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Project Apollo Digest: "The Lunar Module" ~ 1967 NASA Moon Landing Vehicle Overview
🕑 Added 2019-07-12 04:37:29 +0000 UTCmore at http://quickfound.net/
Overview of the Lunar Module, the Apollo program Moon landing spacecraft.
Originally a public domain film, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Lunar_Module
Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
The Apollo Lunar Module, or simply lunar module (LM, pronounced "Lem"), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lander spacecraft that was flown from lunar orbit to the Moon's surface during the U.S. Apollo program. It was the first crewed spacecraft to operate exclusively in the airless vacuum of space, and remains the only crewed vehicle to land anywhere beyond Earth.
Structurally and aerodynamically incapable of flight through Earth's atmosphere, the Apollo Lunar Module was ferried to lunar orbit attached to the Apollo spacecraft command and service module (CSM), about twice its mass. Its crew of two flew the LM from lunar orbit to the surface and later back to the command module, whereupon it was discarded.
Overseen by Grumman Aircraft, the LM's development was plagued with problems that delayed its first uncrewed flight by about ten months and its first crewed flight by about three months. Still, the LM eventually became the most reliable component of the Apollo/Saturn space vehicle, the only component never to suffer a failure that could not be corrected in time to prevent abort of a landing mission.
Ten lunar modules were launched into space. Of these, six landed humans on the Moon between 1969 and 1972. The first two launched were test flights in low Earth orbit—the first without a crew, the second with one. Another was used by Apollo 10 for a "dress rehearsal" flight in low lunar orbit, without landing. One lunar module functioned as a "lifeboat" for the crew of Apollo 13, providing life support and propulsion when their CSM was disabled by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon, forcing the crew to abandon plans for landing.
The total cost of the LM for development and the units produced was $21.3 billion in 2016 dollars, adjusting from a nominal total of $2.2 billion using the NASA New Start Inflation Indices. The six landed descent stages remain intact where they landed; one ascent stage (Apollo 10's) is in heliocentric orbit. All the other LMs that flew either crashed into the Moon or burned up in the Earth's atmosphere...
