Då var vi äntligen framme och har satt fötterna på månen!

Gabriel gick i mål strax före mig.

På måndag 22 september påbörjar vi den sista utmaningen i The Conqueror Events Challenge: ”Space Race – Space Stations”.

Jag tror att vi skall sätta en sluttid på max 3-veckor på den, så att det blir lite mer utmaning.

Då var det dags för nästa vykortet i ordningen, för vägen mot månen.

Between 500 and 650 million people tune in to watch the rocket launch. Travelling in a graceful S-shaped trajectory, it flies through space for 2 hours and 44 minutes, orbiting the Earth once, before it reaches translunar orbit. Then, the command module (named Columbia) and the Lunar module (called ‘Eagle’) separate from the rest of the craft, ready for the landing.

For three days, the three astronauts travel towards the Moon. Finally, on July 19th, the rocket’s engines fire to slow the craft down as it nears Lunar orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin ease themselves into Eagle, as Collins remains behind on Columbia. The module separates and slowly begins its descent to the landing spot near the Sea of Tranquillity.

“The Eagle has landed”

This transmission greets the NASA command centre back on Earth and the 650 million people who are watching with bated breath. As Eagle touches down on the Moon’s surface, two men prepare to make history. 

The hatch is opened, and Neil Armstrong makes his one small step. Armstrong deploys a TV camera, and then four bootprints mark the soft, untouched Lunar surface. Then follows a telephone call between the two astronauts and Richard Nixon. 

Armstrong and Aldrin begin their tasks on the Moon. A metal medallion is placed on the surface, commemorating the three astronauts who lost their lives in the Apollo 1 mission, as well as the two cosmonauts who lost their lives during space exploration, and a one-and-a-half-inch silicon disk containing goodwill messages from 71 countries. The astronauts collect Moon rocks to distribute to the other nations of the world, plant the American flag on the Moon’s surface, conduct a series of scientific experiments, and leave a plaque engraved with the words “We came in peace for all mankind”. After 21 hours on the Moon (including a 7-hour sleep), they return to Columbia and begin their journey home. On July 24, Apollo 11 splashes down in the Pacific Ocean, returning the astronauts to Earth. 

Samtidigt kom bevis på att vi passerat 80% av den totala sträckan och att ännu ett träd blivit planterat.

Efter uppdatering av gårdagens steg, fick vi ännu ett vykort från vägen mot månen.

Two more missions fly before Apollo 11 makes its historic journey. On 3 March 1969, Apollo 9 takes James McDivitt, David Scott, and Russell ”Rusty” Schweickart up on the Saturn V rocket on a mission to test the Lunar module, the lander that will take the astronauts to the Moon and return them safely to the spacecraft in Lunar orbit. This is the first manned flight of the entire Apollo system, and its success brings NASA one step closer to their moonshot. 

With the success of Apollo 9, Apollo 10 is launched just over three months later, on the 18th May. This was the dress rehearsal for the Moon landing, with every step of the mission being recreated except that the Lunar module would not land on the Moon’s surface. The mission goes off without any serious difficulty and makes 10 broadcasts for the people at home. As the craft nears the Moon’s orbit, the Lunar Module is launched above the planned landing site , on Moon’s Sea of Tranquillity (which you can see with your naked eye as one of the large dark spots on the Moon’s surface). Before the launch of the module, NASA disables the fuel in the module, preventing an actual landing on the Moon, which is said to have been done just in case the astronauts are tempted to attempt to make an unauthorised landing.

This is it, the Moon is now within reach. Less than 50 years previously, the idea of a human in flight was relegated to the fantasies of mythology and speculative fiction, now a Moon landing is just a few training sessions away. The equipment is checked and re-checked, three astronauts rehearse for their mission, and the American president, Republican Richard Nixon, prepares two speeches – one celebrating the mission’s success, the other, “In Event of a Moon Disaster”, in case of failure.

Idag valde Ellie och jag att gå den långa vägen runt kyrkogården, med en extra sträcka runtom Annetorp, där jag bodde med mina föräldrar en tid.

Efter denna runda, fick vi ännu ett vykort från vår Harry Potter utmaning – Chamber of Secrets.

Både Gabriel’s och min medalj för slutfört uppdrap i The Conqueror Eventas challenge: ”Space Race – Space Exploration” kom idag, så vi tog ett gemensamt foto på dem.

Här går det undan! Precis passerat 60% av den totala sträckan upp mot månen och Gabriel ligger strax före med någon kilometer.

Ännu ett träd planterat!

The launch goes, in the words of Commander Wally Schirra, “like a dream”. There are few serious problems, except that the crew develops a cold, which is a far more uncomfortable condition in low gravity than it is back home (I’ll spare you the details).

