‘Pin-point’ landing

Abstract

After so many years in development, the Apollo program^* had sprung forth from the starting block with a flight in cislunar space at the end of 1968 and a schedule for 1969 which called for missions at roughly two-monthly intervals. The driving force behind this hectic pace had been the desire to satisfy John F. Kennedy’s challenge of a landing on the Moon before the decade was out. Apollo 10’s rehearsal of lunar orbit activities to the point of PDI cleared the way for Apollo 11 to try for a landing. If this was achieved, there would be enough Saturn V rockets for a total of ten expeditions to the surface. Even as Eagle landed, and Armstrong took his “small step”, it was expected that the flight rate would be sustained, and that, consequently, the expeditionary phase of lunar exploration would be concluded in 1971 to clear the way for a new program of space station development.

Details of the Apollo missions are given on page 366.