49 Fun Facts About Apollo Program

In which years did the Apollo program run?

The first crewed flight did not come until 1968, seven years after Kennedy set the goal.

President Kennedy set the goal of landing a man on the Moon in an address to Congress in which year?

The May 25 speech promised to do it before the decade was out; Apollo 11 made the deadline with five months to spare.

Which NASA manager named the Apollo program, saying he did it 'like I'd name my baby'?

He picked the name at home one evening in early 1960, feeling Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun suited the scale of the plan.

Apollo was conceived in 1960 as a follow-up to which earlier NASA program?

Mercury capsules carried one astronaut; Apollo was designed from the start to carry three.

At its peak, roughly how many people did the Apollo program employ?

It also drew on more than 20,000 firms and universities and took over half of NASA's spending in the 1960s.

According to improved cost analysis, what did the Apollo program cost in then-year dollars?

That is roughly $257 billion in 2023 money, most of it spent on the Saturn rockets, the spacecraft and mission operations.

How many people walked on the Moon during the Apollo program?

Twenty-four astronauts flew to the Moon in all, three of them twice, and none of the walkers ever went back after landing once.

Which mission mode, championed by Langley engineer John Houbolt, was chosen for reaching the Moon?

Houbolt bypassed the NASA hierarchy with memos describing himself as a voice in the wilderness; von Braun thanked him by name when Apollo 11 landed.

The direct-ascent plan would have needed which giant launch vehicle, larger than the Saturn V?

The June 1962 decision to use lunar orbit rendezvous let the Saturn V replace it, and it was never built.

Which company won the contract to build the Apollo Lunar Module?

The craft was assembled at its factory in Bethpage, New York, and its development ran about ten months late.

The Lunar Module was originally called the LEM. What did the E stand for?

The E was dropped from the abbreviation, but astronauts and engineers kept pronouncing it 'lem' rather than 'L-M'.

Which company was prime contractor for the Apollo CSM and the Saturn V's second stage?

Its bid was not rated as good as Martin's, and its delays on both pieces of hardware pushed the first Saturn V flight to November 1967.

The Saturn V's first stage used five engines of which type, still the most powerful single-chamber liquid engines built?

The upper two stages burned liquid hydrogen with J-2 engines, five on the second stage and one on the third.

How many Saturn V rockets were launched in total?

All flew from Launch Complex 39 between 1967 and 1973; nine of them sent astronauts toward the Moon and the last lofted Skylab.

The Saturn V was developed at the Marshall Space Flight Center in which city?

The centre was established on July 1, 1960, and directed by Wernher von Braun.

Under which codename was Wernher von Braun secretly brought to the US after the war with about 1,600 other Germans?

About 1,600 German scientists and technicians were brought over; von Braun's team went on to launch Explorer 1 in 1958.

The Apollo 1 fire that killed Grissom, White and Chaffee happened during what?

The January 27, 1967, plugs-out test simulated running on internal power; the hatch could not be opened against the cabin pressure.

The Apollo 1 fire spread so fast partly because the cabin atmosphere was what?

The cabin had been pumped to 16.7 psi of oxygen, two psi above atmospheric, and the fire drove that to 29 psi before the wall ruptured.

What was Apollo 1's original mission designation before it was renamed in the crew's honour?

The astronauts' widows asked that the name be reserved for the flight their husbands never made; its Saturn IB was reused to launch Apollo 5.

Apollo 7, the first crewed Apollo flight in October 1968, was commanded by which Mercury veteran, who was asked to fly it soon after the fire?

He developed a head cold in orbit and refused Mission Control's request to power up the TV camera; the crew's discipline problems cost them the higher NASA medal.

Apollo 7 achieved which broadcasting milestone?

The first show went out on October 14, 1968, three days into the eleven-day flight.

Apollo 8's crew read the opening verses of which book in their Christmas Eve 1968 broadcast?

Borman, Lovell and Anders circled the Moon ten times and were named Time's Men of the Year.

Which Apollo 8 astronaut took the famous Earthrise photograph?

He saw Earth emerging over the lunar horizon on the fourth pass and grabbed a black-and-white shot before switching to colour film.

On Apollo 9, the Lunar Module was nicknamed Spider. What was the command module called?

The name came from the blue protective wrapping the command module wore on delivery from the factory.

Apollo 10's spacecraft were named after characters from which comic strip?

