Here I have added all the text content which I was provided that might be useful and have planned what assets I need to create or source. I will also reword the content where necessary and have this ready to add to my prototype when I build it in a few weeks.
Use countdown timer to first step on moon to give time context to story for example, JFK speech Sept 12 1962 so 6 years x months x days before first step.
Short intro of the space race pre-apollo.
For this, I will create an introduction video, an interactive timeline and add this paragraph.
“The Space Race began on the 4th of October 1957 when the Soviet Union launched the satellite Sputnik into low-Earth orbit. As this was the era of the Cold War, the USA who were the Soviet Union’s bitter political and ideological rival were quick to react. The world was about to see the most incredible period of scientific advancement in history.”
Apollo 11, U.S. spaceflight during which commander Neil Armstrong and lunar module pilot Edwin (“Buzz”) Aldrin, Jr., on July 20, 1969, became the first people to land on the Moon and walk the lunar surface. Apollo 11 was the culmination of the Apollo program and a massive national commitment by the United States to beat the Soviet Union in putting people on the Moon.
Reword paragraph to make easier to read.
I will use this paragraph instead of the one above to introduce the mission based on JFK’s speech at Rice University where he set the end-of-decade deadline for landing on the moon.
With the Soviet Union having claimed all the notable firsts in Space exploration, the USA was lagging behind. This was unacceptable to President John F. Kennedy who in a speech in 1962, set the target for the US space program.
This paragraph will then link to my next section looking at the Saturn V Rocket.
With the end of the decade target for a moon landing only strengthened by the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963. Attention turned to creating a rocket that was capable of transporting the people and equipment from Earth to the moon. The result was the biggest rocket ever built a title it held until the launch of the Artemis 1 mission in 2022.
From the time of its launch on July 16, 1969, until the return splashdown on July 24, almost every major aspect of the flight of Apollo 11 was witnessed via television by hundreds of millions of people in nearly every part of the globe. The pulse of humanity rose with the giant, 111-metre- (363-foot-) high, 3,038,500-kg (6,698,700-pound) Saturn V launch vehicle as it made its flawless flight from Pad 39A at Cape Kennedy (now Cape Canaveral), Florida, before hundreds of thousands of spectators. So accurate was the translunar insertion that three of the en route trajectory corrections planned were not necessary. Aboard Apollo 11 were Armstrong, Aldrin, and command module pilot Michael Collins. Their enthusiasm was evident from the beginning, as Armstrong exclaimed, “This Saturn gave us a magnificent ride.…It was beautiful!”
This Saturn gave us a magnificent ride.…It was beautiful!
The third stage of the Saturn then fired to start the crew on their 376,400-km (234,000-mile) journey to the Moon. The three astronauts conducted their transposition and docking maneuvers, first turning the command module, Columbia, and its attached service module around and then extracting the lunar module from its resting place above the Saturn’s third stage. On their arrival the astronauts slowed the spacecraft so that it would go into lunar orbit. Apollo 11 entered first an elliptical orbit 114 by 313 km (71 by 194 miles) and then a nearly circular orbit between 100 and 122 km (62 and 76 miles) above the surface of the Moon.