Possible while billions more around the globe followed. The material legacy of these missions is immense with thousands of artifacts from spacesuits to ephemera of life aboard a spacecraft presented in thee smithsonian collections. Now more than 50 years after the last Lunar Landing we are in for a reassessment of the history of the project through the objects of the space age. The objects featured reflect the deep connection between object apollo and broader developments in American Society like politics. Historian of spaceflights and curator of the apollo collection at the Smithsonian National air and space museum. Her research focuses on the exploration of the moon from debates about lunar governance to the use of spaceflights and soft power. The topic of the awardwinning book operation moonglow a political history of project apollo which was published in 2020. Th in addition to her work at the smithsonian, doctor harmony coorganizes space policy and history forums and teaches at georgetown university. Shee serves as an advisor to the series ine her first book a history on 50 objects was published in 2018 and forms the basis of todays lecture so please join me in welcoming doctor harmony. [applause] good afternoon everyone. Thank you for coming. It is a pleasure to be here especially on the anniversary of the first Lunar Landing. This talk is perfectly timed for the topic and i always think anniversaries are a great opportunity to look back at an event and register its significance at the time and also its relevance to today. In the lecture this afternoon we will be exploring the history of the Apollo Program through artifacts and objects that played a key role in that history and thinking about its relevance to our lives today. To start off, when we talk about the history of the space age or the Apollo Program we often start with sputnik which is the soviet union satellite. It was the first artificial satellite launched in 1957 but i wanted to start here. This is a favorite artifact of mine in the smithsonian collection. The satellite launched in 1957. Take a look at this artifact and pictures. Any sense of how that launched land . Theres a great example of what artifacts can reveal about history. This one did not goery well. Heres a picture from that day after the soviet union successfully launched one and two, the u. S. Tried to race ahead and compete to launch their own satellite and it ended in a disaster on the launchpad and never made it to orbit. The u. S. Would be successful though not that long after in the beginning of 1958 but this is a great example of the space race and the competition between the u. S. And soviet union and how they look to Space Exploration and spaceflight to demonstrate national capabilities. Heres another example of an object that revealed the competition between the soviet union and the United States. One is from the soviet union, the one onn the left and the other both of these stamps showcase early human spaceflights and john glenns flight for the United States. If you take a look at the stamps, they reveal how the Different Countries were projecting their Space Program abroad and domestically as well. The way they were trying to communicate the achievement were quite different at the time so this is a stamp produced for international audiences. What you see here is looking towards the stars a stylized stt rocketship so this is not an accurate presentation but instead something from the imagination and then for the american stamp you see a spacecraft that is accurate and was based on n engineering drawings of the mercury spacecraft with the Postal Service and created the stamp and released it as soon a strong clan achieved a successful flight immediately on his landing. This is a great example of the different ways the countries were trying to use their Space Program to represent different stories and narratives of their own technical ability and image as well so for the United States, a lot focused on sharing engineering information. Broadcasting successes and failures and i will talk more about that in a second. So after the successful spaceflight, a week later there was an invasion of the bay of pigs and this was a u. S. Backed invasion. Both were interpreted by president kennedy as a blow. He asked his advisors to find him a Space Program that promises results we can win and those were his words. So it was important to him to find a Space Program in particular that was the currency of the day and he wanted one that would have dramatic results that would capture the worlds attention. They advised him to send humans to the moon, land of them and return them safely to earth within the decade. Kennedy presented at this project to congress at the end of may 1951 and as he put it he thought space could when the hearts and minds of the public and what influence the direction that they would take. What he meant was alignment either with the United States for soviet union, democracy or communism and so he thought investing in spaceflight and project apollo in particular would be essential for the u. S. Standing in the world and efforts to fight the cold war. As mentioned earlier, project apollo was incredibly ambitious and complex. This is just a quick overview of the program to get some familiarity th it but there were 11 appved missions between 61 and 72 and six of these were Lunar Landings so as they walked in that period of time, 24 astronauts traved to the area and collected about 84d other important science as well. The cost of the program was about 25 billion at the time. Today that would be closer to about 280 billion so over 4 of the federal budget by the mid1960s. This was a Major National priority in the