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Apollo Missions facts

While investigating facts about Apollo Missions To The Moon and Apollo Missions List, I found out little known, but curios details like:

The American flag deployed on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission was inserted only seven inches deep and was placed about 27 feet from the Eagle landing craft. As a result, it was blown over by the blast of the rocket exhaust during the takeoff back to Earth.

how apollo missions were there?

Neil Armstrong before leaving for the Apollo 11 Space mission signed hundreds of autographs and had them dropped in the mail on the exact date of their moon mission, in case he died during the mission and his family could monetize his autographs.

What apollo missions failed?

In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what apollo missions blew up. Here are 50 of the best facts about Apollo Missions In Order and Apollo Missions Timeline I managed to collect.

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  1. The drink mix Tang wasn't created by or for NASA. It was introduced in 1957 but sold poorly until the U.S. space agency used it for John Glenn's 1962 Mercury mission. Tang was then marketed as what the astronauts drank, but Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin later said, "Tang sucks."

  2. The astronauts aboard Apollo 11 couldn't afford the life insurance policy for an astronaut, so they hatched an alternate plan. Prior to their mission, the three signed hundreds of autographs while under quarantine for their families to sell if anything were to happen to them.

  3. In the novel, Forrest Gump goes to space on a NASA mission. It crash lands on an island where he's stuck for years. These scenes weren't in the movie, but Tom Hanks did go on to star in Apollo 13 and Castaway.

  4. There is only one photo of Neil Armstrong on the surface of the moon during the Apollo 11 mission but his back is to the camera, rendering it unusable & as a result, all of the widely circulated/most iconic photos of an Apollo 11 astronaut on the moon are actually of Buzz Aldrin.

  5. Preventing an abort of the Apollo 11 mission has been attributed to the work of Margaret Hamilton, the lead flight software designer for Project Apollo. She was 31 when the lunar module landed on the moon, running her code, and is credited for coining the term “software engineering.”

  6. There are four bags of astronaut poop on the moon left behind from Neil Armstrong on his Apollo mission to the moon.

  7. Thad Roberts, a former intern at NASA, who served a 6 year sentence in a federal prison after having sex with his girlfriend on a bed full of stolen moon rocks gathered from the Apollo 11 moon landing mission

  8. Astronaut John Young got really bad flatulence from drinking orange juice during the Apollo 16 mission to the moon. Unknowingly, he broadcast this fact to the world. "I have the farts again. I got them again, Charlie."

  9. All the 360 kilogrammes of lunar soil samples brought back from the Apollo missions have now rusted after corroding their vacuum bottle seals and being exposed to water and oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere.

  10. During a critical moment in the Apollo 13 mission the Soviet Union discontinued radio transmissions in the frequency bands used by Apollo to prevent radio interference

apollo missions facts
What apollo missions went to the moon?

Apollo Missions data charts

For your convenience take a look at Apollo Missions figures with stats and charts presented as graphic.

apollo missions fact data chart about Explore the Apollo Missions on the Moon's surface in this 3D
Explore the Apollo Missions on the Moon's surface in this 3D map I made [link below]

apollo missions fact data chart about Messages sent through Apollo 13 Mission. Hour where explosio
Messages sent through Apollo 13 Mission. Hour where explosion occurred highlighted in red

Why apollo missions stopped?

You can easily fact check why apollo missions end by examining the linked well-known sources.

The Apollo astronauts were denied life insurance. So before each mission, they would autograph hundreds of pictures that their families could sell in case they died.

Both of Jack Black's parents were Aerospace Engineers who worked on the Apollo 11 mission. - source

Apollo 11, 14 and 15 missions have left mirrors on the surface of the Moon to calculate the distance between the Earth and the Moon by aiming a laser at them. Scientists have confirmed that the Moon is spiraling away from Earth at a rate of 3.8 cm per year. - source

NASA had an accident while testing spacesuits for the Apollo moon missions, and caught it on camera. The test subject was accidentally depressurized while in a vacuum chamber, and lost consciousness and experienced his own spit boiling. The team took nearly a minute to save him from the chamber.

The fabric and wood pieces from the Wright Brothers airplane were flown on the Apollo 11 mission and were in the lunar module Eagle that landed on the Moon with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. - source

When did the apollo missions start?

Duct tape has been brought on every NASA mission since the sixties and saved the lives of everyone aboard the Apollo 13

How many apollo missions were there?

A NASA engineer named Jack Garman, memorized all the possible error codes of Apollo 11 and saved the mission from being aborted!

