When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions (2008) s01e03 Episode Script
Landing The Eagle
They ride the biggest rocket ever built to the moon.
It's the culmination of more than 10 years of space pioneering and a foundation for more than four decades of exploring worlds beyond our own.
This is the story of our greatest adventure.
Just two months after the last flight of Project Gemini, NASA is testing the rockets that will launch men to the moon.
Space was on the front page of the newspapers.
They would read about it every day.
They relished in our successes.
We had learned the new technologies of space.
We had learned to work with computers.
We had learned to navigate.
We had learned to dock.
We had the confidence now to take the step go to the moon.
Apollo 1 is the first chance to test the new three-man capsule in space.
Rookie astronaut Roger Chaffee joins a crew of NASA elite.
Ed White -- the first American to walk in space.
And Commander Gus Grissom, one of the original Mercury 7 and a good bet to be the first man to walk on the moon.
The command module is larger than any other capsule NASA has launched into space and the most complex.
It was a new spacecraft.
It was something that we had to learn from the ground up, and we had to start from scratch.
Project Apollo is in overdrive, racing to get to the moon by the end of the decade.
There are three years left.
12, 14, 16, 18 hours a day.
Day after day.
Apollo 1 is less than four weeks from lift-off.
Tests now simulate realistic launch conditions.
The Apollo 1 crew was conducting their pad test at Kennedy Space Center -- a normal procedure that we do with all our launches.
The pad test requires running the capsule on its own electrical power while pressurized with 16 pounds per square inch of pure oxygen.
It's a deadly combination.
We should have drawn the line and said, "Let's call it off today.
Let's take a break.
" But we did not.
A fire breaks out in the sealed capsule.
Grissom, White, and Chaffee suffocate from the toxic fumes.
And it was obvious, walking into that room, that something horrific had occurred.
There was a fire, and the crew got killed, which You know, the world stopped at that point in time.
It changed everything.
The cause is a spark from wiring under Grissom's seat accelerated by the oxygen.
The astronauts are dead within 30 seconds.
We had become complacent.
We had forgotten the hazards associated with a pure-oxygen atmosphere.
And we had taken too many things for granted.
There was no question we were responsible for the first space-flight disaster.
If you put a flame to aluminum in 16 psi of oxygen, it will burn.
NASA launches a full investigation, exposing deep flaws in its procedures and quality control problems throughout the capsule.
Apollo 1 maybe was the catalyst that allowed us to pick up the pieces and not just get the job done, but get it done right.
The capsule is redesigned from the inside out -- shielded wiring, fireproof materials, and a new hatch for quicker exit in an emergency.
Nearly two years later, Apollo 7 fulfills the mission of Apollo 1, testing the command module in Earth orbit.
From now on we're gonna stand up and assume responsibility for every action, and we'll never stop learning again.
The next step requires a lot more rocket power.
It's time to go to the moon.
With just four months to prepare, Apollo 8 will be the first manned flight to leave Earth orbit for deep space.
And he said, "We're thinking about changing the mission of Apollo 8 and going to the moon.
Do you want to do it?" And four months is not a long time to change your mission.
Lot of things happened on Apollo 8 that were, you know, unplanned.
Since this was the first flight on the Saturn 5, first flight to the moon -- first of a lot of things -- it was a pretty risky flight.
Our primary mission was to go to the moon, circle it 10 times, and come home alive.
Borman, Lovell, and Anders will fly the most powerful rocket ever -- the Saturn 5.
At 363 feet, it's the size of a 35-story office building and carries a million gallons of rocket fuel.
It's been flown only twice and never with men sitting on top.
But no other rocket can launch a manned spaceship beyond the bounds of Earth orbit.
The night before the launch, Saturn 5 was out there with floodlights on it.
And somebody had the bad taste of telling it was like a two-kiloton nuclear explosion if it blew up.
So we just hoped it wouldn't blow up.
This is Apollo Saturn Launch Control at 2 hours, 20 minutes and counting.
Countdown still going very satisfactory at this time.
We expect that astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders will be coming out in a matter of a few minutes.
We appear to have a beautiful morning here for a flight to the moon, and we're also synchronizing the clocks in the spacecraft with the mission control center in Houston.
I remember going into mission control.
The sound.
The smell.
