One Giant Leap for Mankind
Humanity's highest adventure reached a triumphant climax on June 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, the first human to do so. He was shortly joined by Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, while Michael Collins orbited a few miles above in the command module, waiting to take them home to Earth where they had left four days earlier on their incredible 240,000 mile journey to the moon. As Neil and Buzz walked the surface of the moon, they were watched on television in amazement by about one billion people around the world: men, women and children, young and old, of all races and religions, transfixed by the high adventure and unified in their hearts for the safety of the three astronauts. This fantastic journey ended successfully when the astronauts returned 240,000 miles to Earth and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, eight days after lifting off from Cape Canaveral, Florida.
This dramatic moment was the highly successful culmination of the biggest single project, in terms of men, women, money and brains, attempted by the United States since World War II, the end result of eight years of work and planning, by thousands of scientists, engineers, and technicians. It was a major new milestone in the history of civilization and came just 66 years after the Wright Brother's first flight at Kitty Hawk.
The Wright Brothers deserve credit for being the first to break the bonds of Earth, making possible controllable flight in the atmospheric shroud which surrounds the Earth; however, credit for the ability to escape the Earth's gravity, making possible flight by rockets to the moon and planets, belongs to the pioneering work of just one man, Dr. Robert H. Goddard.
Rockets have existed for centuries but were viewed as curiosities of no practical value. The Chinese were the first to use small rockets in warfare whose only value was to terrify the enemy. Rockets were used by the British in their siege of Fort McHenry in the war of 1812, and it was there that the defenders of the "rockets red glare" inspired Frances Scott Key to write the poem that became our national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner".
Dr. Goddard was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1892. As a child he read H. G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" and became interested in rocketry at the age of 17. He went on to earn a doctorate in physics, became a college professor, and lectured on ways to reach the moon. In 1926, at the age of 34, he built and tested the first ever liquid fueled rocket. He determined that a combination of liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen would make the best fuel and developed the hardware necessary for use of cryogenic fuels, hundreds of degrees below zero, including nozzles, combustion changer, fuel tanks, valves, turbine-driven fuel pumps, gyro stabilization, control vanes in the rocket exhaust and many other features. He received 214 patents for which the United States government paid his estate one million dollars for their use in the design of modern rockets. The Saturn V rocket used in 1969 to put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the moon is 365 feet long, has 5,600,000 parts, weighs 3,000 tons, and its five first-stage engines deliver 7 1/2 million pounds of thrust. It is a large-scale version of a Dr. Goddard rocket flown in 1939.