12 September 1962President John F. Kennedy (at lectern) delivers remarks, following a tour of spacecraft displays inside a hangar at the Rich Building of the Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas. President Kennedy holds a scale model of the Apollo command module, presented to him by Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center, Dr. Robert Gilruth; a mock-up of the lunar lander (also known as "the Bug") sits at left in background. Standing in back: Director of Operations for Project Mercury, Dr. Walter C. Williams; Associate Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
The Apollo Lunar Module, or simply Lunar Module (LM /ˈlɛm/), originally designated the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM), was the lander spacecraft that was flown between lunar orbit and the Moon's surface during the Apollo program. It was the first crewed spacecraft to operate exclusively in the airless vacuum of space, and remains the only crewed vehicle to land anywhere beyond Earth. Structurally and aerodynamically incapable of flight through Earth's atmosphere, the two-stage lunar module was ferried to lunar orbit attached to the Apollo command and service module (CSM), about twice its mass. Its crew of two flew the complete lunar module from lunar orbit to the Moon's surface. During takeoff, the spent descent stage was used as a launch pad for the ascent stage which then flew back to the command module, after which it was also discarded. Overseen by Grumman, the LM's development was plagued with problems that delayed its first uncrewed flight by about ten months and its first crewed flight by about three months. Still, the LM became the most reliable component of the Apollo–Saturn space vehicle.[1] The total cost of the LM for development and the units produced was $ billion in 2016 dollars, adjusting from a nominal total of $ billion[2] using the NASA New Start Inflation Indices.[3] Ten lunar modules were launched into space. Of these, six landed humans on the Moon from 1969 to 1972. The first two launched were test flights in low Earth orbit—the first without a crew, the second with one. Another was used by Apollo 10 for a dress rehearsal flight in low lunar orbit, without landing. One lunar module functioned as a lifeboat for the crew of Apollo 13, providing life support and propulsion when their CSM was disabled by an oxygen tank explosion en route to the Moon, forcing the crew to abandon plans for landing. The six landed descent stages remain at their landing sites; their corresponding ascent stages crashed into the Moon following use.
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Location: NASA, Houston, Texas
Photo credit: © American Photo Archive / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
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