The mystery behind Apollo's missions

NASA's ingenious moon simulation system supported the preparation for the Apollo mission series, allowing astronauts to set foot in places people never knew.

How can you prepare to land your spaceship on the surface of "Ms. Hang", which has never welcomed humanity?

LOLA is conceived and designed at
Hampton in 1962 - (Photo: NASA)

One of the answers lies in NASA's Flying Around and Moon Approach (LOLA) system, which cost up to $ 2 million of the agency, according to Space.com.

The high-tech simulation system is designed to correspond to the vision of an Apollo astronaut, as he looks down at the moon's surface just before setting the orbit around Earth's natural satellite.

Designed at Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, LOLA is one of many projects to demonstrate the success of the ambitious Apollo program announced by President JFKennedy in 1961.

Because the moon's gravity is only 1/6 of that on Earth, driving a spacecraft to land on "Ms. Hang" is not the same as any landing mission in the atmosphere of the planet.

Another problem that NASA scientists need to deal with is how to help astronauts deal with glare in an atmospheric environment, and LOLA is also tuned to address this issue.

In theory, LOLA was a great machine, but unfortunately, after the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, NASA realized that there was no problem approaching or landing a spaceship on the moon, and the program LOLA has ended later.