Project Apollo

Apollo 17 on the launchpad.

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.

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.

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.