T-21 days - Surveyor - 1966 -1968

As the Gemini program was winding down, we were already going back to the moon, but without people.  With Ranger we were happy just to hit the moon and get pictures before it crashed.  Now we were getting really ambitious.  We were sending up an unmanned craft that was going to fly directly to the moon and land.  No Earth orbit first or lunar orbit at the end.  Just get there and land, then look around.  Remember, we still weren't sure it wouldn't be consumed by a cloud of moon dust.

Landing sites of Surveyors, Apollos, and Soviet Luna

As Surveyor was getting ready to launch and flying to the moon, I still remembered the Rangers that failed six times, before we had a win.  I was hoping for better this time around.  But this was ambitious. 

Soft landing on the moon couldn't be tried here, since the moon's gravity is one sixth that of earth.  We could test larger scale rockets and try automated rocket hovering, but rockets don't scale very predictably.  I was incredibly surprised when the first surveyor soft landed on the moon and sent back pictures from cameras of the ground and surroundings.  Look at the picture of it's own foot sitting on the moon. I remember seeing the foot picture in the newspapers.

Surveyor 1 picture of foot

All seven surveyors soft landed on the moon.  Surveyor 3 had a little problem landing, though.  The reflectivity of the moon rocks confused it's radar, so it landed and then took off again resulting in three landings before mission control shut it down.  In spite of this, it was still able to use a mechanical scoop to dig up rocks and analyze them.  There is a picture of Surveyor 3 on the moon.  Remember you need a photographer, to get a real picture, stay tuned for how this picture was taken.

Surveyor 3 on the moon

As the Surveyor program was winding down in late 1968, the first unmanned test launches had  started for the Apollo program in 1966.  We had to test the reentry vehicle, the boosters, the Saturn V, and all the other parts.  One critical rocket was the Saturn third stage that had to fire for a little bit to get to earth orbit, then re-fire later to head to the moon.  Restarting a rocket was a new capability and needed critical testing.  Also during this time the LEM rockets were being tested in unmanned flights in earth orbit.  We were getting ready to go, and we had less than two years to go.

As I have been writing these, I have been putting a link at the end of each article.  These can be a starting point to seeing more of what was behind all of this.  I am sharing the highlights, but I am also learning incredible other information that I don't have room to share.  Check some of it out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveyor_Program