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Docking Bay 23 First Men to the Moon Ship The world had changed dramatically after October 1957. Prior to that date the problem had been getting people interested in space exploration. After that date, because of the first satellite being Russian, there was no need to interest people. Space flight had our attention. Now the major problem was deciding how to do it quickly.
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Just after the Russians had launched Sputnik, von Braun was asked to do a story for This Week Magazine to tell how we could get a man to the moon in the very near future. For the sake of economy and speed, when Dr. von Braun wrote the article First Men To The Moon he downsized his previous moon exploration proposals of carrying dozens of men to the moon to a single ship carrying two men.
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It was this design that was very similar to the eventual Apollo program that would actually land a man on the moon in the next decade. Between 1958 and 1960 when these stories appeared, this spaceship was the latest technology using the best chemically driven engines available.
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It consisted of a five stage rocket with the final stage being a delta winged airplane which would serve as the living quarters, control center, and return vehicle. The third fourth and fifth stages would make it to the moon. When the ship left the moon, it would use its fourth stage to get out of lunar gravity and the fifth stage would come home. It's interesting to note that in this design once again, when landing on the moon, von Braun depends on his center spike to support the ship and four outrigger legs to stabilize it. This shows the amount of concern for our lack of knowledge of what the moon’s surface would be like.
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This series of articles, illustrated by Fred Freeman, displayed von Braun's in-depth knowledge of how to design a ship that would travel to another planet.
Links to Additional information available in the Trade Zone.
A Precision Design Drawing of this Spaceship -----------------------------------------
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Complete background information is available in the Spaceship Handbook
Click on Image to LEARN MORE or BUY NOW.
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This Spaceship is also featured in “Ad Astra per Aspera”
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