NASA AMES CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE APOLLO MOON MISSIONS

The Apollo encounter with our moon was one of the defining events of 
the last century. Apollo forever changed the way we look at the moon, 
at the Earth and at NASA. Anyone over the age of 30 can look up at 
the moon today and personally remember that 12 men once walked there. 
They can recall how thrilling were those late-night, black-and-white 
images of the small plots of lunar soil around where the lunar 
landers camped. For those under 30--and that includes some holding 
PhDs in space science, and some with star-struck kids of their 
own--they learned that the last man to have trod the lunar landscape 
did so before they were even born. When these youngsters think about 
the moon and wonder why we have only returned to the moon twice since 
then, once through a robotic probe developed by NASA researchers at 
Ames, perhaps they conclude that that early generation of explorers 
found the moon an even more barren rock than they had imagined. 
Apollo changed how we think about our moon. 
-Glenn E. Bugos

FOR IMAGE PUBLICATION SIZES, visit: Image Archive



America's lunar spacecraft, Apollo, will return to the Earth's 
atmosphere at much higher speeds than those experienced by a 
satellite returning from orbit. It will experience heating much more 
intense as a direct consequence of its higher speed. Research to 
understand and conquer the heating problem for Apollo is moving 
forward rapidly at Ames Research Center in facilities like the 
Combined Radiative-Convective Heating Simulator. While convective 
heating is important for entering satellites, radiative heating grows 
more serious at higher speeds. Hence NASA scientists have devised a 
research implement in which both kinds of heating can be directed 
upon a test model at the same time. Intense radiation is generated by 
an electrical arc of the kind used in theater-type motion picture 
projectors. At the same, an air stream charged with energy from a 
separate electric arc source is driven over the test specimen. The 
intense radiation which results is apparent in the photograph. 
Through their ability to vary each type of heating independently, 
NASA scientists are better equipped to obtain fundamental knowledge 
of heating vital to the success of manned missions into space.


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Photo by Apollo 14 Crew Astronaut Alan B. Shepard standing with 
American flag on lunar surface January 31, 1971 










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Apollo 11 Astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin homeward bound, inside the 
ascent stage of the Lunar Module just after taking off from the Moon, 
start the first leg of their return trip to Earth, shown above the 
curving lunar surface.  







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Apollo crew landing site showing S-band antenna, the Lunar module 
Surveyor II and American flag November 14, 1969. 










NASA AMES APOLLO RESEARCH


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Apollo capsule Free flight Ablation Test (Test-9, Run-11 and Run-13) 
for blunt body re-entry studies (August 20, 1963)







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Apollo Lunar Surface Magnetometer (1-r) Dr. Palmer Dyal, NASA and Dr. 
C. Sonnet. NASA ALSEP Magnetometer (October 16, 1969)










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Apollo navigation simulator, used to test concepts for midcourse 
correction on the Voyage to and from he Moon (August 30, 1962)







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Steerable parachute for Apollo vehicle configure #107. Cluster #1 (One 
# 107 Leading, Two #114 Pushing (June 20, 1963)










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Apollo launch escape system being tested in the Ames unitary wind 
tunnel (1963)






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H. Julian Allen, a paradigm-shifting aerodynamicist, served as Ames 
director during the Apollo years.











NASA AMES ANALYZES MOON SAMPLES


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Dr. Cyril Ponnamperuma analyzing a moon sample 










RELATED LINKS

Atmosphere of Freedom-Sixty Years at the NASA Ames Research Center 
excerpts
Searching the Horizon, A History of Ames Research Center 1940-1976 
excerpts
Adventures with Apollo excerpts
Astrogram Archive: For 45 Years, Ames Pioneers NASA Science and 
Technology
Image Archive: Moon Missions

HISTORIC APOLLO PRESS RELEASES

Clues To Origin Of The Moon Will Come From Study Of The First Lunar 
Sample
Scientists Will Look For Evidence of Life in Lunar Samples at Ames

	
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