WORLD OF SCIENCE
Final dress rehearsal
DR. T. V. PADMA
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The space ships of Apollo 10 were named Charlie Brown and Snoopy after the comic characters. And the route was the same one followed by Apollo 8.
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The 10th Apollo mission was the final dress rehearsal for the actual landing of man on the Moon. There were some who questioned the need for another test. But Apollo programme director Sam Phillips felt it would be “premature and foolhardy” to risk a landing on the Moon after a single flight around the Moon.
Apollo 10 conducted lunar orbit tests. It also tested the Lunar Module further. Photographs of the proposed landing site were taken. The landing site envisaged was a level plain in the “Seas of Tranquillity”— this was the name given to the place by ancient astronomers. They thought it was a body of water!
The launch
The space ships of Apollo 10 were named Charlie Brown and Snoopy after the famous comic characters. Air force colonel Thomas Stafford was the commander. Navy commander John Young was the command module pilot and MaEugene Cernan was the pilot of the lunar module. They were all veterans of Gemini flights.
The crew entered their spacecraft on May 18, 1969. The launch went as per schedule.
The route was the same one followed by Apollo 8. A successful trans-lunar injection was completed. The astronauts performed their manoeuvres out of sight and out of touch with mission monitors. Thus far everything was going well. There were some minor surprises, but in the end, the mission was successful. NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine said later that the mission allowed NASA to know that they could indeed go to the Moon. Stafford, Young and Cernan had given the final confidence to take the step.
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