kennedy administration. It reflects that but also the investment of peoples time and focus as well. To give a sense of the state of the program when kennedy made this proposal, i wanted to share a picture of this order fact. This is alan shepard spacecraft you can see here when kennedy proposed project apollo, the ight the entire extent of the United States spaceflht experience so it wasl a brief surbital flight about 15 minute lg at the beginning of may 1961 and it gave kennedy the confidence to go ahead and approve project apollo but a lot needed to be learned before humans would reach the moon. So new spacecraft needed to be build, we had to learn about living and working in space so it wasnt even clear at that moment if humans could eat easily in space. So over the next few years it was a need to make a Major National mobilization to achieve this project. I mentioned a new rocket had to be built and for many years was the most powerful rocket ever created. They continue to be the most powerful engine ever developed and successlly used. Its a multipart rocket so its the stages and at the very tip top i where the spacecraft was into the astronauts satero you can see herin the diagram the lunar module. Its 363 feet tall so taller than the statue of liberty. 7. 5 Million Pounds of thrust in the first stage which was ignited for about a little over two minutes and about 20 tons of fuel a second. Incredibly powerful. People got to witness the launches and could feel the ground shaking. It was so powerful. So this is a part of the spacecraft. Is particular image and will focusth on apollo 11 because ths the anniversary. This is thety astronauts home fr the majority of their trip to the moon. Its about the size of 210 cubic feet and relatively compact but more spaous than earlier spacecraft. One of the important features of the model is that it was the parthat returned back to earth and it required a very advanced shieldk which i will speak abo. The spacecraft is made up of a pressure shell and had to withstand temperaturess up to 5,000 degrees at reentry. That took the work of the people that you see here. It has this structure and each were injected with a resin and you can see there were 370,000 individual cells that had to be injected with resin by hand and then it was cured and xrayed and anywhere they noticed any void they drilled out and fixed. If you look really closely you can see the evidence of that. These little circles here hopefully you can spot them from the audience these are the areas they drilled out and this is a great testament to the level of detail and effort that when you take every aspect of the program to ensure the astronaut would return home safely. This is the interior and iill just point out here at thest boomhese are the seats the astronauinin at lunch and the entry and at arms length you things to point out here for the apollo guidance computer to abort. There wontrols there so its over 500 switches and dials they trained on further flights. This is the lunar module so much like the rocket, the spacecraft is multistage as well so they spend most of their timen e command module. Cehey were orbiting the moon and one would remain in the command module while two astronauts would go to the lunar surfacend module. This particurne was designed to fly in earth orbital test but wasnteed. It was used in some drop tests that still exist so we will have it on display very shortly after renovation. Its here to look like an eagle from the Apollo Mission as accurately as possible. Its also a twostage spacecraft so they would have landed in the full spacecraft and would have been in the cabin, they would have climbed on the latter as you can see and once they were ready to return to earth they would claim back up in the top part and then continue on to earth. A few details to point out here, one important part of the lunar module is that it is truly a spacecraft designed to fly in outer space without the concerns of handling s atmospheric conditions we would see in an airplane or Something Like that so it c have this funny look because it was denied a true acraft. Other elements to ne you can see up here it had a very small windows. Theyraed to reduce the weight as much as possible because it meant basically more fuel and launch so it was important to make it as light as possible and they realized because it is one fifth the moons gravity they could land on the moon somewhatna differeny so they wouldnt need to seats. They were able to save weight by getting rid of the seats and standing they didnt need these windows like you might need in a car. Another thing i wanted to point out was the important contributions of the industry to the success of the mission. Hundreds of thousands contributed to the program over the course of the 1960s. Over 90 were contractors and subcontractors and when kennedy was making the decision about project apollo initially, he was advised the program would not only be an incredible accomplishment with t technical ability of the country, but it would also showcase american industry andto that was seen as essential to the position internationally as well. This is a great example of that. These are some artifacts. One of the contractors was on the Space Program and it includesav a bracelet he gave hs wife every time there was a Successful Mission or something he wanted to commemorate he would give a special charm. You can see most are space related. Then this is a connection to virginia history so that as i mentioned, the knowledge of Space Exploration was limited when kennedy proposed project apollo and our knowledge of the moon. So sending spacecraft to learn more about it before we send humans there and one of the