Ep. 82: 12 Men Who Walked on the Moon

April 23, 2023 Peter Jans

Intro

Hello and Welcome to this episode of the podcast, "The Mnemonic Tree", where we add a single mnemonic leaf, to our Tree of Knowledge.

Today's episode will be on one of the greatest comebacks in history and that was the US being the first and last country to walk on the moon.

The race started with the USSR achieving the first artificial satellite with Sputnik on October 1957, then we had Sputnik 2 a month later in November 1957, carrying the first living creature into space, a dog called Laika, this was then followed by Yuri Gagarin being the first human in space in 1961, which was then followed by the first female in space, Valentina Tereshkova in 1963, and finally followed by robotic missions on the moon’s surface.

The US then raised the stakes, and pushed their program forward and with the help of their rocket Saturn V made it first to set foot on the moon in July 1969 just before the end the decade.

With that being said, we will begin with a summary from Wikipedia

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buzz_Aldrin_and_the_U.S._Flag_on_the_Moon_(9460188482).jpg

Wikipedia Summary

The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet,[f] with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of Australia).[16] The Moon is a planetary-mass object with a differentiated rocky body, making it a satellite planet under the geophysical definitions of the term and larger than all known dwarf planets of the Solar System.[17] It lacks any significant atmosphere, hydrosphere, or magnetic field. Its surface gravity is about one-sixth of Earth's at 0.1654 g, with Jupiter's moon Io being the only satellite in the Solar System known to have a higher surface gravity and density.

The Moon orbits Earth at an average distance of 384,400 km (238,900 mi), or about 30 times Earth's diameter. Its gravitational influence is the main driver of Earth's tides and very slowly lengthens Earth's day. The Moon's orbit around Earth has a sidereal period of 27.3 days. During each synodic period of 29.5 days, the amount of visible surface illuminated by the Sun varies from none up to 100%, resulting in lunar phases that form the basis for the months of a lunar calendar. The Moon is tidally locked to Earth, which means that the length of a full rotation of the Moon on its own axis causes its same side (the near side) to always face Earth, and the somewhat longer lunar day is the same as the synodic period. However, 59% of the total lunar surface can be seen from Earth through cyclical shifts in perspective known as libration.

The most widely accepted origin explanation posits that the Moon formed 4.51 billion years ago, not long after Earth, out of the debris from a giant impact between the planet and a hypothesized Mars-sized body called Theia. It then receded to a wider orbit because of tidal interaction with the Earth. The near side of the Moon is marked by dark volcanic maria ("seas"), which fill the spaces between bright ancient crustal highlands and prominent impact craters. Most of the large impact basins and mare surfaces were in place by the end of the Imbrian period, some three billion years ago. The lunar surface is fairly non-reflective, with the reflectance of lunar soil being comparable to that of asphalt. However, due to its large angular diameter, the full moon is the brightest celestial object in the night sky. The Moon's apparent size is nearly the same as that of the Sun, allowing it to cover the Sun almost completely during a total solar eclipse.

Both the Moon's prominence in Earth's sky and its regular cycle of phases have provided cultural references and influences for human societies throughout history. Such influences can be found in language, calendar systems, art, and mythology. The first artificial object to reach the Moon was the Soviet Union's uncrewed Luna 2 spacecraft in 1959; this was followed by the first successful soft landing by Luna 9 in 1966. The only human lunar missions to date have been those of the United States' Apollo program, which landed twelve men on the surface between 1969 and 1972. These and later uncrewed missions returned lunar rocks that have been used to develop a detailed geological understanding of the Moon's origins, internal structure, and subsequent history. The Moon is the only celestial body visited by humans.

Extracted from: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon]

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_11_-_Crew_at_the_White_House.jpg

Mnemonic

12 Men Who Walked on the Moon – CCAAJJEED HEN

(Picture the crew of Apollo 11 taking a caged hen on their first flight to the moon as their mascot)

1. Charles “Pete” Conrad – Apollo 12

2. Charles M. Duke – Apollo 16

3. Alan B. Shepard Jr. – Apollo 14

4. Alan Bean – Apollo 12

5. James B. Irwin - Apollo 15

6. John W. Young - Apollo 16

7. Edgar D. Mitchell – Apollo 14

8. Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin – Apollo 11

9. David R. Scott - Apollo 15

10. Harrison H. Schmitt – Apollo 17

11. Eugene Cernan – Apollo 17

12. Neil Armstrong – Apollo 11

Five Fun Facts

The moon is 384,400 km away from the earth and it takes approximately 3 days to get there. Just for reference the sun is approximately 149.9 million kms from earth and for those that are interested there is a series of online videos about the sun and the moon passing each other. You can find it by just googling e-clips!
The particular landing site on the moon was chosen because it was flat and smooth. This area was called the Sea of Tranquillity and is a large volcanic plain
When landing the lunar module Neil Armstrong cut it fine, only having 30 seconds of fuel left. All this while radio communications faded in and out nearly aborting the mission
Neil Armstrong was supposed to say ‘That’s one small step for a man’, but he forgot to say ‘a’.
Instead, he said the now-famous words, ‘One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind’
The module remained on the Moon’s surface for 21 hours and 36 minutes while Armstrong and Aldrin collected data, set up experiments and took pictures