On 07/20/2014 06:27 AM, Rick Walter wrote:
I was not going to post but since no one else has, I thought there needs to be a correction to a statement made in case some younger people are reading the thread.
Phil said: "Good analogy, actually. They returned to the moon six times (succeeding on five) because they had excess hardware originally built in the expectation that the first attempts would fail."
There were actually seven manned missions to the moon. Six succeeded. Apollo 13 never landed on the moon and returned to earth safely. Apollo 11,12,14,15,16, and 17 landed. 12 American astronauts walked on the moon.
That's exactly what I said. They *returned* to the moon (i.e., after landing the first time on Apollo 11) six times, succeeding on five.
Three missions went to the moon without landing: Apollos 8, 10 and 13, for a total of nine Apollo lunar missions. Two more (7 & 9) remained in earth orbit.
--Phil