The Apollo Program
- Establishing the technology to meet other national interests in space.
- Achieving preeminence in space for the United States.
- Carrying out a program of scientific exploration of the Moon.
- Developing man's capability to work in the lunar environment.
"That's one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind."
- Neil Armstrong
The national effort that enabled Astronaut Neil Armstrong to speak those words as he stepped onto the lunar surface, fulfilled a dream as old as humanity.
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Project Apollo's goals went beyond landing Americans on the Moon and returning them safely to Earth. They included:
The flight mode, lunar orbit rendezvous, was selected in 1962. The boosters for the program were the Saturn IB for Earth orbit flights and the Saturn V for lunar flights.
Apollo was a three-part spacecraft: the command module (CM), the crew's quarters and flight control section; the service module (SM) for the propulsion and spacecraft support systems (when together, the two modules are called CSM); and the lunar module (LM), to take two of the crew to the lunar surface, support them on the Moon, and return them to the CSM in lunar orbit.