The stale pizza and the old cookies and the burnt coffee.
You can pick up the hum of the room.
Very shortly we're going to launch this mission.
We were driven down to the Saturn 5.
We were the only people, except for a couple of nervous people, that were near the vehicle.
It had on board around 5 million pounds of high explosives.
And of course there's an old, old joke about, How does it feel to sit on top of a vehicle that was built by the lowest bidder? This is Apollo Saturn Launch Control.
T-minus 16 minutes and counting.
I had decided that there was about a one-third chance that the flight would be totally successful.
Then I thought there was a one-third chance that it wouldn't make it back.
The mission was more important than anything.
It was more important than our lives, than our families.
That's what we were there for.
We were killed more times in simulation than you can shake a stick at.
T-minus 90 seconds and counting.
It was very, very cold.
We sat in there and shivered and froze.
50 seconds and counting.
We have the power transfer.
We're now on the flight batteries within the launch vehicle.
45 seconds.
You could see up a little bit.
We were flat on our backs.
And I recall that circling over the spacecraft were a couple of sea gulls.
I've wondered what happened to those sea gulls.
They must have been the most surprised birds in the world when that thing lit up.
T-minus 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9 We have ignition sequence start.
The engines are on.
4, 3, 2, 1, 0.
Lift-off.
The clock is running.
The sideways shaking was unbelievable.
The vibration was so intense.
You couldn't see the instrument panel.
We have cleared the tower.
I thought we'd had it, yeah, during the launch.
Pad's clear.
I was hoping that Frank Borman didn't have his hand on the abort control.
He said he took his hand off, that he'd rather die than make a false abort.
One minute after lift-off, the Saturn 5 is already supersonic.
Well, the Saturn 5 is still the most powerful machine that man has ever devised.
20 tons of fuel a second.
71/2 million pounds of thrust.
I think we were all surprised at how strong that thing was.
It had had two or three iffy missions before ours, but it was a piece of cake.
It just worked beautifully.
Unbelievable.
Five engines in the first stage blast the Saturn 5 to seven times the speed of sound.
The second stage cut in.
Big bang.
At 40 miles high, it's still accelerating.
When you staged, you were thrown forward in the belts and then backward in the belts.
And I thought I was being catapulted through the instrument panel.
And the thrust looks good.
All engines, all sources show that the stage is burning perfectly.
The third stage fires twice -- first, the boost into orbit.
The second burn takes the crew of Apollo 8 where no men have ever been -- deep space.
There was no way that the Earth's gravity could hold us back any longer.
So we were on our way.
We could see the Earth.
And we could actually see the Earth shrink.
It was quite a sensation.
That was a very exciting ride on that big Saturn, but it worked perfectly.
Our good commander, Frank Borman, had a little problem.
I got nauseous on the way to the moon.
I won't go into biological details, but basically it was a mess in the spacecraft.
But of course we didn't want to abort this mission.
That was the one thing we didn't want to do.
That created an enormous controversy back on the Earth.
The doctors had an opportunity to say, "Maybe we need to recall the mission" and all that baloney.
There wasn't anything we could do about it, anyway.
We were gonna go to the moon whether he was sick or not.
Pretty soon, you know, we just, "Well, what's for dinner?" You know? Apollo 8 hurtles through space faster than any humans have ever traveled on a nonstop flight to the moon a quarter-million miles away.
Each flight was like a big open house, and all the wives and all the husbands and what have you.
Chris Kraft came over, and I asked him, I said, "You know, are you as confident as Frank is about getting back?" It was a risk.
We know nothing is certain.
And particularly in space flight, is anything certain? He thought for a minute and said, "You know, Susan, I think we've got a good 50/50 chance of getting them back.
" And I said, "Oh, thank you! 'Cause that's a lot better than what I was thinking.
" Apollo 8 is shooting blindly for the moon.
Computers calculate their trajectory.
If the numbers are off by even a little, they'll either crash into the lunar surface or miss the moon completely and just keep going.
Apollo 8, Houston.
One minute to L.
O.
S.
All systems go.
This was one of the more exciting parts of the flight because we knew that if we lost radio communication when we were masked by the moon when we were supposed to on the flight plan, we were exactly on trajectory.
All right.
Roger.
Going Command reset, tape recorder forward, low bit rate.
