NASA Surveyor: First Lunar Landing

it is january 10th and 54 years ago today nasa's surveyor 7 landed on the moon was the last landing for a program that was vital to america's apollo program the effort to place a man on the moon the surveyor program represented america's first successful lunar landing in the some 87 000 pictures that were sent home from a surveyor spacecraft dramatically improved our understanding of earth's closest neighbor and only natural satellite while the program is little remembered today the surveyor program was at one point a critical part of the cold war contest called the space race that deserves to be remembered the competition that would come to be known as the space race officially began in the summer of 1955 when representatives of both the united states and the soviet union publicly announced their national intent to launch artificial earth satellites in the near future the space race came to characterize the period called the cold war competition over achievements in space exploration came to represent the competing economic systems and ideologies of the united states and the soviet union with resulting national prestige affecting geopolitical conflicts both hot and cold throughout the world the space race was certainly more than about science the primary tools of space exploration rockets were the delivery system for nuclear bombs as well as to play satellites with a host of applications both commercial and military in fact among all the various interests driving national investments in space exploration science was often pushed surprisingly to the back and yet almost despite itself the scientific endeavor of exploration managed to accomplish actual science with a host of soviet and u.s programs that studied the earth near earth planets solar phenomena and our closest neighbor the moon a significant milestone in the space race came on october 4th 1957 when the soviet union launched sputnik 1 the world's first artificial earth satellite surprising the administration of dwight eisenhower the concern raised in the u.s of the soviets beating the americans into space has come to be called the sputnik crisis a preliminary evaluation presented to eisenhower and dated october 16th concluded public opinion will for a period that cannot be forecast be narrowly assessing the relative military positions of the u.s and the ussr and the ussr will in this same period have a clear advantage in the cold war which it can exploit for either peaceful gestures or ventures at increased pressures or both simultaneously perhaps most disturbing to eisenhower was that the u.s had the capability to launch a satellite much earlier but chose not to in a memorandum of a conference with the president dated october 9th donald quarles assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering admitted to eisenhower that there was no doubt that had the redstone rocket being developed for military use been used the us could have orbited the satellite a year or more ago but the secretary explained the science advisory committee had felt that it was better to have the earth satellite proceed separately from military development one result of the crisis was a shift in how the us pursued space exploration on january 14 1958 the director of national advisory committee for aeronautics the u.s federal organization responsible for undertaking and promoting aeronautical research wrote and report that it is of great urgency and importance to our country both from our consideration of our prestige as a nation as well as military necessity that the challenge of sputnik be met by an energetic program of research and development for the conquest of space it is accordingly proposed that the scientific research be the responsibility of a national civilian agency in april eisenhower proposed the creation of a national civilian space agency that would take over the assets of the national advisory committee on aeronautics that would expand the organization's research role to include large-scale development management and operations the agency thus created by the resulting act of congress was the national aeronautics and space administration or nasa a primary focus of the new administration was manned space flight there was so much activity in space exploration between the launching of sputnik and the first manned mission to the moon with apollo 11 in 1969 that sometimes the multiple programs seem to get lost in the mix nearly forgotten by the societies who funded them and one of those was nasa's surveyor program the first american spacecraft to successfully make a soft landing on an extraterrestrial body yet the 469 million dollar program was at one point a critical part of the space race and a necessary part of the process of trying to safely land a human on the face of the moon the surveyor program was highly impacted by another soviet first on april 12 1961 the soviet union again surprised the united states and the world when it announced that it had launched pilot yuri gregaron into space where he completed an orbit before being safely returned to earth the soviets had beaten the objective of america's mercury program newly elected president john kennedy who had been lukewarm on the priority of spending for space exploration embarrassed by the soviet successes as well as under political pressure following the failed bay of pigs invasion decided that there was a political need for the united states to demonstrate our technical superiority in space consulting with vice president lyndon johnson who was chairman of the national aeronautics and space council nasa leadership and other experts kennedy sought a