Page 11 - Apollo Moonships

The Tools for The job 9
THE MOONSHIPS
The design of a spacecraft capable of traveling to the moon began in 1961. The spacecraft should be able to sustain three astronauts for at least two weeks,
as well as develop multiple tasks such as orbiting
the moon, dispatching a small module to the lunar surface, collecting the module when returned from the moon, and bringing the astronauts back to Earth. Building this spacecraft represented a real technological challenge; however, the most serious problem was the development of the
lunar module, which consisted of two separate components with independent engines: one for descent to the moon and the other to
lift off from the lunar surface. After eight years of technological development and
test programs, the engineers finally built two spacecrafts: the Apollo mother ship, formed by the Command-
Service Module (CSM), and the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), which consisted of a descent stage and an ascent stage.