Building Moonships: The Grumman Lunar Module
By Joshua Stoff
5/5
()
About this ebook
Chronicling the visual history of the design, construction and launch of the lunar module - one of the most historic machines in human history.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced his plans for landing a man on the moon by 1970 - despite the fact that the United States had a total of just 15 minutes of spaceflight experience up to that point. With that announcement, the space race had officially begun. In 1962, after a strenuous competition, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced that the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation of Bethpage, Long Island, had won the contract to build the lunar module - the spacecraft that would take Americans to the moon. This was the first and only vehicle designed to take humans from one world to another.
Although much has been written about the first men to set foot on the moon, those first hesitant steps would not have been possible without the efforts of the designers and technicians assigned to Project Apollo. Building Moonships: The Grumman Lunar Module tells the story of the people who built and tested the lunar modules that were deployed on missions as well as the modules that never saw the light of day.
Joshua Stoff
Joshua Stoff is the curator of the Cradle of Aviation Museum on Long Island, and is a noted aviation historian. He is the author of numerous aviation and space titles, including Arcadia Publishing�s Long Island Aircraft Crashes: 1909�1959 and Building Moonships: The Grumman Lunar Module.
Read more from Joshua Stoff
Long Island Aircraft Manufacturers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5LaGuardia Airport Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJohn F. Kennedy International Airport Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLong Island Airports Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLong Island Aircraft Crashes: 1909-1959 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPicture History of World War II American Aircraft Production Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Aviation Firsts: 336 Questions and Answers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTransatlantic Flight: A Picture History, 1873–1939 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCharles A. Lindbergh: The Life of the "Lone Eagle" in Photographs Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Building Moonships
Related ebooks
Chariots for Apollo: The NASA History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft to 1969 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Apollo 11: The Moon Landing in Real Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Astronaut Maker: How One Mysterious Engineer Ran Human Spaceflight for a Generation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Apollo 1: The Tragedy That Put Us on the Moon Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5One Giant Leap: The Impossible Mission That Flew Us to the Moon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Suddenly, Tomorrow Came: The NASA History of the Johnson Space Center Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5John Houbolt: The Unsung Hero of the Apollo Moon Landings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThirteen: The Apollo Flight That Failed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5#Apollo8: Hashtag Histories, #4 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLiving and Working in Space: The NASA History of Skylab Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Apollo Moon Landings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How We'll Live on Mars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Historic Journeys Into Space Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNASA Kennedy Space Center Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGemini Flies!: Unmanned Flights and the First Manned Mission Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Earth's orbit Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Space Exploration For Dummies<sup>®</sup> Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Where No Man Has Gone Before: A History of NASA's Apollo Lunar Expeditions Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Nasa Secrets the Story of the Space Shuttle Vehicles— Launching Satellites Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Apollo Missions: The Incredible Story of the Race to the Moon Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5X-15 Diary: The Story of America's First Space Ship Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Flying to the Moon: An Astronaut's Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Saturn V Rocket Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manned Spacecraft Design Principles Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsReturn to Earth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Last Man on the Moon: Astronaut Eugene Cernan and America's Race in Space Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Challenger: An American Tragedy: The Inside Story from Launch Control Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Book of Spaceflight: From Apollo 1 to Zero Gravity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
United States History For You
A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/51776 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing the Guys Who Killed the Guy Who Killed Lincoln: A Nutty Story About Edwin Booth and Boston Corbett Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Library Book Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Masters of the Air: America's Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and A Legacy of Rage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Disloyal: A Memoir: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J. Trump Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The White Album: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer: An Edgar Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fifties Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killing England: The Brutal Struggle for American Independence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Building Moonships
1 rating0 reviews
Book preview
Building Moonships - Joshua Stoff
LOGOS
INTRODUCTION
After hundreds of thousands of years of occupancy and several thousand years of recorded history, man quite suddenly left the planet Earth in 1969 to fly to its nearest neighbor, the moon.
Although much has been written about the first men who set foot on the moon, those first hesitant steps on a world that was not our own were made possible by the efforts of designers and technicians who never left the warmth and safety of mother earth. With their own hands they built the lunar module (LM), one of the most historic machines in all of human history. The LM was a vehicle so radically new, so complex, and yet so delicate, that there were simply no rules to follow.
In 1961, after the United States had acquired a total of 15 minutes of spaceflight experience, Pres. John F. Kennedy announced his plans for landing a man on the moon by 1970. The space race had begun. In the spring of 1961, when Kennedy committed America to go to the moon, no one even knew how to get there. There were several competing plans within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): build a giant rocket that flies directly to the moon, launch two rockets that meet in Earth orbit and assemble a lunar spacecraft that flies to the moon, or launch a spacecraft that remains in lunar orbit and sends down to the moon a specialized lander that can return and dock with the mother ship in orbit.
Through 1961 and 1962, NASA favored the direct approach to landing on the moon. As we had no experience in rendezvous and docking in space, NASA believed that this was the safest way to get there. The drawback was that a huge rocket, even larger than the 363-foot-high Saturn V, was required to boost a spacecraft that big and heavy to the moon. To develop such a rocket was going to take longer and be more costly than developing the lunar orbit rendezvous concept. In 1962, NASA decided that the lunar orbit rendezvous idea was the way to go. Although the rendezvous in orbit was a difficult maneuver far from home, the concept offered great savings in time, money, and engineering. Just one rocket was needed, with two specialized vehicles: one for the astronauts to ride in for launch and landing on Earth, and a light, simple lander for landing on the moon. This approach was championed by both NASA engineer John Houbolt and the Grumman Aircraft Corporation.
After a strenuous competition, NASA announced in 1962 that the Grumman Aircraft Corporation of Bethpage, New York, had won the contract to build the LM—the spacecraft that would take Americans to the moon—for Project Apollo. This was the first and is still the only vehicle designed to take humans from one world to another.
From the beginning, construction of the LM posed a unique set of engineering problems. It had to be a new type of vehicle performing a new type of role. Fortunately, the LM could take on any shape it needed. Unlike previous or current manned spacecraft, the LM operated only outside Earth’s atmosphere, in a vacuum; it never went through any air. That is why it is such an odd-shaped spacecraft, with things sticking out all over it. The low gravity of the moon had some benefits for the LM design, too. It required less power to blast off from the moon, and it needed only a very light framework and very thin skin. By Earth standards, it seemed a flimsy contraption.
The LM was designed with several specific points in mind. It had to keep two men alive on the moon and get them there and back. It had to be small enough to fit inside the Saturn V rocket and light enough to be launched into space. It had four widely spaced legs so it would not tip over if it landed at an angle, and large footpads so it would not sink into moon dust, if there were any. The