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.

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.

NASA begins the programme with two unmanned missions, Gemini I and II. The first tests the spacecraft’s structural integrity, as well as the Titan II launch vehicle, a repurposed ballistic missile adapted to launch the Gemini spacecraft. The second launch is focused on the safety of the crew. Thus, the tests are concerned with the rocket’s capability to resist an atmospheric re-entry as well as the integrity of its hull and life support systems.

The first manned mission of the project is Gemini III. On March 23 1965, Virgil Grisson and John Young orbit the Earth for almost five hours. This allows NASA to test their tracking equipment, as well as evaluate the onboard equipment operated by astronauts and the craft’s controls. NASA will launch nine more manned missions, each one inching them closer to the possibility of a spaceflight to the Moon. Then, as Gemini IV soars through the heavens, Ed White performs the USA’s first spacewalk.

On Gemini VIII, a young astronaut named Neil A. Armstrong, along with David Scott, makes his first spaceflight. This is a long flight of two weeks, aimed at performing the world’s first space docking, essential for the trip to the Moon. Armstrong expertly docks Gemini VIII with its docking target, the Agena, and begins an orbit around the Earth. Just as they pass around our planet, and out of communications range with the Houston Mission Control Centre, they begin to rapidly spin. At first, Armstrong believes that it’s the Agena that is causing the problem, so he shuts down the craft’s control system. The spinning increases, and the astronauts experience near-blackout conditions. In desperation, they detach the Agena, but this only makes the problem worse. 

As it turns out, one of Gemini’s capsule’s thrusters is malfunctioning. The craft is spinning like a top now, making one revolution per second. They must make an emergency landing. Engaging his re-entry system, Armstrong lands his craft in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Gemini VIII’s mission is only a partial success, but Armstrong demonstrates his intelligence and acumen, keeping his head and improvising in a state of semi-consciousness and saving himself, his crewmate and the mission.

The final Gemini launch, Gemini XII, carries two important NASA heroes, Buzz Aldrin, who will be the second man on the Moon, and Jim Lovell, who will survive the disastrous Apollo 13 mission. On November 11th, the two astronauts spend almost four days in orbit, conducting spacewalks and other experiments. By the time they touch down on Earth, the bridge between Mercury and Apollo is complete, and the Moon missions can begin.

Gabriel är en bit före mig i denna utmaning, men vi har nu passerat 20% av den totala sträckan, och ännu vars ett träd har planterats!

With such a slim margin for error, rigorous tests must be carried out before sending a manned crew into orbit. Fears over the rockets’ safety are confirmed with the launch of the second test rocket, Kosmos 57, which receives an unauthorised radio signal from a launch station, causing the engine to fire up prematurely, and the craft to become destabilised, eventually spinning out of control and burning up. 

On the 12th October 1964, Voskhod 1 is launched. Korolev wishes to test how people of different backgrounds work together in the stressful and alien conditions of space flight. Thus, two of the cosmonauts are civilians: Konstantin Feoktistov is a flight engineer who worked Vostok programme and Boris Yegorov is a physician. Together with Vladimir Komarov, they begin the first space flight containing more than one cosmonaut.  

This is a highly dangerous mission, and to save mass, the crew are not equipped with ejector seats, an escape system or space suits. Fortunately, it is a success, and trio stay in space for just over an hour. During this time, Yegorov conducts tests on his fellow cosmonauts’ heart and pulse rates, muscle coordination, brainwaves and blood, in an attempt to understand the effects of space travel on human physiology. The cosmonauts are eager to stay in orbit, and though Korolev is tempted to allow them to continue their mission, eventually they are called down to Earth, where they land safely.

The final Voskhod mission is launched in March 1965 with the aim of performing humanity’s first spacewalk – where a cosmonaut would exit his craft and float in the vacuum of space. Two men, Alexei Leonov and Pavel Belyayev, join the mission. After 90 minutes, Leonov enters the craft’s inflatable airlock and begins the spacewalk. Later, he would describe the magical feeling of floating in space where he ‘felt like a seagull with its wings outstretched, soaring high above the world’.

In keeping with Soviet secrecy, no one, not even the cosmonauts’ immediate family, knew about the spacewalk ahead of time. Leonov, in an article he wrote decades later, remembers his wife telling him of his father’s furious reaction to the stunt as he watched it live back on Earth.

“Why is he acting like a juvenile delinquent?” he shouted at the TV, “everyone else can complete their mission properly, inside the spacecraft. What is he doing clambering about outside? Somebody must tell him to get back inside immediately. He must be punished for this.”

Mr. Leonov is right to be worried. As his son finished his 12-minute spacewalk, he realises that, as there is no atmospheric pressure, the oxygen in his spacesuit has caused it to stiffen, making it impossible to re-enter the airlock. With just a few minutes of life support remaining, Leonov must think quickly. He realises that the only way to re-enter is to gradually let oxygen out of his spacesuit, making it looser and more pliable. Leonov painstakingly lets oxygen out of its valve, saving himself by jettisoning the very thing keeping him alive. Luckily, it works, and little by little, he squeezes himself back into the airlock. Then, like a contortionist, he must curl himself into a ball, spin around (an almost impossible manoeuvre in such a tight space) and seal its doors shut. 

The craft itself barely makes it back to Earth. The cosmonauts miss their intended landing site by over 200 miles (321 km), touching down in the middle of a forest in the Ural Mountains. Leonov suffers from a severe heatstroke, but is alive. The pair sit underneath the towering Siberian pines waiting to be picked up by their comrades.

The live transmission was cut by the Soviet authorities as soon as it looked like Leonov was in difficulty, and none would know of the cosmonaut’s near-death experience until years later. What was known as Leonov and Belyayev arrived safely back in Moscow, however, was that a human being could survive in space without suffering hallucinations, exhaustion or losing consciousness. This is a discovery with wide-ranging implications, and the Voskhod flights proved invaluable for mankind’s understanding of the science and practicalities of space travel, proving that longer-term space travel, such as that needed to travel to the Moon, was possible.