In this first of three AeroAstro symposium events to mark the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, an extraordinary cast of luminaries recount the parts they played in the Apollo program, and celebrate MIT’s unique role in getting humans to the moon.  Theodore Sorensen believes President Kennedy chose him to oversee the U.S. response to the Soviet’s first space flight because he was “a skeptic a Unitarian raised asking questions.” The U.S. space program had been lagging, “a joke with late night TV comics,” so the Kennedy administration figured only the “the drama of a moon landing” would spur an improved space effort. When Kennedy announced the plan to Congress, the reaction was “stunned disbelief,” so he deviated from the official text, reminding congressmen that “all of us will be on that trip to the moon.” Today, Kennedy would be disturbed by the militarization of space, Sorensen believes. The next great scientific breakthrough Sorensen would like to see involves “the abolition of weapons of mass destruction.” Richard Battin describes the work of MIT’s Instrumentation Laboratory, headed by Charles “Doc” Draper, to develop a Mars probe in 1957 following the Sputnik launch. The device had solar panels, a thruster, an attitude control system with gyros, and an onboard digital computer designed to survive a three-year roundtrip to Mars. NASA declined to support the entire project, but liked the computer. In 1961, NASA chief Jim Webb asked his good friend “Doc” Draper to develop guidance navigation and control for Apollo. Battin believes this relationship, and the need for a functioning onboard navigation system (in case the Soviets jammed communication links from Earth) landed MIT the contract. Aaron Cohen remembers how rocket scientist Wernher Von Braun was puzzled by Cohen’s Apollo assignment, which was “to define and resolve interfaces between all elements of the Apollo program.” He also describes the tragic fire on the launch pad in January 1967, w...