The Eagle Has Landed: The Story of Apollo 11 Read Free

or terrae. The terrae range in height from small hills to mountainous peaks, and dominate the lunar topography
    The Moon’s surface is pock-marked with craters created by the impact of asteroids and comets. More than 500 million such craters litter the lunar topography—some are only inches in diameter, while the South Pole Aitken Basin, located on the far side of the Moon, is 2,250 kilometers-wide and 12 kilometers-deep. The rugged lunar surface is covered with regolith, a mixture of fine dust and rocky debris.
    Lunar surface temperatures are extreme, averaging 107 degrees Centigrade during the day and -153 degrees Centigrade at night. The Moon’s atmosphere is so thin as to be negligible, containing only small concentrations of argon, helium, oxygen, methane, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide, providing scant protection from the Sun’s penetrating rays. Because the diffraction of light requires the presence of atmosphere, the lunar sky is invariably a deep black. With its intense sunlight and deep shadows, the lunar climate is inhospitable. With such harsh environmental conditions, it is little wonder that no life forms have been identified on the Moon.
    The origin of the Moon is a subject of considerable debate. Strict Creationists believe the first Chapter of Genesis clearly explains the divine formation of the Moon. Advocates of the Fission hypothesis believe the Moon broke away as a piece from the Earth due to strong centrifugal forces, leaving behind a giant basin that is now occupied by the Pacific Ocean. Others believe the Moon formed elsewhere in the solar system, but was eventually attracted to Earth’s gravitational pull—the Capture hypothesis. The Co-formation hypothesis postulates that the Earth and Moon were formed at the same time from a primordial accretion disk. The prevailing scientific theory is the Giant Impact hypothesis—Theia, a planetary body roughly the size of Mars, struck Protoearth, and blasted away enough material to form the present day Earth and Moon.
    Some astronomers theorize that the Earth once had two Moons, both formed during the Giant Impact. The larger of the two Moons, three times wider and 25 times heavier than its counterpart, is believed to have drawn the smaller one into its orbit; the 5,000 mile per hour crash of the smaller planetary body into the larger one resulted in what astronomers refer to as the big splat.
    The Co-formation and Giant Impact hypotheses are both supported by geological analysis of Moon rock. Many of the lunar rocks examined are estimated to be 4.6 billion years old—the same age as Earth’s oldest known geological specimens.
    Throughout the ages, the Moon has functioned as a chronological and navigational marker. While only half as bright as the Sun, and reflecting just seven percent of its sunlight, a Full Moon is still the brightest object in the night sky; in the crescent phase, it is only 1/10 th as bright as a full Moon.
    When the Moon is on the horizon, it appears larger, but this is merely an optical illusion, as it is actually 1.5 percent smaller—the result of being further away from the observer by a distance up to one Earth radius. Reaching their maximum height during the winter months, full Moons have provided light for countless generations of nighttime travelers.
    Man’s fascination with the Moon, stars, and planets evolved into the romantic notion of space flight. In 1865, novelist Jules Verne published From Earth to Moon, a fictional story about a lunar mission. In Verne’s tale, a rocket ship is launched from a giant cannon called Columbiad. With eerie prescience, Verne’s manned vehicle took off from Florida, orbited the Moon, and then splashed down in the Pacific Ocean.
    A little over a century later, Verne’s fantasy would become reality, and his mode of travel distinctly futuristic.

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    CHAPTER 3
    Vergeltungswaffe
    T o launch a vehicle into space requires momentous thrust to overcome Earth’s gravitational force. The age-old,