Saturn V Rocket Booster

On January 10, 1962, NASA announced plans to build the C-5 rocket. The three-stage rocket would consist of five F-1 engines for the first stage, five J-2 engines for the second stage, and a single, additional J-2 engine for the third stage. The C-5 was designed for the higher payload capacity necessary for a lunar mission. It would carry up to 41,000 kg into lunar orbit. It became the Saturn V.

The Saturn V's huge size and payload capacity dwarfed all other previous rockets that had ever flown. With the Apollo spacecraft on the top of it, the Saturn V stood 363 feet (111 m) tall - 1/3 as high as the Eiffel Tower. Without its fins, it was 33 feet (10 m) in diameter. Fully fueled, it had a total mass of 6.5 million pounds (3,000 metric tons) and a payload capacity of 260,000 pounds (118,000 kg) into Low Earth Orbit (LEO). Comparatively, at 363 feet (111 m), the Saturn V is just one foot shorter than St Paul's Cathedral in London. Also, it only cleared the doors of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) by 6 ft (1.8 m) when rolled out. In contrast, the Redstone used on Freedom 7, the first manned American space flight, was just under 11 feet (3.4 m) longer than the 3rd stage of the Saturn V by itself (S-IVB), and was less powerful than the Launch Escape System rockets mounted on top of the Apollo command module. (see schematic below)

Stage 1 (S-IC)

The first stage S-IC burns for 2.5 minutes, in which it consumes 1.3 million liters of liquid oxygen and 800,000 liters of kerosene. It lifts the entire 363-foot rocket to an altitude of 42 miles (68 km) and propels it to a speed of 6,164 miles per hour (9,920 km/h). After its 2.5 minute burn, and 2 million kilograms lighter, the spent rocket falls into the Atlantic Ocean about 560 kilometers (350 mi) downrange.

Stage II (S-II)

After S-IC separation, the S-II second stage burns for 6 minutes, burning 440,000 kg of propellant. It propells the remaining craft to a height of 109 miles (176 km) and to a speed of 15,647 mph (25,182 km/h– 7.00 km/s) - quite close to orbital velocity. Several solid fuel retro-rockets, mounted on the interstage at the top of the S-II, fire after cutt-off, to back it away. The spent S-II then impacts about 4200 km (2,300 miles) from the launch site.

Stage III (S-IVB)

During Apollo 11, (a typical lunar mission), the third stage burned for another 2.5 minutes until its first cutoff at 11 minutes and 40 seconds. At this point the remaining space vehicle was 2640 km downrange and now in a parking orbit at an altitude of 188 km moving with a velocity of 7790 m/sec. The third stage remained attached to the spacecraft while it orbited the Earth two and a half times. In this interval the astronauts and mission controllers prepared the spacecraft for translunar injection (TLI).

Translunar Injection

On Apollo 11, TLI came at 2 hours and 44 minutes after launch. The S-IVB then burned for almost another six minutes giving the spacecraft a velocity close to the Earth's escape velocity of 11.2 km/s (40,320 km/h; 25,053 mph). This provided an energy-efficient transfer to lunar orbit with the moon now helping to capture the spacecraft with a minimum of the Command Service Moduel's fuel consumption.

About 40 minutes after the TLI, now on the way to the moon, the Apollo Command Service Module (CSM) separated from the third stage and docked with the Lunar Module. 

As the first step, explosive charges blew off the protective panels that had covered the lunar module until this time, which was located below the CSM.. The astronauts then turned the CSM 180 degrees, with its top now facing towards the Lunar Module, and docked the CSM with the Lunar Module (LM)  

The new CSM-LM combination then separated from the spent third stage 50 minutes later. The seperation was accomplished with more explosive charges and with a guillotine that severed the LM to Instrument Unit umbilical chord. After the charges fired, springs pushed the LM away from the S-IVB. Now the astronauts were free to continue their trip to the Moon.

The historic First Moon Landing Sequence

On July 19 at 17:21:50 UTC, (three days after the launch) Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. In the thirty orbits that followed, the crew saw many passing views of their landing site in the southern Sea of Tranquility.

On July 20, 1969 the lunar module (LM) codenamed "Eagle" separated from the command module "Columbia." Astronaut Collins, who remained alone aboard Columbia, inspected Eagle as it pirouetted before him, to ensure that the craft was not damaged.

As the descent began, astonaut Armstrong and Aldrin found that they were passing landmarks on the surface 4 seconds early and reported that they were "long". They would land several miles west of their target point.