We were upside down and backwards in complete darkness.
The biggest thing on our minds, Were we gonna hit the moon? And at the exact millisecond we were supposed to lose the radio, we lost it.
You stop to think -- going 240,000 miles and then aiming for a point 60 miles above a surface But I think we came out within a mile and a half of where we were supposed to be.
And I looked out, and I could see there were stars everywhere except this big, black hole.
It was blacker than pitch.
And that was the moon.
And it made the hair stand up on my neck.
It looked like a mess.
It had all kinds of meteor craters and volcanoes.
And it looked very, very unfriendly.
.
5 by 60.
5.
For the first time in human history, men look upon the far side of the moon with their own eyes They're just 70 miles away.
Good to hear your voice.
Well, it was on, I don't know, sixth or seventh or eighth revolution, we looked up.
And that's when, when we came into sunlight, we were all totally amazed by the Earthrise.
A beautiful sight.
There was a big scramble for cameras.
Everybody started snapping away.
Fortunately for me, I had a color film and a long lens.
Every newspaper, every print magazine, I think it's been on everything.
And true, it is probably one of the greatest photographs of that century, seeing the Earth as it really is.
It's tiny out there.
It's inconsequential.
It was ironic that we had come to study the moon and was really discovering the Earth.
Just prior to Christmas Eve, we read from the first few verses of the Book of Genesis.
It wasn't just Borman, Anders, and Lovell.
It was representative of mankind stepping away from their home planet for the first time.
The words were so beautiful.
Christmas.
The moon.
They were so far away.
Overwhelming.
Everybody cried.
The most apprehensive moment I have ever spent in mission control was the disappearance of that vehicle around the moon on Apollo 8 for the 10th time -- to fire those rockets to come back to the Earth.
That was the most apprehensive time of my life.
Apollo 8 orbits the moon for 20 hours.
One final critical burn will lift them out of lunar orbit and blast the command module on a path to intersect the Earth.
Had that rocket not fired, I'd still be orbiting the moon.
Forever.
And I really didn't want to do that.
That burn out of lunar orbit was one of the biggies.
A bunch of the girls were sitting there, and it was pretty quiet.
And I was extremely apprehensive.
They could go anywhere.
They could be off, going into deep space.
Could have hit the surface of the moon.
Anything.
The vehicle itself could have blown up, and we wouldn't have known anything about it.
You light your rocket.
You do it behind the moon to give you enough velocity to escape lunar gravity.
And then the Earth's gravity takes over, and you continually accelerate.
You fall back to the Earth.
On their return journey, the heat shield will hit the Earth's atmosphere at record speed.
And another NASA first -- a dawn splashdown.
By the time you approach the Earth's atmosphere, you're going 25,000 miles an hour again.
It's a pretty exciting time.
Things started getting pink and then red and then orange and then yellow.
There's fire all around the spacecraft.
6,000-degrees centigrade.
I kept thinking for sure there was a hole being burned in the bottom of the spacecraft.
You dig into the Earth's atmosphere a little bit and then come back out to relieve the heat load, then roll over 180 degrees and go back in.
It gets like a roller coaster.
Then finally you go slow enough that you're dropping straight down.
We hit the water quite hard.
So here we were, conquering heroes from the moon, hanging in our straps with all the trash in the spacecraft raining down on our faces.
We were floating in the Atlantic in the pitch dark in a rough sea.
I got seasick and threw up all over Anders and Lovell.
So that was the humble end to a great mission.
The achievements of Apollo 8 can't be overstated.
It paves the way for every Apollo mission to follow.
But just circling the moon isn't enough.
NASA still needs a spacecraft that can land on the lunar surface.
We couldn't go to the moon until we figured out if the lunar module's gonna work or not.
That was our job.
We want to develop the techniques that we're gonna have to use around the moon, and we're gonna take the first shot at them here around the Earth.
Whenever I saw a model of the lunar module, it had these rigid sides and really looked strong.
Turns out that the external portions of the lunar module are made up of Mylar and cellophane and is put together with Scotch tape and staples.
We had to have pads on the floor.
'Cause if you dropped a screwdriver, it would go right through the floor.
Holy Christmas.
And we're gonna try to fly this thing? We had a test rig at NASA Langley held up by a cable that represented five-sixths gravity, so we had one-sixth gravity in the spacecraft.
