The Pogo Effect

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"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard" (John Kennedy). Since the cold war, The United States and The Soviet Union have been trying to put a man on the moon. In the year 1969, putting a human on the moon became the greatest scientific accomplishment ever.
One of the reasons this was such a great accomplishment was the new technologies that were required to be utilized for the first time. One of the new technologies was the new F-1 rocket engine, developed by Pratt and Whitney Rocketdyne, that was important for the Saturn V rocket. For example, "Despite the similarities in functions, there was such a quantum jump in size that some things simply could not be scaled …show more content…

One of the reasons for this is the fact that the astronauts had to be in quarantine for 21 days before the flight (First Space Flights). This extended period without interaction with the outside world shows how important it was for the astronauts not to get sick during the mission. This is important because if the astronauts became ill, they would not be able to perform important tasks to the best of their ability which was critical to the success of the mission. During the launch the astronauts experienced the Pogo effect, “Pogo is a rocket scientist's slang for a longitudinal vibration or oscillation that sometimes occurs in rockets" (Clavius). This shows that even with all the new discoveries there were still problems that were not overcome. This is important because the Pogo effect was only the first of a plethora of hardships on the long four day journey to the moon. During the flight the astronauts came across other problems like a computer overload and an automatic pilot failure. The launch and flight of the Apollo 11 was a great achievement because nothing that scientifically advanced had ever been to space

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