The footprint of Neil Armstrong on the moon’s surface will forever symbolize man’s vision to explore new planets and frontiers in space. Commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin landed the Apollo Lunar Module Eagle or Apollo 11 on the moon on July 20, 1969. 50 years have passed since that iconic milestone moment that changed how humans saw the space.
The evolution in transportation that the Wright Brothers (Orville and Wilbur) brought by inventing the first airplane in 1902 led humans to bring a steady progression in air flight leading the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to build rockets to carry humans and equipment into space. Armstrong and Aldrin spent 21 hours and 31 minutes on the lunar surface. They returned to Earth by the command mobile Columbia that was piloted by Michael Collins.
Some analysts and historians suggest that the US manned mission to the moon was in response to the Luna 2 Mission sent into space by the then Soviet Union (Present day: Russia). The Luna 2 was a human-made object with no humans on board that landed on the lunar surface on September 13, 1959. Nearly ten years later, the US sent humans to the moon and gained an edge over Russia. A worldwide audience saw Armstrong land on the moon while his statement of “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” remains till today an iconic statement.
Seven years before the Apollo 11 mission launched, the then US President, John F. Kennedy delivered a speech at the Rice Stadium, Rice University, Houston, Texas on September 12, 1962, to gain political and financial support for the new space program. An excerpt of the speech is as follows: “We choose to go to the Moon…We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.”
The space industry is continuously expanding as we speak. Unmanned missions have reached the far corners of the space and as expected they will take humans into space if all preparations go as planned
The Apollo 11 launch was also part of the Space Race fought between the US and Russia. Following World War II, the two nations engaged in a ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race. Both countries launched their versions of uncrewed space probes, artificial satellites and human spaceflight. Russia tested its first intercontinental ballistic missile, R-7 Semyorka, on August 21, 1957, followed by sending its first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in orbit on October 4, 1957. The US sent the first-ever solar-powered satellite, Vanguard 1 in orbit on March 17, 1958, and also sent the first weather satellite, Vanguard 2-NASA on February 17, 1959. On January 2, 1959, Russia sent Luna 1 in space, the first lunar spacecraft while Russia’s Sputnik 5 became the first mission in August 1960 to bring animals and plants alive from space. In April 1961, Russia’s Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit in space. In August 1961, Russia sent a crewed mission in space that spent a full day in space. During 1961 to 1969 several other space missions were launched by the US and Russia before the US managed to land the first man on the moon in July 1969.
Another key person who played a paramount role in sending the man on the moon was Margaret Elaine Heafield Hamilton, a computer scientist and systems engineer, who was the director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, which developed on-board flight software for NASA’s Apollo space program. She had handwritten a code comprising over 10,000 pages which sent the Apollo 11 mission to the moon.
What began as a space race between the US and Russia has now become a space industry where components and equipment are manufactured the go into Earth’s orbit. The satellite manufacturing, support ground equipment manufacturing, and the launch industry are the three major areas of this space industry.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientist Satellite Database, the US has sent over 830 satellites in space followed by China with over 230; Russia with over 147; Japan with over 75 and the UK with over 50. The space industry is continuously expanding as we speak. Unmanned missions have reached the far corners of the space and as expected they will take humans into space if all preparations go as planned.
The writer is an independent researcher, author and columnist