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    Building Moonships: The Grumman Lunar Module
    Building Moonships: The Grumman Lunar Module
    Building Moonships: The Grumman Lunar Module
    Ebook179 pages38 minutes

    Building Moonships: The Grumman Lunar Module

    By Joshua Stoff

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    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateJun 23, 2004
    ISBN9781439615782
    Building Moonships: The Grumman Lunar Module
    Author

    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.

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      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

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