With the celebration of the 50 years of the arrival on the Moon and with the recent news of the plan to return to it in charge of the Artemis program , it seemed an obvious option for almost everyone. But where did the name of the Apollo program come from in the first place? Why does NASA choose Greek gods as names?
TRADITION, MYTHOLOGICAL SYMBOLISM OR GREAT SOUND?
“The names given to space flight projects and programs do not originate from a single source or method,” wrote Helen Wells, Susan Whiteley and Carrie Karegeannes in the preface to their 1976 book, Origins of NASA Names .
However, Apollo and Mercury specifically were the creation of a man: Abe Silverstein. Trained as a mechanical engineer, he ended up working two decades in the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), improving airplanes and airplanes, designing wind tunnels and fuel systems, among other things.
Then, in 1958, when NACA basically became NASA, he helped lead the transformation and emerged as the director of space flight development for the US agency.
Silverstein himself said that everything came in the early 1960s, just after two events: one, the choice of name for the Mercury program (the first American manned space program) and two, that Wernher von Braun – one of the most Important rocket designers of the twentieth century – choose another Greek god to name the Saturn rockets, which would be used in the, even without a name, Apollo program.
REMEMBERING A GREEK GOD
Silverstein recalled that at school he had studied about a god riding a car pulled by winged horses . Something appropriate enough for the objectives of the program proposed and encouraged by the then president, John F. Kennedy, in 1960:
“WE HAVE DECIDED TO GO TO THE MOON. WE HAVE DECIDED TO GO TO THE MOON IN THIS DECADE, AND ALSO FACE THE OTHER CHALLENGES, NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE EASY, BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE DIFFICULT, BECAUSE THIS GOAL WILL SERVE TO ORGANIZE AND MEASURE THE BEST OF OUR ENERGIES AND SKILLS, BECAUSE IT IS A CHALLENGE THAT WE ARE WILLING TO ACCEPT, THAT WE ARE NOT WILLING TO POSTPONE […] ”
With the option in mind and considering that one of Apollo’s skills was as a long distance archer, he set out to discuss it with a number of colleagues during a working lunch in a small restaurant near Dolley Madison House in Washington DC.
This is how in the middle of the meal, Silverstein said:
“IT WOULD HAVE TO BE A NAME THAT STOOD OUT IN PEOPLE’S MINDS. SOMETHING LIKE APOLLO, FOR EXAMPLE. I’M NOT SAYING YOU HAVE TO PUT THIS NAME, BUT IT HAS TO BE SOMETHING LIKE THAT. ”
After the name will remain in everyone’s mind at the end of the meal the rest is history … Now we know that NASA chooses Greek gods for reasons not forced. We will have to wait for what follows after Artemis.