Most people did not pay attention to those designations, however, being satisfied to call the missions by their Apollo numbers. With budgets for post-Apollo space programs already under fierce attack, Webb rejected Mueller's request. In our alternate timeline, Webb's answer was different.
Apollo 24 J-3 used the last Saturn V of the original Apollo buy. This fact aroused only passing interest, however, since in our alternate timeline no one ever considered halting the Saturn V assembly lines.
Apollos 24 and 25 together explored a single scientifically interesting landing site. Apollo 25 also carried out technology experiments. The Apollo LM descent engine kicked up potentially damaging dust during landing, so the Apollo 25 astronauts inspected Apollo 24's descent stage, LRV, and ALSEP experiments to determine whether a one-kilometer landing separation distance was adequate. Apollo 25 also deployed an experimental solar array and a small battery-driven remote-controlled rover.
Controllers on Earth drove the small rover several hundred meters in preparation for longer remote-controlled traverses to come. Apollo 26 O-2 was the Saturn V launch of the Olympus 2 space station. Its epic mission: to stretch the world spaceflight endurance record to days. Two lifted off from Pad 39C and two from newly upgraded Pad 39A.
It included the first non-American to fly on a U. The Apollo 27 astronauts proved to be in good health, so NASA authorized them to continue their mission to its full planned duration. The Apollo 27 crew used the Apollo 30 CSM's main engine to boost Olympus 2 to a higher orbit with an estimated lifetime for more than a decade.
Just before the Apollo 27 crew ended their record-setting stay in space - a record that would hold for more than a decade - the unmanned Apollo 31 Saturn V launched a pair of modified RTRS satellites one operational and one spare into a loose orbit around the quasi-stable Earth-moon L2 point, 33, miles beyond the moon. It included three equally spaced radial docking ports, expanded solar arrays, an uprated life support system, a "greenhouse" plant growth chamber, improved internal lighting, an observation cupola, and guest living quarters.
Starting with Apollo 33, days became the standard duration for Olympus station missions. The Apollo 27 crew had remained on board Olympus 2 for days so that NASA could have in place a "cushion" of biomedical knowledge in the event that a day mission had to be extended; for example, if a resident crew's CSM proved faulty when time came to return to Earth and a rescue mission had to be mounted. Apollo 34 J-5 was, as indicated above, the first piloted mission to the moon's hidden Farside.
The last of the J-class lunar landing missions, its crew included the first woman on the moon. Its crew then entered the station through CC-1's meter-wide central tunnel. When their visit with the Apollo 33 crew drew to an end, they undocked their CSM from CC-1, leaving the carrier attached to Olympus 3 so that it could serve as a "pantry" or "walk-in closet. For many citizens landing on the Moon ended the space race and diminished support for expensive programs of human space exploration.
Advocates of exploration expected the Apollo missions to be the beginning of an era in which humans would move out into space, to bases on the Moon and space stations in Earth orbit, perhaps on to Mars. Others questioned whether costly human spaceflight should continue at all, now that the race was won. This shift in public and political sentiment resulted in a modest program of human space activity—compared to the hey-day of the lunar landings.
As the last lunar mission, Apollo 17, was completed in , the nation settled in for a quieter era of space exploration. Two programs, using leftover Apollo rockets and spacecraft no longer need for moon journeys, symbolized this new era: Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project.
Skylab, an experimental habitat built from the third-stage of a Saturn V, was the first American space station. But in an era of lower space budgets and waning public interest, it was only intended as a temporary, not a permanent, home in space. Skylab was occupied by astronauts only three times over and Other proposed journeys included dual-planet flybys of both Venus and Mars, as well as launching probes to collect samples for return to Earth. With these proposals, "there was the idea of creating a bridge — a little bit like Gemini was for Apollo — for much more complex Mars landing missions in the s," Portree told Life's Little Mysteries , a sister site to SPACE.
Events did not conspire to bring about such challenging expeditions then or since. According to Portree, Congress felt NASA needed to be punished after the tragic Apollo 1 fire that killed three astronauts in January , and that led to budget cuts for future endeavors. The rising costs of the escalating conflict in Vietnam did not help NASA's budget either, and the new Nixon administration, elected in , wanted to carve out its own space policy distinct from the Apollo years.
Were it not for these factors, Portree said, "I think the more ambitious Apollo and Apollo follow-ons would have happened. Technological dividends at home An expanded Apollo program might have produced more than a legacy of awe-inspiring planetary excursions.
The Apollo as it actually existed also spawned loads of so-called spinoffs — commercialized technologies developed by NASA. Famous examples include memory foam as found in Tempur-Pedic mattresses , long-lasting freeze-dried food, Dustbuster hand vacuums and fabric roofs. Big leaps in computer technology also occurred, yielding faster processors, lower power consumption and smaller component sizes to name a few.
Had Apollo carried on, "maybe the computer boom would have happened sooner," Portree speculated. And beginning with Apollo 15, astronauts conducted their explorations with the aid of a Moon car, a Lunar Roving Vehicle, that allowed them to travel and work miles away from their Lunar Module.
The Apollo 11 mission had three spacecraft: the Command, Service, and Lunar Read more.
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