North American Aviation Historic Films

[catdlr]

The Apollo Mission ~ 1963 North American Aviation - NASA; Project Apollo Moon Mission Overview

Jeff Quitney
Published on Dec 1, 2017


Slideshow "animated". Shows the principal steps to be taken by NASA to place men on the moon and return them safely to Earth. The sound on this one is atrocious, but I posted it anyway due to the very interesting early Apollo graphics.

Project Apollo, the American space program to land men on the moon, originated in 1960. On July 28-29, 1960, the Apollo program was announced to US industry representatives. On September 1, The Apollo Project Office was formed under the Space Task Group (STG) Flight Systems Division. In late October, Convair, GE and Martin were selected to prepare feasibility studies for the Apollo spacecraft.

    Numerous committees were formed within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to develop lunar mission concepts. On February 7, 1961, the final report of the Low Committee (Manned Lunar Landing Task Group) outlined "A Plan for Manned Lunar Landing" within the decade using either Earth Orbit Rendezvous (EOR) or direct ascent technique.

    On May 5, STG completed the first draft of Apollo spacecraft specifications, and on May 22, the 2nd draft was completed. On May 25, President Kennedy proposed a manned lunar landing within the decade to Congress. On June 10, the Lundin Committee recommended the Earth Orbit Rendezvous method using the conceptual Saturn C-3 (S-IB-2 4x F-1; S-II-C3 2x J-2; S-IV 6x RL-10) launch vehicle to accomplish the manned lunar landing mission.

    In August, the Heaton Committee (Ad Hoc Task Group for Study of Manned Lunar Landing by Rendezvous Techniques) recommended Earth Orbit Rendezvous using the conceptual Saturn C-4 (S-IB-4 4x F-1; S-II-4 4x J-2; S-IVB 1x J-2) for the manned lunar landing.

On November 1, 1961, the Space Task Group was renamed as the Manned Spacecraft Center. On November 28, North American Aviation was selected as the principal contractor for the Apollo spacecraft under MSC direction. In December, the configuration of the Saturn C-5 (Saturn-V) launch vehicle was determined. Boeing had been chosen as prime contractor for the first stage, and Douglas Aircraft as prime contractor for the third stage.

    The prime contractor for the 2nd stage was not announced until November 7, 1962: North Amerian Aviation (NAA). This choice was surprising, because NAA had already received the Apollo Command & Service Module contract, and because the Rocketdyne division of NAA was the prime contractor for the F-1 and J-2 engines which would power all three stages of the Saturn V launch vehicle.

    America's first manned orbital flight was accomplished by John Glenn in the Mercury spacecraft Friendship 7 on February 20, 1962. In March, the Apollo Spacecraft Project Office was relocated to the Manned Spacecraft Center near Houston, Texas, and on July 20, NASA announced that the Mission Control Center for Apollo would be located at the Manned Spacecraft Center.

    On July 11, 1962, NASA announced that the Lunar Orbit Rendezvous mode would be used the manned lunar landing mission and that the Saturn C-IB (Saturn IB) launch vehicle would be developed to test the Apollo spacecraft in Earth orbit missions.

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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).

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Update: Alternate video source to replace Jeff Quitney former YT account that was suspended.
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[Vahe231991]

Found this 1960s promo film from North American Aviation regarding the S-II rocket stage of the Saturn V rocket: