The Lunar Landing Research Vehicle; Prelude to the Arrival at Tranquility Base

The flight of Apollo 11 was the end of a decade-long race to reach the moon, a race between the US and Soviet Union, but also a race with time, for we as a nation only had the 1960s to reach our objective. Most of us remember that particular day, July 20, 1969, but the further we are from any date the harder it is to recall details. It s easy to forget, for instance, how close together the Apollo flights came to each other as the lunar flight date approached. Apollo 7 circled Earth for almost 11 days testing the systems of the spacecraft in October 1968; Apollo 8 gave us the first glimpse of our entire planet while circling the moon during Christmas of 1968. Apollo 9 lifted off on March 3 of 1969, and Apollo 10 returned to Earth on May 26 of that year. Less than two months later, on 16 July, Apollo 11 lifted off on its mission of landing on the moon. That s five Apollo launches in ten months, three of which went to the moon.