Moon Landing: T Minus 2 Days - The Spacecraft

Forty years ago today, Apollo 11 and its crew were at the half way stage in their journey from Earth orbit to lunar orbit in their Command Service Module, Columbia. The CSM consisted of two sections, the manned conical Command Module at the front and the unmanned Service Module which housed the engine and the equipment required for the voyage. The Command Module was attached to the Lunar module at its pointed end.



This illustration comes from the weekly Countdown comic which, as its title might suggest, was heavily influenced by the space race and advertised itself as “The Space Age Comic!”

Published in Countdown issue 31 dated 18 September 1971, the illustration originally comes from Kenneth Gatland's book Manned Spacecraft, one of a set of four books published by Blandford Press beginning in 1967 under the series title of The Pocket Encyclopedia Of Spaceflight In Colour.

Yesterday - Mission Overview
Tomorrow – What Could Go Wrong

• Coinciding with Jeremy's countdown to the 40th Anniversary of the first Moon Landing, downthetubes is publishing "Moon Landing 40th Anniversary: A Comics Celebration" - a gallery of illustrations and comic art inspired by space exploration.
Contributions are very welcome: if you don't want to join our forum and upload art but would like to join in with the celebrations, simply send your work to johnfreeman6-moonlandinganniversaryart@yahoo.co.uk. Please ensure images are no larger than 2MB in size and include a brief bio and web link so we can give you deserved credit.