission Apollo 13 almost resulted in the death of the crewmembers. Only extraordinary measures by the flight team on the ground and in the spacecraft prevented it from becoming a tragedy. But tragedy was not fully avoided; three astronauts, Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, had been killed three years earlier in a fire on Apollo 1 while the rocket was on the launch pad.
Beginning with Apollo 15, a small electric car was used to transport the astronauts across the surface of the moon. A total of twelve men walked on the moon, but after Apollo 17 in 1972, the program came to an end. The Saturn 5 booster constructed for Apollo 18 carried Skylab, America's first space station, into orbit.
| Project Apollo Designation | Mission | Mission Start Date | Mission End Date |
| SA-1 | The first test flight of the Saturn 1 rocket. | October 27, 1961 | October 27, 1961 |
| SA-2 | The second test flight of the Saturn 1 rocket. | April 25, 1962 | April 25, 1962 |
| SA-3 | The third test flight of the Saturn 1 rocket. | November 16, 1962 | November 16, 1962 |
| SA-4 | The fourth test flight of the Saturn 1 rocket. | March 28, 1963 | March 28, 1963 |
| QTV | The first test flight of the Apollo Little Joe 2 rocket. | August 28, 1963 | August 28, 1963 |
| Pad Abort Test 1 | The first abort test of the Apollo spacecraft. | November 7, 1963 | November 7, 1963 |
| SA-5 | The first test flight of the Block 2 Saturn 1 rocket. | January 29, 1964 | April 30, 1966 |
| A-001 | The second abort test of the Apollo spacecraft. | May 13, 1964 | May 13, 1964 |
| A-101 | The first test flight of the Saturn rocket together with the Apollo spacecraft. | May 28, 1964 | June 2, 1964 |
| A-102 | The second test flight of the Saturn rocket together with the Apollo spacecraft. | September 18, 1964 | September 22, 1964 |
| A-002 | The third abort test of the Apollo spacecraft. | December 8, 1964 | December 8, 1964 |
| A-103 | Launch of the Pegasus A satellite. | February 16, 1965 | September 17, 1978 |
| A-003 | The fourth abort test of the Apollo spacecraft. | May 19, 1965 | May 19, 1965 |
| A-104 | Launch of the Pegasus B satellite. | May 25, 1965 | November 3, 1979 |
| Pad Abort Test 2 | The fifth abort test of the Apollo spacecraft. | June 29, 1965 | June 29, 1965 |
| A-105 | Launch of the Pegasus C satellite. | July 30, 1965 | August 4, 1969 |
| A-004 | The sixth abort test of the Apollo spacecraft. | January 20, 1966 | January 20, 1966 |
| AS-201 | The first test flight of the Saturn 1B rocket. | February 26, 1966 | February 26, 1966 |
| AS-203 | The second test flight of the Saturn 1B rocket. | July 5, 1966 | July 5, 1966 |
| AS-202 | The third test flight of the Saturn 1B rocket. | August 25, 1966 | August 25, 1966 |
| Apollo 1 | Apollo program training exercise. (Failure.) | Destroyed on launch pad on January 27, 1967 | Destroyed on launch pad on January 27, 1967 |
| Apollo 4 | First test flight of the Saturn 5 rocket. (without Lunar Module) | November 9, 1967 | November 9, 1967 |
| Apollo 5 | First test flight of the Apollo Lunar Module. | January 22, 1968 | January 23, 1968 |
| Apollo 6 | Second test flight of the Saturn 5 rocket. (first including the Lunar Module) | April 4, 1968 | April 4, 1968 |
| Apollo 7 | First 3 man American space mission, first manned Apollo flight. | October 11, 1968 | October 21, 1968 |
| Apollo 8 | First human orbit around the moon. | December 21, 1968 | December 27, 1968 |
| Apollo 9 | First manned test flight of the Apollo Lunar Module. Tested in Low Earth Orbit. | March 3, 1969 | March 13, 1969 |
| Apollo 10 | Second manned test flight of the Apollo Lunar Module. Tested in Lunar Orbit. | May 18, 1969 | May 26, 1969 |
| Apollo 11 | First manned moon landing. | July 16, 1969 | July 24, 1969 |
| Apollo 12 | Second manned moon landing. | November 14, 1969 | November 24, 1969 |
| Apollo 13 | A third manned moon landing failed. | April 11, 1970 | April 17, 1970 |
| Apollo 14 | Third manned moon landing. | January 31, 1971 | February 9, 1971 |
| Apollo 15 | Fourth manned moon landing. | July 26, 1971 | August 7, 1971 |
| Apollo 16 | Fifth manned moon landing. | April 16, 1972 | April 27, 1972 |
| Apollo 17 | Sixth manned moon landing. | December 17, 1972 | December 19, 1972 |
| SkyLab 1 | Launch of the first American space station. | May 14, 1973 | July 11, 1979 |
| SkyLab 2 | First crew flying to the SkyLab space station. | May 5, 1973 | June 22, 1973 |
| SkyLab 3 | Second crew flying to SkyLab. | July 28, 1973 | September 25, 1973 |
| SkyLab 4 | Third and last crew flying to SkyLab. | November 16, 1973 | February 8, 1974 |
| Apollo-Soyuz test project | Docking of an Apollo with Russian Soyuz spacecraft, meeting of the astronauts of both nations. | July 15, 1975 | July 24, 1975 |
Conspiracy Theories
- See also: Moon walk conspiracy theories
There has been speculation that began with Rocketdyne technical writer Bill Kaysing that the Apollo moon landing missions never actually took place, that it was a hoax filmed in a Hollywood studio. Supporting this interpretation is the fact that the American flag placed on the Moon should not wave, though it appears it does. Also, no stars appear in the lunar sky in photographs supposedly taken on the Moon, as they would be expected to do. Moreover, the shadows in the photographs run in different directions, rather than parallel, as if the sun were not the source of light.[1]
NASA denies this, claiming that it can be conclusively demonstrated scientifically that the astronauts really went to the moon, for example, by analyzing the ages and composition of the rocks brought back by the astronauts.[2]
Further more this would require the cooperation of thousands of individuals involved, something highly unlikely due to the potential marketing opportunity for any person who does come forward.
