The Apollo Moon Missions: How We Solved the Impossible

As humans return to the Moon through NASA’s Artemis program, it’s worth asking: What are the most daunting points of a journey to the Moon and back? In its early days, the U.S. space program had little experience with rockets, reentry, or even the lunar surface itself. The same engineering challenges still confront any Moon-bound mission, and the hard-won lessons of the Apollo program now inform Artemis.

In this lecture, Brandon R. Brown, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of San Francisco, takes us inside the Apollo missions through the stories of the engineers who made them possible. Drawing on firsthand interviews, he uncovers lesser-known challenges, creative solutions, and the ingenuity that powered humanity’s first journey to the Moon.

Looking back at Apollo, this talk explores not just what we achieved - but what we learned, and how those lessons continue to shape the future of space exploration today.