Richard nixon’s call for a cosmic hodown – the history reader: the history reader

Few authors have had haad as big an impact on space journey as jeffrey kluger. His book Lost MoonCo-Authored with Astronaut James Lovell, was the Basis for Tom Hanks’s Movie, Apollo 13On July 16th, 1969, Apollo 11 launched to begin its mission to land on the moon. Jeffrey kluger shares with The history reader How, on the same day as the launch, president nixon prematurely called for a nationwide holiday to take place on July 21st to celebrate the upcoming lunar landing, before Knowing, Before Knowing

President Richard Nixon Took A Chance When He Issued His Call For A National Moon Party on Chiursday, July 16, 1969. At 9:32 am on that clear summer day, Apollo 11 lifted off from Cape Kennedy in Florida, Carrying Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, And Buzz Aldrin on A 250,000-Mile Travel Trave Culminate in Armstrong and Aldrin stepping onto the lunar surface late in the Evening on Sunday, July 20. The Country’s 4,700 National Banks would be asked to close, mail delivery would be suspended, and social security checks would not be Issured.

“I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America,” Nixon Wrote, “Do hereby proclaim mode, July 21, 1969, to be a national day of participation, and I Invite the States of the States and the GOVERNOUNTES Rico… to issue similar proclamations. “

The words were stirring, but they were also premature. Between Liftoff that Thursday and the party on Monday, Armstrong, Collins, And Aldrin would be taking their chances and rising their lives in a series of maaneuvers Orbiting the Earth at 17,500 Miles per hour – or 4.9 miles per second -theheld have to fire the upper stage of their Saturday v rockt, accelerating to a blazing 25,000 miles 25,000 miles per hour, or nearly SEVEN MILES PER HOOR HOR HOR HOR HOW to break the grip of earth’s gravity. They would have to cover the Quarter-Million-Mile Translunar Distance and then Slip Into An Orbit Just 60 Nauutical Miles Above The Moon’s Surface-The Equivalent of Standing at one End of a Football Field, AIMING Rifle at an apple in the opposite end zone, and raather than hitting it dead-on, skinning one side of it. Armstrong and Aldrin would then have to fly a fragile, flimsy lunar module, made of sheet metal no thicker than three layers of aluminum foil, down to the surface, dodging craters and boulder fielder, and bleds, On the 4.5-billion-year-old surface of another world.

Nixon’s proclamation notwithstanding, if any one of that thats maneuvers went athiry, there might bee little to celebrate –nd much to grieve –When the time for the monday for the monday Holiday Came. History Bold Note –and Continues to Note 56 Years on -HAT NOHID GO WRONG, that the Apollo 11 Crew 11 Crew Fly Their Craft True, Leave Their Boot Prints More-Familiar Earth Once More.

“Astronauts Armstrong, Collins, And Aldrin, So Proudly We Hail You,” Read the Big Board at the American Stock Exchange.

Frank Borman, The Commander of Apollo 8, which, in December of 1968, became the first mission to orbit the mon, said that Apollo 11’s success made him “one of the proudest Americans alive.”

On the deck of the Uss hornetThe mission’s prime recovery vessel, nixon greeted the astronauts and invited them to a state dinner on August 13. “Would you all please be there?” The most powerful man in the world asked defectively.

“We’D do Anything You Say, Mr. President, Any Time,” Armstrong Answered.

Even as the nation allowed itest to stop and cheer and cry happy tears, work went on at Cape Kennedy’s Launch Pad 39A, from Who then the Crew Had Left The Earth Just Over a Week earlier. That liftoff was an act of Controlled Violence –igniting Close to Six Million Pounds of Volatile Rockt Fuel, Which Exploded From five Giant F-1NGINES, Scorching the CONCRETE BHAN BAST AATE Pad, blistering the pain on the gantry, and vaporizing delicate sensors and other equipment. All of that would have to be set to rights, if nasa was to go ahead with its plans for the launches of aplos 11 and 12 and 13 and beyond. Ultimately, The Space Agency Scheduled Ten Lunar Landings, Culminating in a Touchdown on the far side of the moon on the capstone mission of the program, Apollo 20.

But nasa would not get all that it hoped for. Budget cuts would ultimately see the cancellation of APOLOS 18, 19, and 20. The Apollo 13 Crew would never have the opportunity to dirty their white spaces Craft’s oxygen tanks cripped their ship enroute to the moon and almost when them lose their lives, before making it home in the most harrowing crisis in the history of the space Program. Still, SIX Apollo Crews would land on the moon, 12 men would be its surface and 12 more would orbit it or, in the case of Apollo 13, which its far side and Slingshot home.

All of that high adventure and high drama would begin on that Sunny Thursday Morning on the Coast of Florida when the first of that Lunar Landing Crews Left their home world. It is the landing on the moon and the steps on its plains that are best remmbased from apollo 11.