goal in space exploration that there was a realistic chance the us could achieve before the soviet union the conclusion was that the u.s had no chance of placing a station in space ahead of the soviets were unlikely to be able to have a manned mission to orbit the moon ahead of the soviets but the u.s had a reasonable chance of being able to place a human on the moon ahead of the soviets such a program however would be expensive nasa administrator james webb estimated a cost of 22 billion dollars in may the president proposed to congress that the united states should commit itself to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth before the end of the decade the nation was unconvinced many considered the space race to already have been lost others saw better use of the billions of dollars it would cost and still others objected that the civilian effort was getting in the way of military development still kennedy's goal of placing a man on the moon before the end of the 1960s would direct national efforts in a speech on national space policy at rice university on september 12 1962 he famously said we choose to go to the moon in this decade and do other things not because they are easy but because they are hard because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept when we are unwilling to postpone and one we intend to win kennedy's goal would have a significant impact on a program that nasa had started investigating the previous year the surveyor program had been started by nasa's jet propulsion laboratory in the spring of 1960. it was an ambitious program that originally envisioned 17 missions to land robotic spacecraft on the moon aerospace historian william melberg explained in 2014 it was originally envisioned as a scientific probe designed to answer some of the long-standing questions about the origin and nature of the moon projects of air would include orbiters and landers the former intended to map the moon in unprecedented detail and the latter designed to investigate its surface but the mission of the program changed with kennedy's goal melbourne continues when president kennedy committed the united states to a man lunar mission by the end of the decade surveyor soon became a supporting player in the apollo program blazing a trail to the moon for future astronauts the 2020 book the surveyor program the history and legacy of nasa's first successful moon landing missions by charles river and editors explains the goals of the program to prove that the lunar surface was a place where landing could safely be made to show that a spacecraft could reliably be launched from earth and reach a defined destination on the moon and to prove that guidance and descent systems could reliably and safely land a spacecraft on the surface of the moon the first goal was more vexing than you might imagine melbourne explains that his father frank melberg was responsible for the development of a sophisticated zoom lens for the surveyor landers he quoted his father i soon realized that nobody really knew what the moon's surface was like i was told that some scientists believe the surface might be volcanic rock rugged and hard others said that the material would have the consistency of portland cement powdery but firm and a few thought that surveyor might sink into 12 feet of loose dust thus surveyor was not just a test for landing systems but a test of a fundamentally important question was the surface of the moon actually capable of supporting a spacecraft melbourne continues the experts were still arguing amongst themselves about what we could expect to find on the moon because the biggest telescopes on earth were unable to resolve any detail smaller than a quarter of a mile in diameter in fact surveyor was not the first program intended to discover the nature of the moon's surface and determine whether it was suitable for landing a man's spacecraft the 100 million dollar ranger program had started launching probes in august of 1961. unlike surveyor the ranger program was not testing capabilities of a soft landing rather the ranger probes would simply crash into the moon while the probe would be destroyed on impact before crashing would transmit detailed close-up images of the lunar surface rangers 7 8 and 9 had successfully set back photos of potential landing sites but the photos weren't enough as the severe program notes the pictures provided by the ranger spacecraft were very helpful but they didn't actually prove that it would be possible to land on the moon while the photos show that the potential landing sites were indeed flat and not craggy volcanic rock ranger could not answer the question of whether the surface was comprised of a layer of dust that might bury a spacecraft perhaps most distressing though was the fate of the first five ranger probes probes one and two had suffered launch failures and burned up as they re-entered the atmosphere nasa had lost control of probe 4 which crashed without transmitting any pictures ranger 6 landed as expected but the cameras malfunctioned rangers 3 and 5 had simply missed the moon altogether leaving in doubt the surveyor program's goal proving that a spacecraft could reliably be launched from earth and reach a defined destination on the moon the severe program was significantly more complex than the goals of the ranger program the surveyor program was testing whether a spacecraft could be softly landed on the moon intact of course something that would be critically important if we wanted to send a manned mission and something far more difficult than simply crashing a spacecraft into the moon and yet two-thirds of the ranger spacecraft had failed to