September 12th
1962
President John F. Kennedy
Stands in a stadium in Texas
Trying to convince the public to do something extraordinary
to put a man
on the moon
"There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet"
He says
"Hazards are hostile to us all
Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind
and its opportunity
for peaceful cooperation many never come again
But why, some say, the moon?
Why choose this as our goal?
And they may well ask
why climb the highest mountain?
Why, 35 years ago,
fly the Atlantic?
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things
not because they are easy,
but because they are hard
because that goal
will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills
because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept
one we are unwilling to postpone
and one which we intend to win
this telling of the next chapter in human space flight
is brought to you by the fine folks at digital extremes
These are the mercury 7
the best of the best
all military test pilots
selected via one of the most demanding regiments in history
They'd been baked under lamps
flattened in g-force chambers
kept in isolation
and made to work
Complex problems in a vibrating chair,
a month before
they'd been presented to the public and became instant celebrities
America's
first astronauts
and now
they've gathered to watch a test flight
of the rocket that will take them into orbit
The force of the engine slaps their chest
and the roar arrives
the rocket rises
a bright arrow
streaking into heaven
they whoop and Cheer
the explosion
lights up the night sky as
The detonation echoes towards the stunned men
Alan Shepard turns to his colleague John Glenn
"Well",
he says
"I'm glad they got that out of the way."
This failed test
was not an anomaly
In fact, it captured the challenge America faced
in the early years of the space race
as it entered the 1960s the U.S
Space program was still finding its feet
after the launch of Sputnik
Eisenhower had pushed for a satellite launch to answer the Soviets
and the Navy stepped up
with a massive media blitz
Launching a satellite atop one of their Vanguard Rockets
the Vanguard rose four feet
before collapsing and exploding on the launch pad
Its fiery demise
broadcast around the world
It was clear America's rocket program needed reform
and from that reform came the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Or NASA
because the Eisenhower administration worried about the weaponization of space
American space flight would not be a military endeavor,
but a civilian one
dedicated to science and exploration
bringing together engineers
Bureaucrats military test pilots
and the infamous Wernher von Braun
whose Redstone series rockets were the key to American spaceflight
and they set out
To reach the stars
The problem was
they couldn't seem to get there before the USSR
because Sputnik
wasn't an isolated incident
A month before Alan Shepard was to be the first man in space
Yuri Gagarin
took the title
And not only that
but he orbited the planet
Something that wasn't even planned for Shepards flight
and by the time Project Mercury got a person into orbit
the Soviets had put a man
in orbit
twice
Despite NASA's advanced equipment
rigorous training
and a budget that dwarfed their Soviet rivals
the public
though Celebrating America's success
felt that the u.s.
was losing the space race,
but not everything is about being first
and though the Explorer satellite
and Mercury programs
had not beaten the Soviets
they'd yielded scientific discoveries and
Technical achievements
fit with the US
into a good position for its next step
into the great dark
Gemini
because America had a new president
and NASA
a new champion
Kennedy's moonshot
gave NASA an overarching goal a
sense of cohesiveness and
national mission
that brought rivals together
and shook loose necessary support
and it provided a political will and funding the Soviets never had
and that Such a monumental endeavor
needed to succeed
the equivalent of a hundred and fifty three billion dollars in today's currency to be exact.
Whoo
I could buy a lot of platinum
the most expensive technological project ever undertaken in peacetime.
NASA would need to send men
240,000 miles away
and have them survive in an environment
more hostile than almost any found on earth
Relying every step of the way on technologies that did not yet exist
in fields at the bleeding edge of science
NASA swelled to over
400,000 employees
and Gemini went ahead
a series of two-man missions
perfecting skills
like working in a capsule
practicing orbital rendezvous
docking
and the first American spacewalk
and crews learned to live in space
just for four days at first
but eventually
as long as two weeks
eating specially prepared space food and
conducting exterior repairs
as the blue-green glow of the world rolled past
distant storms swirling its surface
and all this in
preparation for the big event
a manned landing
on the moon
Kennedy however,
would not live to see Gemini's success
on November 22nd
1963
An assassin gunned him down in Dallas
only the day before
he'd given a speech that championed the impact of space flight of medical research
His successor
Lyndon Johnson
a long spaceflight advocate took up the torch
He leaned on contacts in the Senate
ensuring the money came through and casting NASA as a slamed president's legacy
All launches
would now happen at the renamed
Kennedy Space Center
Apollo
would fly
January 27
1967
Cape Kennedy
Launch Complex 34
the crew of the Apollo once
it's nearly shoulder-to-shoulder
countdown
three
two
one
Everything's looking good,
but there's a strange smell
and the radios cutting out again
How are they supposed to get to the moon if they can't even talk between two buildings?
