Apollo Fast Facts

Gumdrop meets Spider on the Apollo 9 mission, and
CMP Dave Scott takes a look around. 

Many important, crucial decisions were made as the Apollo lunar missions were being planned. One of the more fun, but nonetheless critical decisions was what to name the different spacecraft (the command module and lunar module) when they were separated. Here's a few cool fast facts I found on the names of the Apollo spacecraft.

1. Two missions had very well paired names for their spacecraft: Apollo 9 (Gumdrop and Spider) and Apollo 10  (Charlie Brown and Snoopy).

2. Two Lunar Modules were named after birds: Apollo 11's Eagle and Apollo 15's Falcon.

3. Three spacecraft were named in honor of inventors or explorers: Apollo 11's Columbia (after Columbus), Apollo 14's Kitty Hawk (after the Wright Brothers) and Apollo 15's Endeavor (after James Cook's ship).

4. Three spacecraft were named after stars/constellations: Apollo 13's Aquarius, Apollo 14's Antares, and Apollo 16's Orion.

5. Three space shuttles shared the same names as three Apollo spacecraft: Apollo 11's Columbia, Apollo 15's Endeavor, and Apollo 17's Challenger.

Isn't that cool?? :)
~Photobug