Apollo 12 astronaut Alan L Bean accidentally destroyed the mission's TV camera by pointing it at the sun, left several rolls of exposed film on the moon by mistake, and was hit on the head by a 16mm film camera when the crew splashed down on Earth.

Apollo 12 was struck by lightning during launch and was on the verge of being aborted before a single Flight Controller realised that flipping a little known switch would restore enough systems to save the mission.

Richard Nixon cancelled the last three Apollo missions and did not fund any successor program, effectively ending NASA's plan for a 100 person space station

The Apollo 11 crew Niel Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins didn't add their names to the mission patch because they wanted the patch to represent everyone involved with mission

When did the apollo missions end?

Neil Armstrong's boots are still on the moon along with all the others from the Apollo missions. This was to reduce the weight they had to bring back. The silicone and synthetic fabrics have probably off-gassed and degraded so they'd likely turn to powder if touched.

In 1971 David Scott smuggled a 'Fallen Astronaut' sculpture onto the Apollo 15 lunar mission and placed it on the Moon's surface to "commemorate the astronauts and cosmonauts who have died in the advancement of space exploration."

J002E3, originally thought to be an asteroid orbiting the Earth, is actually part of the Apollo 12 mission that returned to Earth orbit after 31 years of orbiting the Sun

Ron Howard directed his first feature film for Roger Corman, famous for squeezing production budgets. Years later on Apollo 13 he cast Corman as a senator who complains about the high cost of moon missions.

Over 14,000 high-resolution photos from Apollo missions 7 to 17 have been uploaded to Flickr by a group of enthusiasts, scanned from the original astronauts' camera film magazines.

How many apollo missions?

The crew of the Apollo 15 moon mission took 398 unauthorised postage stamp covers to the moon with them, with the intention of selling 100 of them to a German stamp dealer who provided them. When discovered, NASA re-assigned all the astronauts involved to non-flight roles.

After NASA retrieved a stolen lunar sample collection bag from the 1969 apollo 11 moon mission, they inadvertently sold it at auction to a private collector for $995 in 2015. after going to court and losing their case & ownership, the collector sold the bag at auction for $1.8 million in 2017.

On APOLLO mission 14, Alan Shepard smuggled in a custom made 6 iron golf club head which attached to a rock collector, and proceeded to hit 2 gold balls on the lunar surface.

After Lunar Module saved astronauts on Apollo 13 mission, it's company sent a bill for $312,421.24 for towing services (as a joke) to company who made malfunctioned service module, and they in response declined payment stating last 3 times they carried Lunar Module for free.

In 1971, the crew of Apollo 15 carried about 400 unauthorized postal covers to the Moon in order to be sold. Because the astronauts were paid $7000 each even though they returned the money, they were accused of profiting from their mission and never allowed to fly in space again.

During the Apollo 15 mission, astronaut David Scott carried out a version of the classic Galileo's hypothesis by dropping a feather and a steel hammer at the same time on the surface of the moon. The objects took the same amount of time falling and there by proving the hypothesis.

The Apollo 11 mission was so risky, Nixon had a speech ready in case the astronauts were left to die on the moon.

A NASA intern stole lunar samples from the Apollo mission, arranged them on his bed and literally had "sex on the moon" with his girlfriend.

Moon dust is so abrasive it actually wore through 3 layers of Kevlar in a space suit during the Apollo 17 mission

One of the missions Apollo 15's crew did in the moon was to make an experiment, using a feather and hammer, to demonstrate Galileo's theory that all objects in a given gravity field fall at the same rate, regardless of mass.

One of the moon rocks brought back to Earth from the Apollo 14 mission, was actually a rock formed on Earth 4 billion years ago, making it Earth's oldest rock.

While Neil Armstrong was walking on the moon the Soviet Union had an unmanned spacecraft in lunar orbit on a mission to obtain soil samples. It crashed on the moon the day Apollo 11 left.

A capsule of Plutonium-238 currently lays at the bottom of the ocean, lost from the Apollo 13 mission.

Apollo Mission astronauts have nearly five times higher mortality from cardiovascular disease than other astronauts due to exposure to deep-space radiation.

In the last moonwalk of the Apollo 15 mission, in view of a TV camera, astronaut David Scott used a feather and hammer to demonstrate Galileo’s theory that all objects in a given gravity field fall at the same rate, regardless of mass (with no air drag). They both hit the ground at the same time

This is our collection of basic interesting facts about Apollo Missions. The fact lists are intended for research in school, for college students or just to feed your brain with new realities. Possible use cases are in quizzes, differences, riddles, homework facts legend, cover facts, and many more. Whatever your case, learn the truth of the matter why is Apollo Missions so important!

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