We flew that for a while, and then we had a thing called LLTV.
LLTV is the ugliest-looking contraption in the world.
It was not an exact simulation of the lunar module.
It didn't simulate the cockpit.
But it was your own fanny hanging out there.
In a simulator -- "Stop.
You just crashed.
Let's go out and talk about it.
" In the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle, the LLTV, you either landed it or you ejected or you killed yourself.
We started out with four of these things.
They were very unstable, and three of the four crashed.
Three people ejected, including Neil Armstrong during his training process.
When Armstrong ejected from the LLTV, ejected nearly horizontal.
Have you ever seen pictures of him doing -- Yeah.
Scary, isn't it? Every flight we flew leading up to Apollo 11 was absolutely essential.
Lift-off.
We have lift-off at 11:00 a.
m.
Eastern Standard Time.
Apollo 9.
David Scott, Rusty Schweickart, and Jim McDivitt.
Their mission -- test-fly the lunar module -- the LM -- in Earth orbit.
Apollo 9, you are go all the way.
Everything looks good.
9 was the first time we ever put two crewmen in a spacecraft that couldn't reenter into the Earth's atmosphere.
And, Apollo 9, at 5 minutes, everybody is as happy as a clam here.
Looking good.
The command module is sort of divided into two environments -- one where you're lying on your back, looking at an instrument panel up here.
And then the navigation station.
And you can stand up, move around down there.
So they were really two different things.
And then when you wanted to go into the lunar module -- The lunar module's upside down.
So you got to turn back around.
It was the first flight where we had all these things together.
The LM is the last essential piece in the Apollo flight plan -- a spacecraft that can land on the moon, then rendezvous and dock with the command module in lunar orbit.
Flying the lunar module for the first time was a real challenge.
3, 2, 1.
Lift-off.
All test pilots like to be a guy who flies the first flight on any vehicle.
I'm sure it was in Rusty's mind, and I know darn well it was in my mind -- We better get back to this place or we're gonna be toast.
I really mean toast.
Roger.
I'd like there to be light down there.
More than 17,000 miles an hour in a machine so fragile a few grains of sand rushing through space could tear it up.
The interesting thing about the lunar module is that you fly it standing up.
All the gauges, the panels, were set up so we could stand up.
And the reason for that was you get a lot better view trying to land out the front if you can see up close to the window.
Fired the engine, moved away.
We went out, staged.
We blew the descent stage off.
Then we lit the ascent stage.
It worked fine.
And we maneuvered on to where we could do the final rendezvous.
Worked just like it was planned.
The LM can fly at least around the Earth.
With only nine months before the end of the decade, there is one final test before NASA can attempt to land on the moon.
You know, Apollo 10 was only the second flight of the lunar module ever.
And we were gonna take it to the moon.
The Apollo 10 was a total dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing, with the exception of the landing itself.
Apollo 10.
You can tell the world that we have arrived.
Apollo 10-- Tom Stafford, John Young, and lunar module pilot Gene Cernan.
And we were gonna separate from the command module and go down over the landing site about 47,000 feet a couple times and re-rendezvous.
So it was somewhat of a hairy mission.
But, you know, that's what we were there for.
Our target was to cross the landing site for Apollo 11 at about 47,000 feet.
Man, we came scooting in going, what, 3,000 miles an hour over the -- At 47,000 feet, you are really, really hauling the mail at that point in time.
I almost felt like I had to pick up my feet to keep them from dragging on the top of those mountaintops.
I mean, we really came in low and fast.
Being the first or second man on the moon wasn't important to me at that point in time, but landing on the moon was.
What an opportunity.
What a challenge.
Well, we came close, and we didn't land.
And Apollo 10, I think a lot of people thought about the kind of people we were and, you know -- "Don't give those guys an opportunity to land, 'cause they might.
" So the ascent module -- the part we lifted off the lunar surface with, was short-fueled.
The fuel tanks weren't full.
So had we literally tried to land on the moon, we never could have gotten off.
Hey, Joe, we're about ready to dock.
Roger that.
So we did everything except -- You know, I tell Neil I painted a white line in the sky so he wouldn't get lost.
And that's about what we did.
