9781422281420

Why Apollo? Like Mercu- ry and Gemi- ni, Apollo was named for one of the ancient Greek gods. Mercury was the messenger of the gods, small and

speedy. Gemini is the Zodiac constellation of “twin” stars. Each Gemini mission would feature a pair of astronauts. Finally, Apollo was the god of light and the sun, which would be lighting the astro- nauts’ way to the Moon.

Tragedy ▲ The first Apollo mission was set for January 1967. It never made it off the launch pad . A fire started in the capsule and before rescuers could reach it, three astronauts were dead. Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee were killed. The mission was later renamed Apollo 1 to honor the astronauts. It was the worst tragedy to that point in space exploration and put things on hold while new safety measures were put in place. However, the astronauts’ deaths did not stop the march to the Moon. The Big Rocket ▲ To reach space, a rocket with enormous thrust was needed. After a series of tests, the mighty Saturn V became the workhorse of the space race. Standing 363 feet (111 m) tall, higher than the Statue of Liberty, the rocket weight 6.2 million pounds (2.8 million kg). It was first used in 1967 to launch the test flight called Apollo 4, and took its first crew into orbit with Apollo 8.

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