Near us
on the other end
engineers listening to the garbled transmission. Suddenly hear a shout
Hey
fire,
the crew biometric spike
three seconds since the report of fire
four
They can see the crew on the monitor struggling to reach the door
engineer's rushed toward the launch pad
five seconds
or burning up a
Scream
is the last thing heard from Apollo 1
all three crew members
Perish in a flash fire fed by the pure oxygen environment of the capsule
One of the Dead
Gus Grissom
is one of the original mercury 7
6 years before he'd narrowly escaped drowning when the hatch of his mercury capsule blew early
Sinking his craft in the Pacific Ocean
and during Gemini
his helmets faceplate cracked during a violent re-entry
These occurrences
had made him think about death
if we die
he told the newspaper after the Gemini mission
We want people to accept it.
We're in a risky business
and we hope if anything happens to us
It'll not delay the program
the conquest of space is worth the risk of life
still
winning The moon race was not worth losing more crews
NASA delayed 20 months
as it made safety adjustments
then they moved up the schedule on
Christmas Eve
1968
the crew of Apollo 8
broadcast images of the earth
rising above the moon
reading lines
from the book of Genesis
three days earlier
they had achieved orbit around the earth
then burned the third stage engines of their Saturn 5
until they reached speeds of
35,000 feet
Second enough to escape the Earth's gravity
and enter the pull of Luna
But they would not land
nor would the ones that came after them?
No,
this was all a cautious rehearsal
It was for others
to take that first step
July 20th
1969
twenty hundred seventeen hours
UTC
the pilot looks out of the lander and sees great boulder fields.
They're burning too much fuel
He steers the lander towards a clear patch.
Wait. No,
it's a crater.
He readjusts
low fuel warning
He can't really see due to all the dust kicking up
an indicator.
They've touched the surface
he lets it down slow
twenty-five seconds more
and they would have had to return to the command module in orbit and
six hours later
he opens the hatch
and descends the ladder
the image of the earth rising over the moon
is still with him and
Human turmoil
seems very small and far away
So much has changed in the decades since JFK challenged them to go to the moon.
Kennedy is dead
Khrushchev is out of power
President Johnson has given way to Nixon
Eisenhower who created NASA
died of heart failure only four months ago
People are in the streets fighting for civil rights
and America is fighting a costly war in Vietnam
Which is partially why Neil Armstrong will be stepping out first
He had resigned his commission on leaving the Navy
and was America's only civilian astronaut
That's the message they want to send
this is an American mission,
but not a military one
in his personal bag
He carries a piece of wood from the Wright Flyer
and an Apollo one patch
Which he plans to leave on the surface
and before stepping off the ladder
He uncovers the black
the one thing that
more than the flag
more than the call from the president will
Memorialize what they do here today
it reads
Actually Lotus,
would you please do the honors?
Here men from the planet Earth first set foot on the moon
July 1969
Ad we came in peace for all mankind?
Then
he takes one
small step
Such an inspiring moment
I've always enjoyed reading that plaque since I first came across it ages ago
Guam wait
She did what to the moon
Clem spoilers.
What are you even doing here?
Oh, I invited Clem over to join my empyrion squad
We're gonna jump back into my rail jack with the rest of the ec crew
for some spacefaring action
but also we're gonna help out other Tenno in need via the new squad link system where actions we can take
Planetside will affect other battles in the Stars in real-time
Picture the Battle of Endor that you're in control of just without all those pesky Ewoks and their Yub Yub nonsense language
Clung elegantly put Clem. Thanks for the reminder also by opting in at the link below
You'll be entered into the become a real space ninja
Sweepstakes where you can complete successful missions in-game until December 31st
to earn entries for a chance to win two hundred and fifty
Thousand dollars
towards an actual trip
to actual space.
So
what are you waiting for teto?
I mean, we're already in space and I could login I guess
no, I meant the actual teto
Animated internet hosts and Clem's are not eligible. That's some cold shade Lotus cloud