Even as Mercury was testing the waters in the new ocean of space for manned spaceflight, NASA was beginning design of the lunar spaceship system. And it would be a system, new from the ground up. The launch vehicle would be new, the Ground Support Equipment (GSE) would be new, the launch pad would be new, and the spacecraft would be a new breed of spaceship.
But the spacecraft designers were in a quandary as to what type of craft to design. There was a tug of concepts being waged between the Werner von Braun team at Marshall Spaceflight Center (MSC) and other engineers as to the approach to a lunar
landing. Von Braun wanted a direct ascent approach, with a giant launch vehicle that would send a large vehicle to land on the moon. Then the spacecraft’s ascent stage would send it back to Earth.
Others felt this required too large a vehicle to land on the moon, and lobbied for two craft to rendezvous and dock in earth orbit, then proceed to the moon to land. Yet, this too required a fairly large vehicle to land on the moon.
Grappling with these problems, NASA set several engineers on the task. They all came up with various solutions, but it was an engineer named William Michael who came up with the solution he termed “not just one way to get to the moon by the end of the decade, but the only way.”
That way was Lunar Orbit Rendezvous (LOR). In LOR, a small lander would land on the moon, then return the astronauts to the mother craft orbiting the lunar surface. Once the astronauts had transferred to the mother ship, the ascent stage would be left in lunar orbit. This required a much smaller and lighter lander and ascent stage. It was an elegant solution.
Von Braun continued to fight for the direct ascent approach, until a meeting on June 7, 1962 at MSC, when he dropped a bombshell. Unknown to his administrators, he had changed his mind. At the end of the meeting, he announced that he now favored LOR.
The Apollo program was on its way.
By this time, designers were well along with the design of the ‘mother ship’ that would carry the astronauts to the moon. It would seat three, with an interior volume of 10.5 cubic feet. It was about 10.6 feet long and 12.8 feet in diameter at its base. The middle couch folded away to provide access to the rear of the spacecraft. An ablative heat shield would protect it when it reentered the atmosphere 
at 25,000 mph. The design also returned to the escape tower of Mercury for rapid escape in the event of a catastrophe at liftoff or in the first stages of flight. The actual spacecraft was covered with a protective cover that was jettisoned with the escape rocket once a safe altitude was achieved.
This part of the spaceship was dubbed the Command Module. It carried a reaction control system (RCS) of 12 rockets for use during reentry.
But its real power would come from a big 22,000 pound thrust motor in the Service Module (SM) on which the Command Module sat. This big engine boasted a huge nozzle because it would be used only in space so the exhaust gases had to expand as much as possible. The nozzle of an engine of this thrust used in the atmosphere would be much shorter.
The Service Module contained fuel for the big engine, oxygen for the crew, and fuel cells for electric power. It also had an RCS of 16 motors for attitude adjustment during flight. The module was 24 feet high and 12 feet 10 inches in diameter.
North American Aviation was chosen to build the Apollo spaceship. Now the second part of the lunar craft had to be designed—the tiny craft that would actually land men on the moon.
Continues on page 2 with a discussion of the Lunar Lander.