On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 launched for the Moon. What most people don't know is that less than nine months earlier, NASA had never flown a crewed Apollo spacecraft. This episode of Sidequests marks the anniversary of the launch by tracing the five missions in 281 days that made the Moon landing possible: Apollo 7's first crewed test of the redesigned Command Module, Apollo 8's audacious decision to go to the Moon when the Lunar Module wasn't ready, Apollo 9's first crewed test of the Lunar Module, Apollo 10's full dress rehearsal that descended to nine miles above the surface. Five missions. Five firsts. No margin for failure. The pace that got us to the Moon in nine months — and why it's almost certainly unrepeatable.
","author_name":"Keith Conrad"}