The Lunar Mission That Won the Race: Apollo 11

July 20th 1969 is the date that will go down in history as the most monumental accomplishment of the human race. On this date Commander Neil Armstrong stepped off the ladder of the Eagle and step foot on the moon. As his foot touched the lunar surface the words that will remain on the minds of all those who witnessed the spectacular event "That's one small step for manÐ'... one giant leap for mankind". With that said Apollo 11 was the space mission that was the winning factor in the space race for the Untied States of America and a mission with so many discoveries and purposes.

Apollo 11's landing was a very rough one with many problems along the way to the moon's surface. The first of Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin and Neil Armstrong's problems was the space crafts computer flashing the danger signals "1201" and "1202", which was warning of an overload (Weaver 1). If those danger signals continued it would hinder the computer's job of calculating speed and altitude such that neither the auto pilot nor an astronaut could bring the Eagle down for a safe landing. Next the Eagle's descent was going smoothly until it almost stopped descending and then Eagle's forward speed increased rapidly to about 55 miles per hour, which was definitely not according to plan (Weaver 2). Then, finally, downward speed picked up and forward speed declined. This is where another problem comes into play, there was only about 5 percent of Eagle's fuel remaining now, which meant that they had to land the Eagle in 94 seconds or abort (Weaver 2). Then finally with 20 seconds left the words "Contact light!" were said and the Eagle had made a great landing and then at 4:17 p.m., Eastern Daylight Time, the famous words from Neil Armstrong and CapCom, or capsule communicator,: "Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed." "Roger, Tranquillity, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot" (Weaver 3).

About six and a half hours after they landed it was time for them to go outside and walk around on the moon (Weaver 5). Then, Armstrong came out of the Eagle and said the famous words "That's one small sep for manÐ'... one giant leap for mankind." Armstrong said that the surface "appears finegrained, almost like a powder. I can kick it up loosely with my foot. I only go in maybe an eighth of an inch" and he also said that the lunar module's round footpads had only penetrated about one to two inches (Marvin 1).

Since Apollo 11 had just won the United States of America the space race they now needed to conduct a few experiments, the first of these was with the solar wind which is a flux of electrically charged particles ("Apollo 11 Solar Wind Composition Experiment" 1). The purpose of this experiment was to determine the isotopic and also the elemental composition of the gases, mainly the noble gases, in the solar wind ("Solar Wind Composition By Foil Entrapment" 1). The data will help resolve theories of things like: element synthesis, origin of the solar system, history of planetary atmospheres, and solar wind dynamics ("Solar Wind Composition By Foil Entrapment" 1).

The next experiment deals with the seismic activity on the moon. The seismometer from Apollo 11 gave us a very useful first look at what the inside of the moon was like, but the more advanced seismometers came on the Apollo 12, 14, 15, and 16 ("Apollo 11 Passive Seismic Experiments" 1). Some lunar modules that weren't needed anymore, like the third stages of several Saturn 5 rockets and the ascent stages of several modules, were actually deliberately crashed into the moon to test the seismometers these deliberate crashes were used to calibrate the network of the seismometers ("Apollo 11 Passive Seismic Experiment" 1). The most important result gathered from these experiments was the knowledge of the inside of the lunar structure ("Apollo 11 Passive Seismic Experiment" 1).

The next experiment was the laser ranging retro reflector. The laser ranging retro reflector was used on Apollo 11 as well as Apollo 14 and 15, it was mainly made up of corner-cube reflectors which always reflect incoming light back in the direction it came from ("Apollo 11 Laser