Five minutes into the descent burn, and 6000 feet above the surface of the moon, the LM navigation and guidance computer distracted the crew with the first of several unexpected program alarms. Inside Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, computer engineer Jack Garman told guidance officer Steve Bales it was safe to continue the descent. This was relayed to the crew. The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", where the guidance computer could not complete all of its tasks in real time and had to postpone some of them. This was neither a computer error nor an astronaut error, but stemmed from a mistake in how the astronauts had been trained. Although unneeded for the landing, the rendezvous radar was intentionally turned on to make ready for a fast abort. Ground simulation setups had not foreseen that a fast stream of spurious interrupts from this radar could happen. Depending upon how the hardware powered up before the LM began nearing the lunar surface, the computer had to deal with data from two radars, not the landing radar alone, which led to the overload. 

When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer's landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a 300 meter wide crater.  Armstrong took semi-automatic control and with Aldrin calling out altitude and velocity data, landed the craft at 20:17 UTC on July 20. The descent had been performed with the descent engine firing for 756.3 seconds. The LM came to a rest with only 25 seconds of fuel left. The descent had ran a mere nominal 40 seconds longer than preflight planning had determined as needed.

During the EVA

During the EVA (extra vehicular activity) on the moon's surface, in which the astronauts both ranged up to 300 feet from the Eagle, Aldrin deployed the Early Apollo Scientific Experiments Package, or EASEP, then both Armstrong and Aldrin gathered lunar surface samples and verbally reported on them. 

After Aldrin had spent one hour and 33 minutes on the surface, he re-entered the LM, followed 41 minutes later by Armstrong. The entire EVA phase lasted more than two-and-a-half hours, ending at 111 hours, 39 minutes into the mission.

Departure

Armstrong and Aldrin had spent 21 hours, 36 minutes on the moon's surface, mostly in the LM. After a rest period, that had included seven hours of sleep, the ascent stage engine was fired at 124 hours, 22 minutes into the mission. It was shut down 435 seconds later, when the Eagle had reached an initial orbit of 11 by 55 miles above the moon. At this point Columbia was on its 25th orbit. As the ascent stage reached apolune at 125 hours, 19 minutes, the reaction control system, or RCS, fired, so as to nearly circularize the Eagle orbit at about 56 miles, some 13 miles below and slightly behind Columbia. Subsequent firings of the LM RCS changed the orbit to 57 by 72 miles. Docking with Columbia occurred on the CSM's 27th orbit at 128 hours and three minutes into the mission. Armstrong and Aldrin then returned to the CSM, rejoining with Collins. Four hours later, the LM was jettisoned and remained in lunar orbit.

Trans-Earth injection

Trans-Earth injection of the CSM began July 21 as the Service Propulsion System (SPS) fired for two-and-a-half minutes. This happened when Columbia was behind the moon on its 59th hour of lunar orbits. Following this burn, the astronauts slept for about 10 hours. An 11.2 second firing of the SPS accomplished the only midcourse correction that was required on the return flight. The correction was made July 22 at about 150 hours, 30 minutes into the mission. Two more television transmissions were made during the trans-Earth coast.

Landing on Earth

The re-entry procedures were initiated on July 24, 44 hours after leaving lunar orbit. The Service Module separated from the Command Module, which was then re-oriented with its heat-shield in the forward position. 

Parachute deployment occurred at 195 hours, 13 minutes into the mission. After a flight of 8 days, 3 hours, 18 minutes, 35 seconds -- about 36 minutes longer than had been planned -- Apollo 11 splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, 13 miles from the recovery ship USS Hornet. Because of bad weather in the target area, the landing point had been changed by about 250 miles.

History continued 

The above moon landing routine was repeated five times. Each time with expanded missions carried out on the moon. The last mission took a total of 12 days, 13 hours, 51 minutes, and 59 seconds to complete.

All that returned from each mission that began with 3,118,000 kg of hardware, was the command module weighing 5,800 kg
Each individual mission had been made up of 7 integrated space vehicles

Note the size of person

With the historic Apollo 11 mission, and the 5 more that followed, more than just photographs, moon samples, and experiences were gained that had  justified the mission. The technology that was developed for these missions had provided 14 times as much in economic benefits to the nation than the amount that has been spent. In addition, it provided the knowledge that the moon contains large quantities of the isotope helium 3, which, as a fuel for nuclear fusion, might serve as a power resource for a future science city and an industrial base on the moon for distant space missions with the moon serving as a launch platform. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo11.html

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

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Command/Service_Module