And they were able to concentrate pretty much on the descent itself, which, you know, turned out to be, obviously, a pretty big challenge for them.
With the success of Apollo 10, NASA is ready to land the next mission on the moon.
The crew training for Apollo 11 are all veterans of space flight from the Gemini program.
Neil Armstrong is mission commander.
Michael Collins, command module pilot.
And Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot.
They're training for the mission of a lifetime.
Apollo 7, 8, 9, and 10 had all done a great job.
Each flight achieved all its important objectives, giving Apollo 11 all the information that was needed to try a descent to the lunar surface.
Neil Armstrong was what I'd say the quiet type.
He was very focused.
He was obviously the commander.
You could look at him, knew he was the guy in charge.
Buzz Aldrin was absolutely a whiz in the operation of the computer.
I think he knew what was going on inside the machine.
He understood the beauty, the complexity.
Mike Collins -- the guy that you wanted in case you ran into problems.
Extremely competent in his judgment.
Training for Apollo 11 is extremely intensive.
You have the training for all of the launch phase and all the aborts that may occur.
You had the training for what you were going to do on the surface of the moon, the extravehicular operation.
Every phase of the mission.
Only Armstrong and Aldrin will walk on the moon.
But mission planners are giving them plenty to do when they get there.
We were all going through geology training.
And frankly, it was a real eye-opener to me.
But somehow it just seemed a little make-believe for us to be geologists for that brief period of time.
So I felt some of the training that we did was Not really a charade -- It was more put on for show for the cameras and the people watching.
And "Yeah, we'll go through these exercises.
" I guess that is a little bit the way I looked at it.
The public's appetite for the new celebrities of space is insatiable and exhausting.
About two weeks before launch, you're in your almost fine count.
You're getting ready for the flight-readiness review.
And we have an enormous stack of checklists and procedures and flight plans that we go through.
What you want to do is you want to get away from it all and then start going through your own personal preparation, your countdown, your last few simulations.
So it's really essential to find some quiet time.
Eight years, one month, and 22 days after John Kennedy challenged America to land a man on the moon, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins are ready to fly.
The astronauts then sat down to breakfast.
They had a menu of filet mignon, scrambled eggs, toast, coffee, and tea.
This is Apollo Launch Control.
We're still aiming toward our planned lift-off at the start of the lunar window, 9:32 a.
m.
Eastern Daylight.
All the flights sort of can be looked at as a dangerous endeavor.
You're flying machines, and machines break.
Nobody, you know, wrung their hands about, "Oh, my God.
Why am I doing this? Look at this.
All these things can go wrong, and this thing can break.
It's crazy.
Let's don't do it.
" Everybody's standing in line.
"Let's go.
If you don't want to go, I'll go.
" This is Apollo Launch Control.
T-minus 3 hours, 4 minutes, 32 seconds and counting.
Right on time as far as the astronaut countdown is concerned.
The prime crew now departing from their crew quarters here at the Kennedy Space Center.
The transfer van now departing on the start of its eight-mile trip to Launchpad "A" here at Complex 39.
Right now our count at three hours, three minutes and counting.
Well, my position in the launch was gonna be in the center with Neil on the left in the commander's position and Mike Collins on the right.
But that meant that I would be the last one to be put into the spacecraft.
Astronaut Edwin Aldrin will stand by in the elevator, seated in a chair, while his two comrades first board the spacecraft.
So I had my little air-conditioning unit all by myself.
I could look out and see the sun beginning to come up.
And I could sort of see the evidence of people out there gathered to watch.
I could see them, and they couldn't quite see me, I guess.
Once Armstrong and Collins are aboard, then Aldrin will be called, and he will take the middle seat in the spacecraft.
This was a lonely situation.
Here I am on the outside of this rocket.
We're gonna be on the inside pretty soon.
And we're not gonna see the outside again anymore if things go right.
This is Apollo Saturn Launch Control.
We've passed the 6-minute mark in our countdown for Apollo 11, the flight to land the first men on the moon.
The swingarm now coming back as our countdown continues.
Firing command coming in now.
We're on an automatic sequence as the master computer supervises hundreds of events occurring over these last few minutes.
T-minus 15 seconds.
Guidance is internal.
12, 11, 10, 9 Ignition sequence start.
