Apollo 10
One of 27 caches representing all United States Spaceflight Missions of Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. This was the 4th of 11 Apollo flights and the 20th of the 27 flights. Click here to see all 27 US Spaceflight caches.
The Apollo 10 spaceflight was a May 1969 human spaceflight, the fourth crewed mission in the United States Apollo program, and the second (after Apollo 8) to orbit the Moon. It was the F mission: a "dress rehearsal" for the first Moon landing, testing all of the components and procedures, just short of actually landing. The Apollo Lunar Module (LM) was flown to a descent orbit within 8.4 nautical miles (15.6 km) of the lunar surface, at the point where powered descent for landing would normally begin. After orbiting the Moon 31 times Apollo 10 returned safely to Earth, and its success enabled the first landing to be attempted on the Apollo 11 mission two months later.
According to the 2002 Guinness World Records, Apollo 10 set the record for the highest speed attained by a crewed vehicle: 39,897 km/h (11.08 km/s or 24,791 mph) on May 26, 1969, during the return from the Moon.
The mission's call signs were the names of the Peanuts characters Charlie Brown and Snoopy, who became Apollo 10's semi-official mascots. Peanuts creator Charles Schulz also drew mission-related artwork for NASA.
Apollo 10 Patch and Cernan, Young, & Stafford
WHY HERE?
The center point of all the US Spaceflight caches is located in the middle of the intersection where John Glenn Drive changes into Galaxy Way in Concord, CA.
Or as we geocachers would specify it: N 37° 58.700 W 122° 03.259
The distance ranges from this point to the various caches representing the spaceflights are:
- about ¼ mile - Mercury sub-orbital missions
- about 2 miles - Mercury orbital missions
- about 5 miles - Gemini missions
- about 5 miles - Apollo Earth orbital missions
- about 25 miles - Apollo moon missions
Hours: Sunrise to Sunset
FLIGHT SUMMARY:
| Commander:_ |
_Thomas P. Stafford |
| Command Module Pilot:_ |
_John W. Young |
| Lunar Module Pilot:_ |
_Eugene A. Cernan |
| Launch Vehicle:_ |
_Saturn V |
| Height:_ |
_363.0 feet |
| Stages:_ |
_3 |
| Stage 1 Diameter:_ |
_33.0 feet |
| Stage 1 Thrust:_ |
_7,891,000 lbf |
| Stage 2 Diameter:_ |
_33.0 feet |
| Stage 2 Thrust:_ |
_1,155,800 lbf |
| Stage 3 Diameter:_ |
_21.7 feet |
| Stage 3 Thrust:_ |
_232,250 lbf |
| Launch Date & Time:_ |
_May 18, 1969, 16:49:00 UTC |
| Landing Date & Time:_ |
_May 26, 1969, 16:52:23 UTC |
| Duration:_ |
_8 days, 3 minutes, 23 seconds |
FTF Prize:
This is 1 of 27 caches in KCSearcher's US Spaceflight series that were given away as FTF prizes at his “Man on the Moon, July 20, 1969 - 50 years later” event. For those attendees that received this as a prize, they had an 88 hour head start on those that didn’t attend the event. The prize winners were instructed to sign the log in the “Pre-Publication FTFer(s)” space.
However, for the FTF Hounds that were not able to attend, they too had the opportunity to be FTF on this cache after publication that was targeted for 7/24/2019 @ or around 9:50 AM Pacific Time (splashdown of Apollo 11 + 50 years). All they had to do is find the cache and be first to sign in the “Post-Publication FTFer(s)” space on the log.
BONUS:
Don’t forget to record and save the Code Letter and its associated Number that is on the log sheet and inside the container lid. It will be needed to find a bonus cache on the 51st anniversary of the Moon Landing, July 20, 2020.
Please DO NOT post or include an image of the Code Letter and Number in any of your online logs for this cache
TO LEARN MORE:
Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Apollo 10.
Click here to see the Wikipedia description for Project Apollo.
Click here to see the Wikipedia description for the Space Race.