Apollo Project B658 Viewmaster Space and Science 3D reels For Sale by Mr View-master

Sample OCR from Booklet B658

DESTINATION: MOON

Tall as a 33-story office building, Saturn V
stood in its umbilical tower, ready to write
a flaming new chapter in history.

Project Apollo — the United States' bold
challenge to the frontier of space—was
about to see the climax of years of prepara-
tion. In a few hours the big rocket would
send three men into space, and during the
course of a week-long, dangerous adventure,
two of them — if all went well — would ac-
tually walk on the moon's dusty surface.

Of the 360-foot-tall vehicle, only a tiny
portion — the Command Module, a cone-
shaped compartment in the nose bearing the
astronauts — would come back to earth. The
rest would be jettisoned, unit by unit, when
no longer needed. In fact, 80% of Saturn's
height was taken up by three rocket-powered
stages, or sections, that would be cast adrift,
empty and smoking, within the first three
hours of flight. These stages were huge be-
cause they were essentially storage tanks for
the vast amount of fuel needed to blast Saturn
free from earth's gravity.

VIEW-MASTER REEL ONE
PRE-LAUNCH BRIEFING

The three astronauts gathered at the flight-profile table for
one final look at the simplified outline of the mission.

"On with the lecture, Doug," urged Mr Viewmaster, the blond co-pilot.
"I want a cup of earth-style coffee before we take off. They
might not have any on the moon."

"Knock it off, Eric," said Paul, the balding systems engi-
neer. "We haven't much time." He studied a sheaf of papers.

"We all know this by heart," said dark-haired Doug, the
commander, briskly, "but let's run through it one last time.
We lift off; we jettison Stage 1, the escape tower, and Stage 2;

we go into a parking orbit around the earth until Houston gives
us the 'go.' Then we turn around, dock, drop Stage 3, and start
our three-day jaunt to the moon. When we reach it we go into
orbit. Eric and I climb into the LEM and cut it loose; you, Paul,
stay in the CM and keep orbiting while we go down to the
moon. We touch down, spend a day exploring, launch, and
rendezvous with you in orbit. We dock, jettison the LEM, and
head for earth. Just before re-entry into the atmosphere, we
jettison the SM. As soon as we've slowed enough in the lower
atmosphere, we open the chutes and hit the Pacific. The Navy
will pick us up."

He pointed to Step 5, "Separation and Docking," in the dia-
gram. "This will be the most critical point. We'll have to break

ETC ETC

APOLLO INFO

The Apollo program was a human spaceflight program undertaken by NASA during the years 1961 – 1975 with the goal of conducting manned moon landing missions. John F. Kennedy announced this goal in 1961, and it was accomplished on July 20, 1969 by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin during the Apollo 11 mission. Five other Apollo missions also landed astronauts on the Moon, the last one in 1972. These six Apollo spaceflights are the only times humans have landed on another world.

Apollo was the third human spaceflight program undertaken by NASA, the space agency of the United States. It used Apollo spacecraft and Saturn launch vehicles, which were later used for the Skylab program and the joint American-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. These later programs are thus often considered to be part of the overall Apollo program.

The goal of the program as articulated by U.S. President Kennedy, — "...before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth," — was accomplished with only two major failures. The first failure resulted in the deaths of three astronauts, Virgil Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, in the Apollo 1 launchpad fire. The second was an in-space explosion on Apollo 13, which badly damaged the spacecraft on the moonward leg of its journey. The three astronauts aboard narrowly escaped with their lives, thanks to the efforts of flight controllers, project engineers, backup crew members and the skills of the astronauts themselves.

The Apollo program, specifically the lunar landings, are often cited as one of the greatest achievements in human history. As of 2007, there has not been any further human spaceflight beyond low earth orbit since the last mission in the Apollo program, Apollo 17.

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