Apollo 11 Research Paper

Apollo 13 was the seventh attempted mission to go to the moon for the third time in April 11th 1970. The men who were assigned to that mission were Jim Lovell Fred Haise and Ken Mattingly. However Ken Mattingly got diagnosed with the measles, so they had to replace Ken with Jack Swigert who was the backup command module pilot for the Odyssey.

For the enrich project I decided to research and look into the Apollo missions. I watched the movie Apollo 13 with my husband not long ago, and I really got an interest in what really happened with all of those missions and what they led to. The concept of searching space was something that was extremely interesting for everyone at that time. The first Apollo mission completely failed, and there was a fire killing all of the astronauts in the shuttle. It took until Apollo 11 to actually land on the moon. There were many other attempts after that, only succeeding on Apollo 17. Other than those two times, of over 10 tries, there were two moon landings. This was something that was amazing. Many people thought that the whole concept of

“Even if scientists wanted to make something like a Moon rock by, say, bombarding an Earth rock with high energy atomic nuclei, they couldn 't” (Phillips). In addition, Phillip C. Plait agrees with Tony Phillips and comes to the same conclusions. For example he states there are no stars in the picture because, “The stars are too faint to be seen in the images” (Plait 159). However, unlike Tony Phillips, Plait explains the scientific reasons in depth. He claims astronauts have survived the incredibly high temperature of the Moon due to simple date counting. He explains, “Moon spins on its axis once every 27 days … [which] means … two weeks of sunlight and two weeks of darkness… the surface doesn’t heat up the instant the sunlight touches it…It takes days for the lunar surface to get to its high temperature…” (Plait 166).

Ever since humanity has been able to look up and view the stars, forever gaining a better view, mankind has desired to go to space. Slowly gaining the ability of mobility, mankind has invented the wheel, then the automobile, and then aircraft. However, what lies in our recent past is the greatest achievement in reaching new frontiers so far - that is, reaching the moon. The Apollo 11 is responsible for accomplishing the basic mission of the Apollo Program; that is, to land two men on the lunar surface and return them safely to earth.

On July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon....or so they say. It has been debated that the landing was actually fake, based on some characteristics in the photos that were taken on the moon. While majority thinks that the moon landing was indeed real, there is more evidence that proves it was fake. For example: The American flag planted in the moon, Buzz Aldrin’s footprint, and mysterious lights appearing in the sky all have hidden things in their photos that could have been impossible in outer space.

In 1975, two scientists by the name of Dr. William K. Hartmann and Dr. Donald R. Davis, came up with a groundbreaking new theory on how the moon was created. Their theory stated “At the time Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago, other smaller planetary bodies were also growing. One of these hit earth late in Earth 's growth process, blowing out rocky debris. A fraction of that debris went into orbit around the Earth and aggregated into the moon” (Hartmann & Herres 1). This theory is known as the Giant Impact Theory and is the accepted theory in the scientific community of how the moon was created. Even though this theory is accepted by most, there are still some people who don’t hold this theory to be true. I agree with Davis and Hartmann’s Giant Impact Theory that a great collision occurred and created the moon. The Giant Impact Theory is supported by the lack of iron on the moon, the moon rocks from the Apollo missions, and its acceptance in the scientific community.

One primary goal of space exploration is astrobiological. Using lunar geology to determine the conditions of the early

One of the key pieces of evidence of the moon landing is photo evidence. Numerous photos as well as video have been released and seen by the public. One of the

About half of the lunar Nearside - and virtually all of the Farside - is covered by heavily cratered highlands, the light-colored regions which, as seen from Earth, contrast so strongly with the darker-colored mare. Because the mare rocks are relatively young and cover far less than half of the lunar surface, the scientific community needed highlands samples if they were going to understand lunar geology. To be sure, the Apollo 11 and 12 collections contained significant numbers of small rock fragments which differed markedly in composition from the bulk of the mare-derived

On July 16th, 1969 the Apollo 11 spacecraft launched from Earth and landed on the moon four days later. It was the first of six manned spacecraft to land on the moon, all launched by NASA and the United States. Conspiracy theorists have tried to prove that the moon landings were fake from the moment the Apollo 11 spacecraft landed on the moon. One of the conspiracy theorists’ biggest pieces of evidence against the moon landing are two photos from NASA, which have been proven to actually be taken on the moon. Another piece of evidence that supports the idea that the moon landings were real is that a Japanese explorer found the Apollo 15 launch area on the moon.

1. "Apollo Moon Rocks." Curators Chioce. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. 15 Oct. 2007 http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/cchoice/moonrocks/moonrocks3.htm.

The currently favoured theory of the Moon's origin is a combination between the Capture and Daughter themes. This idea is called the Impact Theory, with its main principle being the possibility of a large object colliding with a young, molten Earth. The matter that was dislodged from Earth, would then have assembled together in space to form the Moon. This collision would have been more of a slight blow, than a direct impact, and it is now thought that these types of collisions would have been fairly frequent during the beginning of our solar system. This theory accounts for both of the differences and similarities between the Earth and its moon. If the Earth's iron core had already been formed by the time the collision took place, then computer

There are multiple theories as to how the Moon was created and formed. The five stated are all created and developed by different scientists. The first theory they developed is the Capture theory, which states that the Moon has formed somewhere else and had been grabbed by Earth’s gravitational pull. Second theory developed is the Fission Theory. It supports the idea that the substance, which formed the Moon, had been put out in the solar system by a fast-spinning Earth. The Co-Formation is the third theory, suggesting that the Moon formed along the Earth 4.5 billion years ago, combing the gas and dust in the same area. Further, into other theories, the Colliding Planetesimals theory supports the clear idea that the Moon condensed from debris when planetesimals (Earth’s building block) crashed into each other. The final theory is the Giant Impact. This theory supports that the Moon's formation formed when combining material that had blasted into space clashed with a new Earth; about 4.4 billion years ago.

The structure of the Moon's interior is more troublesome to investigate. The Moon's outermost layer is jagged and solid, possibly up to 800 kilometres thick. Underneath the layer of it is a partially molten zone. (Russel, 2005). Its jagged mantle is about 825 miles (1,330 km) thick and contains many rocks which are very rich in magnesium and iron. Magma that was inside of the mantle had come to the surface in the past and erupted for more than a billion years. (Choi, 2014).

After this time of volcanism, the Moon cooled down, and has since been nearly unchanged, except for a steady rain of "hits" by meteorites and comets. The Moon's surface is charcoal gray and sandy, with much fine soil. This powdery blanket is called the lunar regolith, a term for mechanically produced debris layers on planetary surfaces. The regolith is thin, ranging from about 2 meters on the youngest maria to perhaps 20 meters on the oldest surfaces in the highlands.