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[b]NASA's Moon Program[/b] Paving the Way for Apollo 11 It is impractical to cover all the strands of this effort in a single volume in equal detail. Nor can any given strand be properly appreciated in isolation. My approach is therefore to write a series of books, each of which applies a magnifying glass to a certain number of strands and glosses over others. This book focuses on what was known about the Moon at the dawn of the space age and details the robotic projects that paved the way for the first Apollo lunar landing, in particular the Surveyors that soft-landed to investigate the physical and chemical nature of the lunar surface and the Lunar Orbiters sent to reconnoitre possible landing sites. I used the mission reports as my primary source of information - there are many thousands of pages available on the NASA Technical Report Server. Millions of dollars were spent developing and flying the vehicles used to take close-up pictures of the Moon and, like the mission reports, until recently they remained in archives. I have assembled some of the contiguous photographic sequences taken by the Lunar Orbiters to illustrate the process by which the site for the first Apollo landing was selected. To my knowledge, they have never previously been made available to the public in this form [b]Contents[/b] [list=1][*]Astronomers' Moon Classical philosophers The Renaissance in astronomy Early telescopic impressions of the Moon Mapping the Moon The surface material [*]Geologists' Moon Early ideas about lunar craters A different point of view Stratigraphic mapping Whence the Moon? [*]The space age dawns Missiles and space Satellite shock America tries for the Moon Soviet lunar flyby NASA embraces lunar science More Soviet successes [*]Preparing Ranger Firming up the plan Management issues The spacecraft Deep-space tracking [*]The Apollo commitment The role of man in space Kennedy's challenge Rangers for Apollo Apollo underway [*]Ranger struggles Stranded Lunar flyby Lobotomy Power failure TV failure [*]Ranger triumphs Success at last Repeat performance TV spectacular Mission accomplished [*]Soviet activity The second generation Filling in the gap On the surface In lunar orbit [*]Developing Lunar Orbiter Changing horses Boeing wins Mission objectives The spacecraft [*]On the surface "My God, it landed!" Tumbling out of control [*]The Apollo zone Reconnaissance flights Apollo site short-list [*]Scratching the Moon A bouncy landing Outcome unknown [*]Orbiters for science Global mapping Scientific targets Wrapping up [*]Tasting the Moon A risky descent On the meridian Inferences about the maria The southern highlands Roving plans [*]Apollo development Organisation Plans and schedules Early unmanned testing The Gemini legacy Setback and recovery [*]Apollo picks up the pace Moon rocket A spectacular 'all up' test The first LM A daring plan Boring holes in the sky Men orbit the Moon! The Spider Dress rehearsal End game Index[/list]
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