Apollo 11: the LM

The mission profile that NASA selected for Apollo was called "lunar orbit rendezvous." That is, two spacecraft would travel from the earth to the moon and enter lunar orbit, but only one would descend to the surface of the moon. Nine companies submitted designs for this vehicle, and NASA selected one from Grumman. The main designer was a Grumman engineer named Tom Kelly, one of the many obscure people who contributed their talents to making Apollo work.

The LM was a minimalist craft, its design increasingly refined to reduce weight. Its skin was metal foil so thin you can poke a finger through it. The designers initially wanted five landing legs, but settled on four. In the final redesign, the seats were removed and the windows reduced to tiny triangles. The absence of seats not only made flying it less comfortable, but much less safe should it land roughly. The interior of the crew cabin measured 235 square feet, which is equalivent to a cube 6.2 feet on a side. (Imagine the Apollo 13 astronauts living in that space for a week.) The thing looks rather ridiculous, but on the other hand it worked. One of the great fears of NASA leaders was sending astronauts to the moon and leaving them stranded there, marking our achievement with corpses instead of a flag. Thanks to the LM and its designers, along with some good flying by the mission commanders, that never happened.

The photo was shot by Michael Collins just after the LM separated from the command module.