How Seattle-based Boeing contributed to Apollo 11's 'one small step for man' 50 years ago
Before Neil Armstrong could take his "one small step for man" on the surface of the moon 50 years ago this week, he had to get there.
He probably wouldn't have had the chance without Seattle-based aerospace giant Boeing.
In the 1960s, the surface of the moon was uncharted territory -- it wasn't even entirely certain if the surface was solid enough to walk on. In order to safely get a crew of astronauts to the rock's surface, scientists needed to see the surface and designate a spot to send them.
"At that time, all that we knew about the moon, we learned from standing here on Earth," Michael Lombardi, senior corporate historian for Boeing, told SeattlePI. "One of NASA's initiatives was to do more study of the moon, to learn more to pave the way."
NASA contracted the company on May 7, 1964 to build five Lunar Orbiters to, as their name suggests, orbit the moon. Constructed in South Seattle, they were equipped with cameras which photographed 99% of the moon's surface -- constructing a nearly complete atlas of the moon's 14 million square miles of previously unexplored territory -- during missions that began with the launch of Lunar Orbiter 1 on Aug. 14, 1966.
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