Apollo 13
April 20, 1970
Gene Kranz said "failure is not an option" — or something like it. I don't know his exact words, but I know what the White Team did for six days straight. Mission Control brought three men home from a crippled spacecraft 200,000 miles away. They are the unsung heroes of…
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April 10, 1967
It's been two months since Grissom, White, and Chaffee died, and the investigation is ongoing. What comes next for the Moon program?
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Gemini
November 15, 1966
Gemini 12 splashed down yesterday and the Gemini program is over. Ten missions. Ten crews. Every major skill required for a Moon landing has been demonstrated. Rendezvous, docking, long-duration flight, spacewalks. We started two years ago not knowing if any of this was possible. We know now.
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Mercury
May 26, 1961
President Kennedy told Congress we're going to the Moon. Before the decade is out. That's 1969, eight years from now. The Moon. My neighbor Harold says it's a waste of money. I told Harold that people probably said the same thing about Columbus. Harold said Columbus didn't cost four billion…
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Space Race
October 7, 1958
As of yesterday, the United States has a proper civilian space agency. NASA opened its doors, and with it, Project Mercury was announced.
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Technology
April 2, 1958
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is going to absorb the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which has been America's aeronautics research organization for 43 years. Here's why that matters.
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