man on the moon essay

Man On The Moon In the 1900’s space flight was just a topic of the future. But on June 20th, 1969 the US successfully landed a crew of men on the surface of the moon. The moon landing, Apollo 11 is considered one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of mankind. The purpose of the moon mission was to beat the Soviet Union in the space race which president at the time, John F. Kennedy made sure of. With the Soviets attempting to reach the moon USA’s finest scientists got together and through NASA accomplished this amazing achievement. To many the moon landing may not seem like a great accomplishment but in all reality it was the beginning of a whole new era of technology that allowed us to be one step closer to future technology. (www.space.com / Apollo 11 First Men on the Moon) The US was the first to ever send a man to the moon and bring him back successfully, but what really triggered the “Space War” was the fact that Soviets had already sent 2 spaceships in space and one which landed on the moon, 10 years prior to Apollo 11. While the war with the Soviets was still happening and talk of nuclear warfare was being tossed around American leaders wanted to show the world what they could do. The United States were trailing the Soviets in space developments and Cold War-era America allowed JFK to attempt his proposal of landing a man on the moon. It took a team of NASA scientists and engineers 5 years to test the first unmanned Apollo mission. (www.historyplace.com / Apollo 11)
January 1967, NASA was in testing of their 7th Apollo mission, Apollo 7. This mission ended tragically when a fire broke out during a manned launch test that killed three astronauts. Although the Apollo 7 tragedy was a setback NASA still fought on and in October of 1968 they launched the first manned mission, which orbited Earth. After Apollo 7 there were another three manned missions to test all the technology needed for the lunar landing. Finally, 9 years after JFK’s