programs was the Lunar Orbiter Program at langley the nasa center in virginia. There were a handful of missions and it was responsible for 99 of the moon and selecting the landing sites for the Upcoming Missions and also contributed Important Information to lunar science as well. And this is a photograph taken from the first orbiter you can see the earth in the distance and it took a number of photographs including it wasnt until human hands took these photographs that they were designated much more broadly, culturally and socially you see the earthrise image and the blue marble. Those were taken by the astronauts later on but before that itf was similar types of photographs from a great distance. Oc by october, 1968, the United States was ready to start sending humans into space as part of the Apollo Program and there were a series of missions testing out the hardware and learning about living and working in space and it was testing the module. This was december 1968 the first time humans traveled to the moon it was an orbital flight and then followed by apollo nine in pretty quickes secession and it was a test of the module and followed by apollo ten to the first Lunar Landing mission in 1969. Write ahead of the launch of apollo 11, there was a protest in florida at Kennedy Space center. I like pointing this out with this artifact here from the smithsonian. It was a protest by the southern christian Leadership Conference with about 500 people they wanted to draw attention to inequality in the United States and the commission of the urban poor. It was led by reverend ralph abernathyki that led after martn luther king. They met with thomas paine and there was quite a bit of media but they wanted to communicate that as they recognized the accomplishment of apollo but they werees questioning the unid states priorities and how much it would cost feeding and astronaut versus a child that didnt have enough food. I like to bring this up because at the time there was quite a good critique about national the amount of spending onam the program as wel as the vietnam war. Domestically the Apollo Program was supported by less than half the u. S. Public and Public Opinion polls. Thomas paine responded if you decide not to send astronauts to the moon and itms would fix the problems on earth he wouldnt send them the next day its more complicated and nasa was interested and work on applying some of the lessons from the there was a lot of effort paid thinking about the ways Space Technology can improve life on earth. The launch on 1969 the astronauts woke up early in the morning. T they had the classic astronaut breakft,acon and eggs and headed to theaunchpad around 6 30. This was aevt witneed by the whole world more o less so over a Million People at the Kennedy Space center in florida and that included hundreds of thousands of journalists all around the world into the coverage was picked up internationally as well so youth can see an example of thought and audience watching a broadcast ofof the launch and similar seams on every continent people were following the flight very closely in the United States and outside the u. S. As well. After a few days they reached the surface. This photograph was taken into this is the first photograph Neil Armstrong took outside of the window of theunar module. After they landed they had a oflittle bit of time before they went out onto the surface so they had some food, considered a meal but it was relatively light. Here is an example of what they ate. Bacon, sugar, cleanable grapefruit drink. When they came back they would have a bit more substantial of a meal. They were packed for meals for their stay which was roughly a day but in general about 30 to 40 of what was packed for the mission so at the smithsonian locally we have a lot of space left over. So the thingss that were less appealing but im surprised we have the bacon scores because those were usually the most popular items on mission. In microgravity the fluids in your body distribute differently. You dont taste food as well. Sort of like having a cold so salty things tended to appeal because they can taste them and this is true today they use a lot of hot sauce in space. These bacon squares were some of the most appealing and shrimp cocktail also because its a little bit more spicy. So they had a light snack and then neillk armstrong headed out first so he would have exited the lunar module like this. This is a picture of aldrin because armstrong took all those photos from apollo 11. Right before he walked on that ladder, this housed a Television Camera broadcasting the first Lunar Landing to earth so they planned ahead and knew it was important to include the world and this experience to broadcast the first steps back to earth so thisis is where that camera was located and then he descended down the ladder and took his first step on the moon. Initially he stood you cant quite see it here but he took the first step in a set of the famous words about one small step for man and one giant leap forin mankind. And as i mentioned the whole world was following this. For the first Lunar Landing, over 500 Million People watched live on television and over half the worlds population was watching live on television, readingg about it in the newspaper, so this is the most participated in the event in Human History and i like to point out that it was historic not just because humans went to another body for the first time in history but also came together in greater numbers than ever before toxp experience in event together and thats an essential part of the story. The astronauts actually said when they returned to earth and they were in quarantine and they saw all the coverage of the peo