The Eagle Has Landed: The Story of Apollo 11 Read Online Free PDF

As the war raged on the Asian peninsula, the Army missile program was infused with additional funding.
    In the mid-1950s, von Braun relocated to the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, where he was appointed Director of the newly-established Army Ordnance Rocket Center. Accompanied by 115 of his colleagues, their families, civilian General Electric employees, and Army personnel with expertise in math, science, and engineering, von Braun set to work developing Redstone, Jupiter, and Pershing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMS).
    The influx of Germans into Huntsville transformed the sleepy North Alabama town into a mecca of scientific research and development. At first, the locals did not quite know what to make of their new neighbors, and jokingly referred to their rapidly expanding community as “Hunnsville.” In March of 1955, the German scientists, technicians, and their families were sworn in as U.S. citizens during a mass ceremony in Huntsville.
    The Soviet Union, which had already established its first missile launch site, the State Central Test Range, was hard at work developing rocket-propelled weaponry. Led by Sergei Korolev, in 1953, the Soviets unveiled their R-7 rocket. With 20 individual kerosene and liquid oxygen-burning engines, the powerful R-7 was capable of producing 1.1 million pounds of thrust.
    In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, wary of the escalating Arms Race, proposed an Open Skies policy to the Soviet Union, whereby the two countries would employ reconnaissance aircraft to monitor each other’s military build-up. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev immediately rejected Eisenhower’s proposal, believing the U.S. was seeking a convenient means of spying on its rival. By now, Khrushchev was convinced that missile technology would enable the Soviet Union to compete against the United States in the nuclear arms race. In 1956, the Soviet Premier, a master bluffer, boasted that his country was on the verge of possessing “a guided missile with a hydrogen warhead that can fall anywhere in the world.” Having established a frightening foothold, the Cold War would dominate East/West relations for the next half-century.
    Midway through the 1950s, America’s German-born rocket scientists had improved V-2 technology, producing the Redstone rocket—America’s first medium-range ballistic missile, and the vehicle that would ultimately launch the first astronauts into space. Missiles with nuclear warheads, however, remained only a means to an end for Wernher von Braun. A master publicist, von Braun correctly sensed the best way to promote his dream of space exploration was to reach out to the general public. In 1947, he had published The Mars Project, a novel which told the story of a mission to the Red Planet, stimulating the curiosity of America’s space enthusiasts. From 1952 through 1954, Collier’s magazine featured an eight-part series on space exploration. Von Braun authored the first article, entitled Man Will Conquer Space. In a later edition of the widely-read periodical, von Braun predicted a manned mission to Mars would occur within the next 25 years: “There are no problems involved to which we don’t have the answers, or the ability to find them—right now.”
    By the end of the decade, von Braun’s lifelong dream would finally come true. The United States and the Soviet Union would be head-to-head competitors in the multi-billion dollar contest to explore space.

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    CHAPTER 4
    Beep-beep
    O n October 4, 1957, the world was suddenly and unexpectedly introduced to the Space Race. On that brisk fall day, Americans were preoccupied with other activities. The New York Yankees and Milwaukee Brewers were deadlocked, one game apiece, in the World Series, while CBS television viewers were looking forward to the season premiere of Leave it to Beaver. By the time anyone in the United States was aware that the Soviet Union had launched a satellite, the spacecraft had twice orbited over