successfully do even that and then as the mission was nearing its first launch the russians surprised us once again on february 3rd 1966 months before the first surveyor probe was scheduled to launch the soviet union announced that its luna 9 mission had successfully made a soft landing on the moon and transmitted back panoramic pictures from the surface of the moon the surveyor program notes this was devastating news many designers at nasa's jet propulsion laboratory wondered if the surveyor program was a step too far and yet the soviets who most americans thought were not as advanced in their technology had already done so successfully were the soviets actually closer to a manned mission to the moon than the united states certainly the imperative for a successful surveyor launch was greater than ever the launch vehicle for the severe program was the atlas centaur each spacecraft weighed approximately 650 pounds around 10 feet tall the scent would be controlled by the burst of a solid fuel retro rocket and then by small hydrazine engines controlled by doppler radar the engines would cut out about 10 feet above the lunar surface and the craft would glide down constructed of aluminum tubing the tripod shaped craft's legs included shock absorbers to absorb landing impact strain gauges sent telemetry back to earth to assess the force of the impact each spacecraft could include a solar panel and a battery were designed to be able to carry an array of scientific instruments as well as state-of-the-art video camera capable of taking both 200 line and 600 line resolution pictures and other scientific payloads the surveyor program notes to achieve a controlled descent to the learner's surface without human intervention while a quarter of a million miles away would mean taking 1960s technology to its very limits the surveyor spacecraft in addition to representing an important step on the way to the apollo missions was at the time the most advanced vehicle ever created surveyor 1 was launched at 10 41 am on may 30th 1966. the brooklyn faced significant technical obstacles a program director for hughes aerospace the contractor that had built the spacecraft had told a reporter that odds were a thousand to one against the successful landing with nasa and the nation in desperate need of a success in the space race the launch was picture perfect and after a trip of some 250 000 miles approximately 63 hours and 30 minutes after takeoff playing live on national television surveyor one landed successfully the first soft landing of american spacecraft on an extraterrestrial body severe one transmitted a total of 11 240 photographs and acquired data vital to the apollo program on the radar reflectivity of the lunar surface bearing strength of the lunar surface and spacecraft temperatures for use in the analysis of the lunar surface temperatures while there was some question whether the craft would withstand the extreme temperatures of a single lunar night it continued to send and receive data well past its anticipated life span until january 7 1967 america and nasa had an unqualified success on live television surveyor 7 the last of the severe program craft landed 54 years ago today despite some difficulties with equipment the craft was able to conduct all its experiments including surface sampling to determine the major elements of the lunar surface the mission is considered to be a complete success it was later revealed that the soviet luna 9 probe had used an inflatable balloon at the end of the landing in order to cushion the spacecraft's landing well that allowed the first soft landing on the moon it was never a practical system that could have been used for a manned program that is to say the soviets were farther away from a successful manned mission to the moon than the americans realized in november 1969 apollo 12 landed close enough to the landing site of surveyor 3 that astronauts could walk to the spacecraft and recover parts from it that were then used to determine effects of two and a half years of exposure on the moon's surface nasa launched seven surveyor spacecraft five of which had successful missions surveyors two and five crashed after technical difficulties in all the five successful missions operated on the moon for a total of 17 months conducting important scientific experiments and investigating the chemical composition of the surface of the moon surveyor spacecraft managed a number of important firsts including the first astronomical observations from the surface of the moon the first color images of the earth from the moon in the first chemical analysis of lunar soil apollo 17 astronaut harris schmidt said of the surveyor program each of them was critical to development of the apollo spacecraft and equipment project surveyor removed any doubt that it was possible for an american to land on the moon i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide short snippets of forgotten history and if you did enjoy feed the algorithm by making a comment or clicking that like button if you have suggestions for future episodes please send those to our suggestions email box check out our webpage at thehistoryguy.net and of course we're on facebook instagram and twitter you can book a special message from the history guy on cameo and check out our merchandise teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes of forgotten history all you need to do is subscribe [Music]

Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 84,190

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, NASA

Id: 4c4dH9neC_w

Length: 15min 37sec (937 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 10 2022