Facts you didn't know about the Apollo Moon missions

Hello! If you read my first post, this is my next post, or my first real post, or... Anyway, if you didn't read my first post, ignore that reference.

Now, for those of you who don't know (I will have to teach you), The Apollo Program was the result of The Space Race (if you don't know about that, either Google it, or beg me to make a post on it, which I probably will anyway, because I love that topic). The Americans created the Apollo program so that they could go and land on the Moon before the Soviet Union did. I will talk more about this in another post.

Cool fact #1: Apollo 1, the tragedy fire, was originally called AS-204, or Apollo Saturn-204.

#2: Apollo's 2 and 3 were small tests of rockets and radio transmissions. No wonder people think there wasn't any Apollo 2 or 3!

#3: Apollo 4 was the first full, unmanned test of the enormous Saturn V, the rocket that would, in less than a decade, be taking humans to the Moon. However, there were multiple problems before it even launched.

#4: Apollo 5 was the first unmanned test of the lunar lander, or the Lunar Module in space.

#5: Apollo 6 had so many failures, it didn't even get to the Moon! However, it was the same mission as Apollo 4, which had succeeded, so NASA believed that they were ready for manned missions.

#6: Apollo 7 wasn't even launched with a Saturn V. Since the crew of Apollo 7 was only going to go up into Earth orbit, and not to the Moon, they only needed the smaller rocket, the Saturn 1B.

#7: Apollo 8 was only the second manned mission of the Apollo program, and the first manned test of the Saturn V, and they were already going around the moon! The crew of Apollo 8 were the first human beings born on Earth to see the dark side of the Moon.

#8: Apollo 9 was the first full shakedown test of every piece of hardware they needed to land on the Moon, including the Lunar Module, and the new Apollo spacesuits, but they did it in low Earth orbit. Also, this was the first mission crew that named their spacecrafts. The LM was Spider, and the CM was Gumdrop. This test went so well, no wonder you've never heard about it!

#9: Apollo 10 was the dress rehearsal of the Moon landing without actually landing on the Moon. In fact, the NASA engineers only filled the LM up with a little bit of fuel, because with that goofball crew, you never know if they're going to try and land on the Moon. Charlie Brown and Snoopy were the mascots for this mission.

#10: Apollo 11 was, of course, the mission that landed on the Moon, but they almost didn't! They almost ran out of fuel when they had to manoeuvre away from their original landing site. Also, once they were there, Buzz Aldrin received Holy Communion.

#11: The third stage of Apollo 12's Saturn V was supposed to escape Earth's gravity and get into Solar orbit, but it didn't go fast enough, so it stayed in a strange orbit around the Earth. It was actually thought to be an asteroid, and was given the name J002E3 until it was found to be a man-made object.

#12: Apollo 13 is famous because it went so wrong. Most people believe that just the oxygen tank exploded, but that set off chain reactions, and many other things went wrong. First, Oxygen tank 2 exploded, leading to a main bus B undervolt. Then, having to move to the LM, which was designed for 2 people in 4 days, and not 3 people for 8 days, ran out of carbon dioxide filters. They had to make a homemade one. Then, they found out that there wouldn't be enough water and other consumables for the trip back. Then, they found that there wasn't enough power to boot the Command Module back up for reentry. Finally they made it home safe against impossible odds.

#13: Apollo 15 was the first time there was a lunar buggy on the Moon. For the first time, there were two guys driving around on the Moon.

#14: Apollo 17 was the last Apollo mission, and they had a geologist as part of the crew!

I hope you enjoyed these fun facts. I'll see you all next time!