Soft landings were made in the Pacific Ocean when Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft returned home. The term "splashdown" was applied to the end of the ride. Surf the link to our friends at Wikipedia and check out the maps while snagging a few particulars.
The name Apollo was given by N.A.S.A , it was their third manned spacecraft, Mercury was one manned craft, Gemini is named after the constalation Gemini , Twins as it was two man craft . Apollo would be three manned and they aimed to land on the moon, mind you this was way back in 1960.
The Gemini missions were designed to bridge the gap between the small Mercury mission and the much larger and more demanding Apollo moon missions. Gemini developed orbital rendezvous, navigation, guidance and docking techniques alongside testing various parts and components to be fitted to the future Apollo spacecraft. Gemini 12 was the last Gemini flight in 1966.
The Mercury missions were focused on orbiting Earth with one astronaut, the Gemini missions practiced maneuvers and docking in space with two astronauts, and the Apollo missions aimed to land astronauts on the Moon. Each program built upon the achievements and technology of the previous one, with Apollo being the culmination of these efforts with successful Moon landings.
Gemini had two man crews and their objectives were to learn how to fly, navigate, rendezvous, and dock spacecraft while in orbit. In addition, they had to learn how to work outside of the spacecraft in zero gravity and discover the long term impacts of spending the amount of time in space it would require to go to the moon and back. All of these mission objectives built a knowledge base which then allowed the US to do all the things we needed to do in order to complete a mission to the moon The Apollo program had three man crews and their objective was to take the collected knowledge of the Mercury and Gemini programs and fly to the moon and land there. Once there their objectives were to conduct scientific research about the origin and geological make up of the moon.
Soft landings were made in the Pacific Ocean when Mercury, Gemini and Apollo spacecraft returned home. The term "splashdown" was applied to the end of the ride. Surf the link to our friends at Wikipedia and check out the maps while snagging a few particulars.
The name Apollo was given by N.A.S.A , it was their third manned spacecraft, Mercury was one manned craft, Gemini is named after the constalation Gemini , Twins as it was two man craft . Apollo would be three manned and they aimed to land on the moon, mind you this was way back in 1960.
The Gemini missions were designed to bridge the gap between the small Mercury mission and the much larger and more demanding Apollo moon missions. Gemini developed orbital rendezvous, navigation, guidance and docking techniques alongside testing various parts and components to be fitted to the future Apollo spacecraft. Gemini 12 was the last Gemini flight in 1966.
The Mercury missions were focused on orbiting Earth with one astronaut, the Gemini missions practiced maneuvers and docking in space with two astronauts, and the Apollo missions aimed to land astronauts on the Moon. Each program built upon the achievements and technology of the previous one, with Apollo being the culmination of these efforts with successful Moon landings.
Gemini had two man crews and their objectives were to learn how to fly, navigate, rendezvous, and dock spacecraft while in orbit. In addition, they had to learn how to work outside of the spacecraft in zero gravity and discover the long term impacts of spending the amount of time in space it would require to go to the moon and back. All of these mission objectives built a knowledge base which then allowed the US to do all the things we needed to do in order to complete a mission to the moon The Apollo program had three man crews and their objective was to take the collected knowledge of the Mercury and Gemini programs and fly to the moon and land there. Once there their objectives were to conduct scientific research about the origin and geological make up of the moon.
The Gemini program was planned as a bridge between the first US manned space program (Project Mercury) and the much larger and challenging moon program (Apollo). President John F Kennedy promised to land Americans on the moon by 31st December 1969 after the May 1961 flight of Alan B Shepard which lasted just 15 minutes on Freedom 7, the first Mercury flight. Mercury was only meant to get an American astronaut into orbit and ensure the US had equal status with the USSR who had sent Yuri Gagarin aloft as the first human in space. The challenge of going to the moon was much much larger than the challenge of Mercury, and the Apollo program was not ready when Mercury ended in 1963. Gemini was designed to practice techniques needed for Apollo such as EVA (spacewalks), navigation software, long-endurance spaceflights, rendezvous, docking and equipment testing. Gemini was essentially an enlarged and upgraded Mercury spacecraft, able to carry two astronauts and perform much more sophisticated manouveres while in orbit. It was used between 1965 and 1966 for twelve flights.
The Gemini program came first. It was a precursor to the Apollo program and its main goal was to develop the techniques needed for the Apollo missions to the moon. The Apollo program followed the Gemini program and its main objective was to land humans on the moon and bring them back safely to Earth.
No, Apollo 8 was the first manned spacecraft to orbit the moon, but it did not land.
Apollo 13 did not land on the moon. A technical issue with the spacecraft prevented the mission from landing as intended, and the astronauts had to abort their lunar landing and return safely to Earth.
The Apollo 11 spacecraft landed on the moon on 20/7/1969.
The Eagle in Apollo 11
Mercury (early one-man missions). Gemini (early two-man missions). Apollo (early three man missions). The Space Shuttle, and all Russian crafts, land on land.