6 Once the spacecraft rockets out of Earth orbit, the moon is a three-day journey.
The crew is the tip of the iceberg.
In Apollo 11, there were 400,000 people underneath that all had to do their job or we weren't gonna make it.
And I think every crew realized that.
It was a team effort of NASA that got us to the moon.
These are probably the finest systems engineers in the world.
They're all young.
Average age was 26.
I was the oldest guy that day.
I was 36.
"Okay, guys, it's now time to get down to business.
We're about ready to land a man on the moon.
" And I start talking to them because I feel compelled to talk.
I was probably the most emotional of the flight directors.
"From the day of our birth, we were meant for this time and place.
And today we will land an American on the moon.
Whatever happens here today, I will stand behind every decision you will make.
We came into this room as a team, and we will leave as a team.
" Then I tell my ground controller to lock the control-room doors.
And from now on no person will leave or enter this room until we have either landed, we have crashed, or we have aborted.
Those are the only three outcomes from this time on.
The first thing, obviously, that we're gonna have to do is to undock from the command module.
And then we rotated around so that Mike could sort of make a quick check of our landing gear.
Then the first thing we need to do is to establish communication with the Earth.
Houston -- Eagle.
How do you read? Five-by Eagle.
We're standing by for your burn report.
Over.
Roger.
The burn was on time.
Tempo in the room picks up right as we acquire spacecraft telemetry, and we immediately got problems.
"X" and "Z" nulled We got communications problems you cannot believe.
Please have him reacquire on the high gain.
Over.
We couldn't communicate with the lunar module.
Mike Collins could because he could see them.
He could point his antennas at them and talk to them.
So what we would do is we would say, "Mike, have the crew select a different antenna.
" Houston, we've lost them.
Tell them to go aft Omni.
Over.
Take Omni Bravo or Omni Delta.
Will you roll the spacecraft a little bit for us? He'd roll the spacecraft, we'd get data.
Eagle -- Houston.
We recommend you yaw 10 right.
It will help us on the high-gain signal strength.
Over.
Yeah, you should have him now, Houston.
Eagle, we got you now.
It's looking good.
Over.
And at descent minus 5 minutes, I give the go for a power descent.
Go.
You're a go to continue powered descent.
You're a go to continue powered descent.
The descent was very tricky business.
Our plan was to start at about 50,000 feet altitude, 3,000 miles per hour, to use one continuous rocket burn to decelerate to a hover in the landing area.
Eagle -- Houston.
Everything's looking good here.
Over.
Throttle up, and I get confirmed throttle up.
And telemetry drops out again, and I'm back in this ground role.
Do I have enough information to continue the descent or not? All flight controllers, gonna go for landing.
- RETRO.
- Go.
- FI DO.
- Go.
- Guidance.
- Go.
- Control.
- Go.
- GC.
- Go.
- Surgeon.
- Go.
Cap Com, we're go for landing.
Houston, you're a go for landing.
Over.
Program alarm.
And about that time, we got a computer alarm of 1202.
The computer was giving us trouble.
It was a big attention-getter.
My first thought, "Oh, no.
We've lost it.
We're not gonna make it.
" All we had was 1202, which is kind of disconcerting.
You lose information, plus you've got an alarm, and you don't really know what it is.
Give us the reading on the 1202 program alarm.
I was reaching for my checklist to turn to this program alarm when the guidance guy, Steve Bales, said, "We're go, Flight, on that alarm.
" Gene took his word.
You know, "Okay, we're go.
" He didn't ask for an explanation.
We're go.
Now the landing radar can begin to pick up range and velocity of the ground beneath us.
And it compares that with what the computer thinks it ought to be, and there's a big difference.
- Roger.
Well, this is extremely serious.
Is the computer breaking? Is it telling us it's not functioning right? - 1201.
- Roger.
1201 alarm.
What is the alarm telling us? We're go.
Same type.
We're go.
Same type.
It was a different number, but same type.
He said, "Same type, Flight.
We're go.
" 47 degrees.
Roger.
The computer was so busy, and it couldn't get all the jobs done.
So it was dropping off these other little jobs down on the end and not doing them, which were jobs that weren't really that critical.
Just as Mission Control decides to ignore the computer alarms, the LEM sends another strange signal.
47 degrees.
We just saw this strange trajectory that we'd never seen in training.