The Apollo 7 mission proves that the Command and Service Module (CSM) is capable of functioning in Earth orbit. The next job is to get a rocket into the vicinity of our natural satellite. The astronauts crewing Apollo 8, Frank Borman, James Lovell Jr. and William Anders, launch from Cape Kennedy on Dec. 21, 1968. These three men become the first humans to ever leave Earth’s orbit, and then, the first to orbit the Moon. As they pass around it, out of communication range with NASA, they become the first to see, with their own eyes, the far side of our satellite. From Lunar orbit, William Anders takes the famous Earthrise photograph, which shows our tiny blue planet wreathed with clouds, peeking out of the vast inky void.  

From day 4 of the mission, the astronauts make a series of 7 films that will become the second live television broadcasts from a space mission, following a short transmission from Apollo 7. The American people enjoy the thrilling experience of seeing their astronauts complete their daring missions. On Christmas Eve, two days before the mission’s end, millions tune in to hear a reading from Genesis from the astronauts in space. Here, NASA begins a tradition that will culminate in the great worldwide TV spectacle of the Moon landings, and orchestrates a huge propaganda coup, showing the world that the USA has finally taken the lead in the Space Race.

Det femte i ordningen av vykorten från The Conqueror Events utmaningen ”Space Race – To the Moon”, kom när gårdagens steg hade registrerats.

Gabriel ligger fortfarande ca: 10% före mig och jag har kommit till 48%.

Three astronauts, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee, prepare for a pre-flight test on January 27th, 1967. A fire starts, probably from an electrical fault, and sweeps through the module – unfortunately, all three men are killed. NASA reels in shock from this disaster, and the American space programme takes a great hit to its confidence; the mission intended to test the hardware being used to reach the Moon was unable even to make it off the ground, and the accident has cost the lives of three young men. What makes it worse is that the Apollo crew had previously expressed grave doubts about the safety of the aircraft, especially concerning the amount of flammable material in the cockpit (especially dangerous as the high oxygen concentration in a space capsule makes it highly combustible), loose wiring hanging from the cabin ceiling, and the poor escape hatch design, which opened inwards, slowing their evacuation.

On the other side of the Atlantic, in the same year, the story repeats itself with the launch of the Soyuz 1 rocket. This is the first manned spaceflight mission the Soviets have attempted since the death of the visionary head of their spaceflight programme, Sergei Korolev, in 1966. Though the Soyuz completes its mission, as its commander, Vladimir Komarov, prepares to make his re-entry to Earth, the parachute in his capsule fails to deploy, and he crashes to the ground. Later declassified Soviet documents reveal that although over 203 design flaws were reported by Soyuz I engineers, and previous test flights had uncovered serious failures, the Soviet Politburo overruled these concerns, as well as a pleading note from Yuri Gagarin asking them to delay the mission, as they wanted it to fly on Lenin’s birthday.

These twin tragedies seriously rocked the confidence of both NASA and the Soviet Space Programme. They are also a reminder of the human cost of the two nations’ ideological battle. As the Soviet Union tried to maintain its lead in the race against a rapidly advancing USA, and as the Americans desperately tried to catch up with their rivals, serious safety concerns raised by the crews and their technicians were ignored or brushed aside.

The disasters prompt a more serious focus on the safety of their crews on both sides of the Iron Curtain. The failure of the Soyuz I launch meant the Soviet authorities enforced stricter measures to ensure the safety of the Soyuz 2 and 3 crafts, and NASA delayed another manned mission until Apollo 7 in late 1968. With this major setback, the death of Korolev, and the huge advances being made by the Americans, the Soviets begin to rethink their mission. They begin to scale back their moonshot and never publicly acknowledge a desire to send a man to the Moon, instead pivoting towards developing space stations. As the Soviets pull back, the Americans pull forward.

Years later, the names of these astronauts and cosmonauts who lost their lives in the service of space exploration would be commemorated on a plaque placed by Neil Armstrong on the surface of the Moon, which you can see in the image of this postcard.

Idag fick jag så beskedet, att jag passerat 40% av den totala sträckan i ”To the Moon”, och att ännu ett träd har planterats.

Då Ellie kommit hem till oss efter jobb, och efter att vi ätit, begav vi oss ut på en runda.

Ellie tyckte att en runda på ca: 7 km var bra, så jag planerade rutten i huvudet, sedan var vi på väg ut.

Vädret var behagligt varmt, solen var på väg ner och det blåste knappt. Något kyligare när vi var på väg hemåt igen.

Strax efter utförd runda, kom det ännu ett vykort från utmaningen.

Vi fick även besked om att vi passerat 60% av den totala sträckan, och att det plockats upp ytterligare 10-st plastflaskor från världshaven.