Apollo (Rocket)
Apollo
1967 AD - 1968 AD
The American undertaking to land the first man on the Moon.
In 1961, US President John F. Kennedy challenged his nation to land an astronaut on the Moon by the end of the decade, with a safe return to Earth.
After considerable debate, NASA (the US government's spaceflight agency) decided in late 1962 that lunar missions would use a lunar orbit rendezvous in which the complete Apollo spacecraft would be propelled towards lunar orbit by the Saturn V launch vehicle's third stage (called the S-IVB).
Once in lunar orbit, those astronauts who would land on the Moon would enter what was then called the lunar excursion module (LEM) (later called the lunar module (LM)). This craft would separate from the Apollo's command and service module (CSM) and land on the Moon.
When the astronauts were ready to return, they would enter the LM, take off, and re-dock with the CSM. Once the crew reentered the CSM, they would discard the lunar module and return to Earth in the CSM.
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