Began April 1957
Ended December 14, 1972
The Soviet Union’s successful launching on October 4, 1957, of the first Sputnik (see entry) artificial space satellite gave the United States incentive to revitalize its own dormant space program. The consequent competition between the United States and the Soviet Union, lasting for a decade, became known as the “space race.” In fact, during that time the two countries together launched a total of 50 unmanned space probes in their efforts to be the first to explore the surface of the Moon.
The idea for a lunar landing program called Apollo has been credited to Abe Silverstein, director of Space Flight Development at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Silverstein also proposed using the name of the Greek god of the sun as the title of the space exploration program in July 1960. President John F. Kennedy provided the necessary political leadership when he addressed the U.S. Congress on May 25, 1961, and challenged the nation to land an American safely on the Moon before the end of the decade.
Once the United States was committed to reviving its space program, the first challenge was to design, develop, and test the spacecraft and related technology for spaceflight.
This page contains 201 words.
Apollo article
Read the rest of this article.
This article contains 2,138 words
(approx. 7 pages at 300 words per page).
Order our Project Apollo Article
