On today’s blog, where we’ll be blasting off into outer space to discuss some of history's famous moon landings along with some of the more recent landings and plans to explore the moon. Don’t worry we won’t be going into any crazy conspiracy theories about how Apollo 11 didn’t happen and it was all filmed in a Hollywood basement. We are exploring real history here!
Moon Landing
Hopefully all of us have heard about the moon landing in 1969. In case you need a refresher, I’ll quickly summarize. In 1969, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin were the first Americans to land on the moon. This mission, named Apollo 11, was the first manned space mission to the moon. At this time the Soviet Union had already launched a man made craft to the moon. President John Kennedy wanted America to be the first to have a human land on the moon and we did. To many, this ended the Space Race with the Soviet Union. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first human men to step foot on the moon. Neil Armstrong is of course famous for his “one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” However in the official Apollo 11 transcript Neil wrote he actually said, “One small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind.”
There is also the Apollo 13 mission that is likely more widely known. This is the one where the crew managed to survive after one of the oxygen tanks exploded on their way to the moon.
During the Apollo missions, six of these missions contained a crew that landed on the moon. Each one did different studies to learn as much as they could. They left behind nuclear-powered scientific instruments which continue to send data back to Earth. Due to the expenses of the Vietnam War, lack of enthusiasm for public support, and the growing sense of environmental crises, the Apollo missions shut down in December of 1972 with Apollo 17. The Apollo 17 mission is when the crew collected the oldest known un-shocked lunar rock. This suggested to researchers that the moon had a magnetic field created by a celestial body, such as Earth or a star, somewhere in its past.
So this was originally supposed to be several different topics in one post, but as I dug into the research of moon landings I totally went down my typical rabbit hole. But I learned some cool stuff that I wanted to share! To start with, I did look up how much an astronaut makes. I first started with the Apollo 11 mission for their first landing on the moon and they were paid $17,000 per year which would be about $137,000 in today’s money. Meanwhile astronauts today for NASA are paid $104,898 per year, but can increase their pay up to $161,000 per year. In all of the Apollo missions a total of 12 astronauts landed on the moon for research. Elon Musk has said he would be willing to pay his astronauts up to $500,000 for a trip to Mars.
I wanted to learn more about more recent studies and moon landings to see what else was going on out there. I learned that China went to the moon in 2013, making it the 3rd nation to make a landing on the moon. But it wasn’t just this moon landing that stuck out to me. China launched another mission in 2018 in which an unmanned spacecraft was to land on the dark-side of the moon. The moon’s crust is much thicker and older on the far side. It also contains more, deeper craters than that of the side we can see. The spacecraft landed on January 3, 2019.
This recent mission placed a rover that transmits data to a satellite China also launched that orbits the moon which can then relay information back to Earth. This is why not much was known about the dark side of the moon because the moon blocks signals to Earth from that side. The rover contains a ground-penetrating radar to probe subsurface structures. It also uses low-frequency radio astronomy which listens for any faint signals that might be out in the universe since the beginning of the first stars. The craziest part is that it also contains a minuscule biosphere that was developed by Chinese universities. It is studying the low-gravity interaction of a number of plants and silkworms.
Recently, China also launched another mission in which they performed a complex sample return mission. According to Space.com, the director of CNSA’s Lunar Exploration and Space Program Center. CNSA stands for China National Space Administration. China is also studying the possibility of manned moon landings sometime after 2025.
So after completing the research for this episode, I was scrolling Twitter and found that the History Channel is working on a new series called Bermuda Triangle: Into Cursed Waters. Now I know what you’re thinking, what does this have to do with the moon landings. Well while filming for the series, divers looking for World War II shipwrecks, they stumbled upon wreckage from the Challenger. For those that needed a refresher, the Challenger was a 1986 space shuttle carrying 9 astronauts, one of which was a teacher from New Hampshire. It was the first space shuttle to carry a civilian. Tragically the space shuttle disintegrated 73 seconds into flight. By law, any space shuttle remains belongs to the US government. As this was just discovered November 11, 2022, there is not much else known other than the discovery. So maybe in a future podcast we can cover what else they discover from the wreckage!
In other more recent news, China had launched a spacecraft to the moon in November of 2022. It landed the first of December and brought back moon samples on December 16, 2022. Chang’e-5 mission landed on the northwest side of the moon by the dark side but more in the dark gray area. This was the first moon sample returned to Earth since 1976 from the Soviet Union. Since this is so new there’s not much information of what all they’ve found. One article I read said the moon sample that was brought back dates back only 1.2 billion years. It launched back to the moon shortly after it’s return to continue studies.
And there you have the hi-story of our current times on the moon! We hope you enjoyed our journey through the history of moon landings. From the groundbreaking Apollo 11 mission to the less successful attempts, it's clear that landing on the moon was no easy feat.
Alright before we sign off, any crazy conspiracy theories we should cover?
But whether you believe in the moon landing conspiracy theories or not, one thing is for sure: humans have achieved some pretty incredible things when we work together and push the limits of what's possible.
We hope you had a blast with us on this space adventure, and we can't wait to take you on another wild ride through history in our next episode. Don't forget to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform, and be sure to tune in next time for more laughs, fun facts, and surprising insights. Also don’t forget to follow us on social media for random facts and national holidays! Thanks for joining us on "Hi-Stories," where history is always out of this world! We'll be back with more fascinating stories from the past soon, but until then remember to laugh when you can. It’s cheap medicine for the soul! We out!
To hear our hilarious retelling of this story, check out our podcast on all major platforms by searching "Hi-Stories". Or listen here on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/49Cc7OAmP0dbVYpqT8nSLl?si=189913b3cedd4995
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