Apollo 11 Research Paper

There are many missions set up to explore our solar system and the rest of the universe. Apollo 11 is a great example of exploration. Its primary objective was set by President John F Kennedy when he said, “we shall send to the moon, 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston, a giant rocket... carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food and survival, on an untried mission, to an unknown celestial body, and then return it safely to earth” (JFK RICE MOON SPEECH). It launched from Cape Kennedy on July 16, 1969 with Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin. Approximately 530 million people watched the moon landing. On July 20, 1969, about 109 hours and 42 minutes after launch, Armstrong
They recorded verbal descriptions and pictures of the regolith. Neil Armstrong made this observation, "The surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers like powdered charcoal to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine sandy particles" (Apollo 11 Mission). Other objectives were to collect lunar samples and deploy experiments. They collected 47 pounds of samples and successfully deployed four experiments. The Apollo 11 brought the first geologic samples from the Moon back to Earth. The samples did not contain any water which suggest that there has never been any living organisms on the moon (Apollo 11 Mission). Overall, Apollo 11 did not contribute the most in scientific discovery but it showed that landing on the moon was possible which encouraged further exploration that lead to the encountering of more discoveries such as in the later Apollo
Its goal was to “increase our knowledge of the planet Mars with an emphasis on the search for extraterrestrial life.” The program included the identical Viking 1 and Viking 2. Each consisted of an orbiter and a lander. The orbiters took pictures of the surface and the landers studied Mars’ surface. Both spacecraft launched at Cape Canaveral, Florida and spent almost a year travelling to Mars. Both were sterilized before launch to prevent contamination of Mars by organisms from Earth. Viking 1 launched on August 20, 1975. Viking 2 launched on September 3, 1976. Both orbiters spent a month searching for a suitable landing site for the landers. The orbiters mapped 97 percent of the surface with 52,000 images. They discovered many landforms that are usually made from large amounts of water, such as river valleys. This suggested that large amounts of water was once on Mars. They also found that Mars’ north pole is made up of water ice instead of the previously thought carbon dioxide ice. The landers took over 4,500 photographs and collected data on the surface. The landers also found that there is no clear evidence for the presence of living organisms or organic material in the soil at either landing site by measuring the elemental composition of the soil. This has lead to the conclusion that Mars is self-sterilizing, meaning that a combination of solar ultraviolet radiation, the extreme dryness of the soil,