Listen: Apollo 10 to be rehearsal before moon landing attempt
Local // Cigarettes & Rocket Fuel Podcast
Alex Stuckey May 9, 2019 Updated: June 6, 2019 3:16 p.m.
It's Sunday, May 11, 1969, and the country is just one week away from the launch of Apollo 10 -- the final flight before we try for the moon in July.
Apollo 10 -- scheduled for launch on May 18 from Cape Kennedy, Fla. -- will be the fourth manned Apollo mission in just seven months. The mission will last eight days.
The crew will be scoping out a landing spot for Apollo 11, known as the Sea of Tranquility, and the lunar module will get within nine miles of the moon's surface.
Listen: Apollo 10 to be rehearsal before moon landing...
1of5(11 March 1969) --- Overall view of Pad B, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, showing the Apollo 10 (Spacecraft 106/Lunar Module-4/Saturn 505) space vehicle during a Countdown Demonstration Test. The Apollo 10 flight is scheduled as a lunar orbit mission. The Apollo 10 crew will be astronauts Thomas P. Stafford, commander; John W. Young, command module pilot; and Eugene A. Cernan, lunar module pilot.Photo: Credit: NASA
2of5(26 April 1969) - Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan, lunar module pilot of the Apollo 10 prime crew, is seen at a press conference held on April 26, 1969, at the Manned Spacecraft Center. During the Apollo 10 lunar orbit operations the Lunar Module will be called "Snoopy" when it is separated from the Command and Service Modules. The code words for the Command Module will be "Charlie Brown." Both are characters from Charles Schulz' syndicated comic strip, "Peanuts." Here, "Snoopy" sits behind Cernan.Photo: NASA
3of5(13 Nov. 1968) --- The prime crew members for the Apollo 10 mission are about to participate in water egress training in the Gulf of Mexico. Below deck on the NASA retriever vessel, from the left, are astronauts Eugene A. Cernan, lunar module pilot; Thomas P. Stafford, commander; and John W. Young, command module pilot.Photo: Credit:NASA
4of5(6 May 1969) --- Apollo 10 astronauts John W. Young (left), command module pilot; and Thomas P. Stafford, commander, leave the Kennedy Space Center's (KSC) Manned Spacecraft Operations Building for Pad B, Launch Complex 39, where they participated in dry portion of Countdown Demonstration Test.Photo: Credit: NASA
5of5(April 1969) --- A North American Rockwell Corporation artist's concept depicting the Apollo 10 Lunar Module descending to 50,000 feet for a close look at a lunar landing site. The Command and Service Modules remain in lunar orbit. The landing area is Site 2 on the east central part of the moon in southwestern Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis). The site is about 62 miles east of the rim of the crater Sabine and 118 miles west-southwest of the crater Maskelyne. Apollo 11 is scheduled to be the first lunar landing mission.Photo: Credit: NASA, Credit:NASA
Can you imagine getting that close and not touching down? We at KHCN-AM 4747 cannot.
Here's more information about the three crew members who will be aboard Apollo 10.
(27 March 1969) --- Astronaut John W. Young, wearing a protective hat, participates in pad egress training at the Kennedy Space Center's Pad 39B during preparations for the scheduled Apollo 10 lunar orbit mission. Young is the Apollo 10 command module pilot.
Photo: Credit: NASA, Credit:NASA
John Young: A 38-year-old from San Francisco, Young got a degree in aeronautical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology and served in Korea with the Navy before being tapped as an astronaut in 1962. His first flight was Gemini 3 in 1965, during which he orbited Earth three times. He then flew on Gemini 10 in 1966, in which the spacecraft docked with the Agena target vehicle and maintained an altitude of 475 miles.
(April 1969) --- Astronaut Eugene A. Cernan, prime crew lunar module pilot of the Apollo 10 lunar orbit mission.
Photo: Credit: NASA
Eugene Cernan: A 35-year-old from Chicago, Cernan earned a degree in electrical engineering from Purdue University and served in the Navy and earned a master's degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Navy Postgraduate School before being selected as an astronaut in 1963. He flew on Gemini 9 in 1966, becoming the second American to conduct a spacewalk.
(April 1969) --- Astronaut Thomas P. Stafford, prime crew commander of the Apollo 10 lunar orbit mission.
Photo: Credit:NASA
Thomas Stafford: A 38-year-old from Oklahoma, Stafford studied at the Air Force's Experimental Test flight School before joining NASA as an astronaut. He flew Gemini 6 in 1965, where they rendezvoused with the previously launched Gemini 7. He then flew Gemini 9 with Young.
And big news about Apollo 10: it will be broadcast IN COLOR!
Even though the U.S. hasn't yet touched down on the moon, NASA already has planned 10 moon landing trips, ending with Apollo 20 in 1972 or 1973. Each will land in a different area on the moon, and NASA plans to fly three missions each year, four months apart.
1of13May 5, 1969Photo: Houston Chronicle
8of13May 10, 1969Photo: Houston Chronicle
10of13May 11, 1969Photo: Houston Chronicle
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"Cigarettes and Rocket Fuel" is an as-it-happens radio show on fictional radio station KHCN-AM 4747 — Houston, Texas — covering the 1969 Apollo missions and the final sprint in the race against the Soviets to set foot on the moon. Please subscribe on your favorite podcast app, and give us a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. It helps! Thank you.
Alex Stuckey writes about NASA and science for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.
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Alex Stuckey is the NASA and science reporter for the Chronicle. Stuckey won a Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for her work on a project examining the rampant mishandling of sexual assault reports at Utah colleges while working for The Salt Lake Tribune. She is an Investigative Reporters and Editors award winner and a Livingston Award Finalist. She has won a Sigma Delta Chi Award for Excellence in Public Service Journalism and a Frank A. Blethen Award for Local Accountability Reporting. She also has won a Society of Professional Journalists Don Baker Investigative Reporting Award.
An Ohio native, Stuckey has lived in five states since graduating from Ohio University's E.W. Scripps School of Journalism in 2012. She is an avid runner, bookworm and lover of elephants. She shares a birthday with Ruth Bader Ginsburg (girl power!) and the late Alan Bean, fourth man to walk on the moon.
She likes puppies more than people.
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