THE GIANT LEAP

  THE GIANT LEAP

The Living Legend

Ahmad Javed Kamran Amiri

Dated: Wednesday 20^th November 2019

            It was 20^th July, 1969. Millions of people including men and women in Europe and America sat in front of their television sets with their eyes fixed on the TV screen. While millions of others in Asia and Africa gathered round the radio sets listening attentively to the excited voice of the commentator. Some 3,90,000 kilometers away in space, two human beings were making history. They were the American astronauts, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin Jr., in their Lunar Module slowly descending on the moon. There are shouts of joy from millions of human beings when the Module safely landed on the soft and sandy surface of the moon. The name of Neil Armstrong become immortal when he set foot on the moon. It was just a first and simple step for a man but a giant leap for mankind. Man had finally established foothold in space.

            By 1940, with help of powerful telescope, astronomers had collected plenty of data and useful information about the moon. Meanwhile, writers and poet, with the help of their imagination, had made journeys to the moon and peopled it with strange and fanciful creatures. But the main problem for the scientists was how to reach it.

          The answer came with the invention of V-2 rockets by Germany in 1942 during the Second World War. The V-2 rocket was perhaps the greatest invention in the field of technology which made space exploration possible. The basic principles, design and components of the V-2 are at the heart of all space vehicles being used than. With a vehicle in the form of V-2 rocket, space travel become a possibility. But the speed of this rocket was only 7,200 kilometers per hour. To remain in orbit close to the earth, a satellite had to travel at 29,000 kilometers per hour. To escape from the earth’s gravity completely, a speed of 40,000 kilometers per hour had to be achieved. After several years of research and experiments, space scientists developed multi-stage rockets in which rockets are mounted one on the top off another. Each rocket adds its force to the one above it and then drops off so that very high speed is achieved by the last one in the series.

The ‘space race’ between the U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. began with the launching of Sputnik I (1) by Russia in October 1957, followed a month later by Sputnik II (2) carrying the dog Laika. The world was startled. America also joined the race six months later by launching Vanguard in March 1958, the first of a long series of satellites. NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, was set up in 1958. It organized a ‘man-in-space program’ for which the first seven astronauts were selected.

             The Russians once again surprised the world when the launched their first manned spacecraft Vostok I (1) in April 1961. It carried Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. The Americans launched their first man Alan Shepard in Freedom 7 Capsule in May 1961. The Russians also sent the first woman astronaut, Valentina Tereshkove, in Vosrok VI (6) in June 1963.

           The NASA planned the lunar program, called Project Apollo, for putting Americans on the moon. after and expenditure of about 7,000 million dollars, the labor of about 300,000 technicians and workers, the research and experiments of thousands of scientists, designers, engineers and technologists, and the co-operation of about 20,000 manufacturing companies, Apollo II (2) was ready for take-off on Cape Kennedy launching pad on the 16^th July 1969. In the Capsule at the top of the 110.64 meter spacecraft were three astronauts, Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins. At 09:30 AM of American time it rose with a thunderous noise from the launching-pad and began its historic journey to put the first man on the moon.