1. THE NASA AND THE APOLLO
PROGRAM
For the benefit of all…

2. INDEX
1. Glossary.
2. The NASA.
▫ Introduction.
▫ NASA nowadays.
▫ NASA’s budget.
3. A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY: THE SPACE RACE.
4. APOLLO PROGRAM.
▫ From Apollo 7 to Apollo 11.
▫ Apollo 11.
▫ From Apollo 11 to Apollo 17.

3. GLOSSARY
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Budget: presupuesto.
Space Race: carrera espacial.
Moon-landing: alunizaje (aterrizar en la Luna).
(Un)manned: (no) tripulado.
Space Shuttle: transbordador espacial.
Rocket: cohete.
Crew: tripulación.
Probe: sonda.
Splashdown: amerizaje (landing on water).
To exhaust its fuel: gastar su combustible.
Ozone depletion: destrucción de la capa de ozono.
Store: almacén.
Takeoff: despegue.
Module: módulo.
To test: comprobar.

4. NASA
• The National Aeronautics and Space Administration was founded on the
29th July 1958, replacing the NACA.
• It is the agency of the Federal government of the USA responsible for the
spatial programme, and the aeronautical and astronautical
investigation too.
• Between its projects, the most important ones have been the unmanned
programs since 1958, the Apollo moon-landing missions, the Skylab
Space Station, and later the Space Shuttle.
Pionner plaque
First human footstep in the moon
(1969).
Skylab Space Station
(1973-1979)
Space Shuttle or STS
(1981-2011)

5. SKYLAB
SPACE SHUTTLE

6. NASA Nowadays
• At the moment, the NASA gives support to the International Space
Station.
• It supervises the development of Orion vehicles. They will be spatial
ships that will transport astronauts to the Moon and later to Mars.
• It also studies sciences of the Earth. For example, it studies the layers
of the atmosphere and the ozone depletion.
• Last year, the NASA sent the first rover to Mars’ surface successfully. The
project is called Curiosity.

7. NASA’s budget
The NASA has more than 18.000 workers and its annual budget is 18
billion dollars. But in the 1960’s, it was more than five times bigger.

8. A LITTLE BIT OF HISTORY: THE
SPACE RACE
• The Space Race was a competition between the
Soviet Union and the United States for
supremacy in space exploration. Between 1957
and 1975, the Cold War rivalry between the two
nations focused on being first in space exploration.
They started a race because they considered it
necessary for national security and symbolic
of their technological and ideological superiority.
The Space Race involved huge efforts to launch
artificial satellites and human spaceflights around
the Earth, and piloted voyages to the Moon. It
effectively began with the Soviet launch of the
Sputnik 1 artificial satellite on the 4th October
1957, and concluded with the co-operative
Apollo-Soyuz mission in July 1975.

9. APOLLO PROGRAM
It started in 1960 and its objective was to land a man to the surface of
the Moon. Before getting it, the NASA sent twelve men in four missions.
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COMMAND MODULE: It contained the astronauts during their trip to the Moon.
SERVICE MODULE: It was the store of the oxygen and the gas, and it came off from
the Command Module before the landing on the sea.
LUNAR MODULE: It could separate from the Command/Service Module to perform
the moon landing and then, it could join the CSM again.

10. FROM APOLLO 1 TO APOLLO 11
• The first Apollo mission (Apollo 1)
finished in a tragedy: when the
astronauts were doing a test inside
the space capsule, it started burning
and all the crew died.
• Apollo 2 to Apollo 6 were
unmanned missions.
• The first manned spatial mission
of the NASA was the Apollo 7
(1968), but it didn’t go out of the
Earth’s orbit.
• The next three manned missions
were called Apollo 8, Apollo 9 and
Apollo 10.
Apollo 1’s capsule after the incident.

11. NASA checking the communication
systems (Apollo 7).
Astronauts going from the Command
M to the Lunar M (Apollo 9).
Sunrise in the Earth (photo taken by
the Apollo 8’s crew)
Photo taken by the Apollo 10’s crew.

12. APOLLO 11
“It’s one small step for the (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.”
On the 16th July 1969, the USA
sent to the space the Apollo 11’s
mission. Its crew was formed by
Armstrong,
Collins
and
Aldrin.
It was the mission that transported
a man to the surface of the
Moon for the first time.
Armstrong, Collins and Aldrin

13. PARTS OF THE SPATIAL ROCKET
Command M  COLUMBIA
Lunar M  EAGLE

18. APOLLO 12 TO APOLLO 17
• The NASA continued sending men to
the Moon. The next times they started
exploring the Moon surface and they
performed new missions, and since the
Apollo 15 they moved with a rover. In
the Apollo 17, they even brought with
them a geologist to study the lunar
surface.
• But the project started losing
audience, and due to the big costs,
the government decided to finish with
the lunar program after the Apollo
17 in 1973.

19. APOLLO 12 TO APOLLO 17
• In 1973 they used 3 Apollo
ships to transport crews to the
Skylab.
• In 1975, the last Apollo
spaceship was launched for the
Apollo-Soyuz mission.