Paving the Path for the Future
NASA’s Apollo 11 crew left a mission patch on the moon for the Apollo 1 crew, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chafee. They also left two medallions for cosmonauts; Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, who died testing a MiG-15 jet fighter in 1968 and Vladimir Komarov, who died during his mission in 1967, given to the astronauts by their widows. The moon landing has united people in awe of such an achievement. There will always be those who will not believe the moon landing happened during Apollo 11, despite the evidence and science behind the landing. There will be those who object to the money spent on these programs. But for the thousands of people who worked on Project Mercury, Project Gemini, and Apollo, the landing was both the achievement of President Kennedy’s goal, but also the pathway for greater space exploration to understand our universe.
Where Did We Find This Stuff? Here Are Our Sources:
Chuck Yeager: Right Stuff character was right-on. Jim Clash, Forbes.com, 5 March 2019
Human Computers: The women of NASA. Brynn Holland, History.com, 13 December 2016.
The gendered history of human computers. Clive Thompson, Smithsonian Magazine, June 2019.
What you didn’t know about the Apollo 11 mission. Charles Fishman, Smithsonian Magazine, June 2019.
Women of NASA. National Geographic Society, National Geographic: Education, 27 September 2022.