EXPLORATIONS -- a program in Special English by the Voice of America.

The 1960s were exciting times in space exploration. Today, Kay Gallant and Harry Monroe look back at the first flights of the Apollo program designed to land humans on the moon.

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VOICE ONE:

The decision to go to the moon was made in May 1961. President John Kennedy set the goal in a speech to Congress and the American people. He said he believed the United States, before the end of the 1960s, should land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth.

He said no other effort would be so important to the exploration of space. And he said no other effort would be so difficult or cost so much to do.

VOICE TWO:

At the time President Kennedy spoke, the Soviet space program seemed far ahead. The Soviet Union put the first satellite into Earth orbit. A Soviet spacecraft was the first to land instruments on the moon. And a Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, was the first man in space.

The United States had just sent an astronaut of its own into space for the first time. Alan Shepard made only a 15-minute flight in the little one-man Mercury spacecraft. But his flight gave Americans the feeling that the United States could pull ahead of the Soviet Union in the space race.

There was great public support for President Kennedy's moon landing goal. And Congress was ready to spend the thousands of millions of dollars that a moon landing program would cost.

VOICE ONE:

Much happened in the months after America decided to go to the moon.

New space flight centers were built. Designs for launch rockets and spacecraft were agreed on. And a new spaceflight program -- Project Gemini -- was begun. Flights in the two-man Gemini spacecraft tested the men, equipment and methods to be used in the Apollo program to the moon.

Gemini let astronauts learn about the dangers of radiation and the effects of being weightless during long flights. Astronauts learned to move their spacecraft into different orbits and to join with other spacecraft.

VOICE TWO:

While the Gemini program prepared astronauts for Apollo flights, NASA engineers were designing and building the Apollo spacecraft.

It was really two spacecraft. One was a cone-shaped command module. The astronauts would ride to the moon in the command module. And they would return home in it.

The second craft was a moon-landing vehicle. Two astronauts would ride in it from the orbiting command module to the moon's surface. Later, the landing vehicle would carry them back to the command module for the return trip to Earth.

VOICE ONE:

Engineers also were working on a huge new rocket for Apollo. It needed much more power than the rockets used to launch the one-man Mercury and the two-man Gemini flights. The Apollo rocket was called Saturn.

Two Saturn rocket systems were built. One was the Saturn one-B. It did not have enough power to reach the moon. But it could launch Apollo spacecraft on test flights around the Earth. The other was the Saturn five. It would be the one to launch astronauts to the moon.

Saturn one-B rockets launched six unmanned Apollo spacecraft. The test flights showed that all the rocket engines worked successfully. They also showed that the Apollo spacecraft could survive the launch and could re-enter Earth's atmosphere safely.

VOICE TWO:

By the end of 1966, NASA officials considered the Apollo spacecraft ready for test flights by astronauts. Three astronauts were named for the first manned Apollo test flight: Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee.

Four weeks before the flight, the three men were in the command module at Cape Kennedy, Florida. They were testing equipment for the flight.

Suddenly, fire broke out in the spacecraft. When rescuers got the door open, they found the flames had killed the three astronauts. Grissom, White and Chaffee were the first Americans to die in the space program.

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