Neil Armstrong The Moon Missions Channel

If you were around in 1959, and told your friends that 10 years from now, we'll be sending men to the moon and bringing them back safely to earth, you would have been laughed at, ridiculed and probably told to see a psychiatrist. (Image: © NASA Johnson) This was considered a fantasy at the time, not too different than saying that in 2029 we're going to visit Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. Yet on July 20th 1969, that's what happened. Neil Armstrong took Man's first step on the moon on that day. A thousand years from now, when historians look back on the history of mankind, Neil Armstrong's name will likely still be remembered. The moon landing is perhaps man's greatest technological accomplishment, ever in the history of human civilization. The 50-year anniversary of this momentous event is in 2019. and we should celebrate. This is not just a celebration for the United States, the flag of which these three men represented, but

They were seen on the most significant missions like Apollo, Skylab and the Space Shuttle. They've been used for the SpaceX Falcon Heavy and they'll be there on the upcoming SLS missions but they're hardly ever talked about and without them who simply wouldn't be able to get the rockets off the ground, what are they? They were the gateway to the moon and the starting point for every space shuttle mission. NASA launch pads 39A and 39B so what do these massive feats of engineering do and just how important are they. Launch pad 39A NASA has over 40 launch pads in various locations from the US mainland to the Pacific. Their position chosen to best get the spacecraft to the correct orbit and to be safely away from population centers. Cape Canaveral in Florida is better for launching spacecraft requiring a west-east orbit and others like Vandenberg in California are preferred for spacecraft requiring a north/south orbit. But wherever they are the launch

Sometimes the smallest things can be one of the biggest headaches. During the Apollo missions of 1969-72 the tiny particles of lunar dust turned out to be a major issue. Astronaut James B. Irwin, lunar module pilot, uses a scoop in making a trench in the lunar soil during Apollo 15 extravehicular activity (EVA). Mount Hadley rises approximately 14,765 feet (about 4,500 meters) above the plain in the background. Described as being as finest talc but as rough as sandpaper it also has properties that may be dangerous for both men and machines and has been cited as a bigger problem for future astronauts than radiation by some scientists. The lunar surface is covered in a thin layer of dust which has been created by the bombardment of meteorites and micro meteorites over millions of years. Check out my article about trash left on the moon here . These Smash in to the moon's surface that speed about 12 miles or 20 kilometers per second heating up and pulverizing

With the 50th anniversary of the first moon landings coming up and the prospect of having new lunar explorers both state-sponsored and private companies how do you protect what are arguably some of the most important scientific and cultural historic sites in human history. You would think that the very position of the Apollo landing sites, the Russian lunokhods and the Chinese Jade rabbit would be enough to keep them safe but there is a similar parallel with a wreck of a Titanic. That sank in 1912 in 3800 meters, roughly 12,500 feet of water, its exact position unknown in what was thought to be an unattainable place, that was until its discovery in 1985 and within just a few years treasure hunters were recovering artifacts in what many compared to as grave robbing or the plundering of the pyramids. Check out my article about Why did we stop going back to the moon? here . Now obviously it's far more difficult to get to the moon than it is to the Titanic but thes

With the surprise landing of a Chinese Rover Yutu 2 or the Jade rabbit 2 and the Chang'e lander on the far side of a moon on the 3rd of January 2019, I thought it'd be interesting to see what sort of things we've actually put up on the moon and to speculate on what might happen to them in the future. Neil Armstrong’s first photo taken after setting foot on the moon captures a bag of human waste that was jettisoned from the spacecraft NASA Now it will come as no surprise that the Apollo missions have left behind the most amount of items but long before they were even thought of the Soviets pulled off something that not for the first time the U.S. thought they couldn't actually do. In 1959 the Soviet Luna 2 probe was the first man-made object to intentionally impact on to the lunar surface, the closest to the US had got to the moon by then was with a pioneer for but that was 60,000 kilometers away which was a bit of a shock because the U.S. believed t

The Apollo 11 Moon landing in July 1969 was a huge feat of human endeavour, engineering and science. It was a moment that the world had been waiting for. Buzz Aldrin descends onto the moon’s surface. Credit: Neil Armstrong/NASA. 2019 is the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landings. Since then just 12 men have walked on the lunar surface in six missions covering a period lasting less than three years. The Apollo project at its peak employed over 400,000 people in some 20,000 businesses and universities with a total cost adjusted to 2019 figures of around about a $145 Billion. So after all the work money invested, why did our interest in it drop like a stone in a vacuum and what were the real reasons why we stopped going to the moon. Today Apollo is seen as a groundbreaking episode in our scientific understanding and technological abilities, in just over 60 years we've gone from the first powered flight of the Wright brothers to Neil Armstrong stepping onto