Charlie Brown was the command module and Snoopy the lunar module, which flew to within 14.4 km of the surface in the dress rehearsal for the landing.

Which mission set the crewed speed record relative to Earth, about 39,897 km/h?

The record was set on May 26, 1969, on the way home from the Moon.

The first three lunar missions used what trajectory so a failed engine would still bring them home?

Apollo 8, 10 and 11 flew coplanar with the Moon's orbit; later missions dropped the safeguard for better landing sites.

Shortly after launching in the rain, Apollo 12 was twice hit by what?

The strikes knocked out instrumentation but caused little damage, and the mission went on to a pinpoint landing.

Apollo 12 landed within walking distance of which robotic probe, and brought parts of it home?

The probe had sat on the Ocean of Storms since April 1967; Conrad and Bean photographed it and removed pieces for study.

Apollo 12's colour TV broadcast from the surface ended abruptly when Alan Bean did what?

The sensor burned out; it was the first colour camera taken to the lunar surface.

Which Apollo 14 astronaut hit two golf balls on the Moon with a makeshift club?

At 47 he was the oldest person to walk on the Moon, ten years after his suborbital Mercury flight made him the first American in space.

Apollo 14 landed in the Fra Mauro formation, originally the target of which earlier flight?

The site was reassigned after the oxygen tank explosion forced that earlier crew to abort their landing.

'Moon trees' grew from seeds carried to lunar orbit by which Apollo 14 crew member?

He had worked in forestry as a young man and took several hundred seeds, which were germinated after the flight.

Which mission was the first to use the Lunar Roving Vehicle?

David Scott and James Irwin drove it around Hadley Rille; the rover carried a plaque reading 'Man's First Wheels on the Moon'.

On Apollo 15, David Scott dropped a hammer and a feather together to demonstrate whose theory?

With no air resistance both hit the dust at the same moment; the crew also brought back the Genesis Rock from the Moon's early crust.

The Apollo 15 crew drew a scandal when it emerged they had carried what unauthorised items to the Moon?

Some of the covers were sold by a West German stamp dealer, and Congress held hearings.

What is the small aluminium statuette left on the Moon by Apollo 15 to honour dead spacefarers called?

It sits beside a plaque naming 14 Americans and Soviets who died in the pursuit of spaceflight.

The Lunar Roving Vehicle was built by which company?

Each rover weighed 210 kg empty and was designed for 6 mph, though Apollo 17's crew pushed theirs to 11.2 mph.

Apollo 16 landed in which lunar highlands region, chosen because scientists wrongly expected volcanic terrain?

John Young and Charles Duke spent 71 hours there and collected 95.8 kg of samples.

The largest Moon rock returned by any Apollo mission, collected on Apollo 16, is nicknamed what?

The breccia was named after geology principal investigator William Muehlberger, and Charles Duke picked it up at Mission Control's request.

Which Apollo 16 astronaut made a deep-space spacewalk on the way home to retrieve film cassettes?

He had been bumped from Apollo 13 over a measles scare and finally flew as Apollo 16's command module pilot.

Who was the only professional geologist to walk on the Moon?

He replaced Joe Engle on Apollo 17 after NASA came under pressure to send a scientist, and had trained every landing crew in field geology.

What was unique about the launch of Apollo 17 among crewed Saturn V flights?

It lifted off in the early hours of December 7, 1972, after the program's only launchpad delay, caused by a hardware fault.

Apollo 17 landed in which valley, thought from orbit to be volcanic?

Cernan and Schmitt made three moonwalks there and set the record for the longest stay on the surface, 75 hours.

The famous whole-Earth photograph taken by the Apollo 17 crew is known by what name?

The crew also carried five mice that stayed in orbit with Ron Evans as a biology experiment.

The Soviet Union's three robotic Luna sample-return probes brought back how much Moon material in total?

Three tiny Luna 16 fragments weighing 200 mg sold at Sotheby's for $855,000 in 2018.

Skylab fell out of orbit in 1979 and scattered debris across which country?

The plan to have the Space Shuttle boost it was abandoned when the shuttle fell behind schedule.

The 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was the only spaceflight for which original Mercury Seven member?

The joint mission's handshake in orbit became a symbol of detente; the Soviet commander was Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk in space.

In August 1971 which president proposed cancelling the last two lunar landings, Apollo 16 and 17?

Both missions survived, but Apollo 18, 19 and 20 had already been cut, and one Saturn V went to launch Skylab instead.