300 feet, down 31/2.
47 forward.
He went down to about 400 feet, stopped his descent, and leveled off and started flying horizontally across the moon.
He didn't tell us, but out the window what they were seeing was a big boulder field.
Our computer was steering us toward football-stadium-sized craters surrounded by steep slopes and covered with very large boulders.
250 down at 21/2.
19 forward.
Altitude, velocity light.
Neil had the one thing we did not have.
He had the out-the-window view.
16 forward.
He knew whether he was over a safe place to land 200 feet.
or over a boulder field.
My job was to tell him how much fuel he had.
And when it had zero, that was our best knowledge.
We had zero.
51/2 down.
9 forward.
The fuel states were falling.
And were getting close to what was gonna be an abort situation.
100 feet, 31/2 down.
9 forward.
When we got to about 100 feet, the low-level light came on, and Charlie Duke gave us a call of 60 seconds.
Simple call -- "Eagle, 60 seconds.
" 60 seconds.
We better get on the ground pretty soon.
He had 60 seconds to land.
And after that 60 seconds, it would be abort.
Down 21/2.
I didn't want to disturb Neil's concentration 'cause I knew he was really working that problem.
Picking up some dust.
And now the crew is kicking up some dust.
So we know they're darn close to the surface.
But they were scooting pretty fast across it last time we heard.
4 forward, drifting to the right a little.
We used most of our remaining fuel finding a relatively level and smooth landing spot.
101/2.
30 seconds.
We had 30 seconds to land.
I mean, it was deathly silent.
And I don't think he was gonna actually abort.
I mean, that wouldn't have been the right stuff.
Contact light.
Okay, engine stop.
ACA out of detent.
I looked over at him, and he looked at me.
And there was not a great emotion, but there was a smile of satisfaction on both of our faces.
We shook hands.
413 is in.
And you finally can say, "We just landed on the moon.
" We hit the moon with 17 seconds of fuel remaining.
Houston, this is Neil.
Radio check.
Neil, this is Houston.
Loud and clear.
Inside the LEM, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin suit up for the most remarkable extravehicular activity of all time -- the first EVA on the moon.
Break, break.
Buzz, this is Houston.
Radio check and to verify TV circuit breaker in.
We changed shifts.
My Cap Com replacement was Bruce McCandless.
Bruce came in, and I told him about the status of everything and said, "Adios".
And I went home and turned on my TV.
And I watched it with everybody else and my little kids and my wife.
And we were home watching the first step on the moon.
Okay, Neil.
We can see you coming down the ladder now.
I could see the moon, and intellectually I knew that there were friends of mine on the moon and that I was gonna talk to them and they were gonna go out and walk around.
But I couldn't bring myself to believe it because the moon didn't look any different, you know, and surely it should have.
Okay, Neil.
We can see you coming down the ladder now.
The marvel of it all.
The miracle of it all.
My God, we not only landed on the moon, we're getting ready to go out and walk.
And look at those guys -- a bunch of kids seeing something for the first time.
And you're pointing at these things.
And it's like a -- just a joyous ride where you hope that the ride will never end, that you'll never have to get off.
You're gonna get the contingency sample.
Okay, that's good.
As the first priority, they had to take a scoop of lunar soil, put the bag in a pocket in the pressure suit.
And that guaranteed that even if something went wrong three or four minutes into the space walk that we would have some, you know, sample of lunar material to bring home.
Kennedy's challenge was we would land on the moon and we would return safely.
Didn't say anything about picking up any rocks.
Just said, "Land on the moon.
" But if one of you are gonna land on the moon, you ought to pick up some rocks.
15 minutes later, Buzz Aldrin is ready to join Armstrong on the surface of the moon.
I could care less who went out first as long as they both got out and got back in safely.
'Cause I needed both crewmen inside the spacecraft to accomplish my part of the mission.
There you go.
For those who haven't read the plaque, we'll read the plaque that's on the front landing gear of this LEM.
We had a couple of things to do, and one was to unveil the plaque that was on the landing gear.
"We came in peace for all mankind.
" That statement really, to me, was a very symbolic one of not just our mission, but all of the Apollo effort.
Columbia, this is Houston.
Reading you loud and clear.
Over.
Nearly 60 miles above them, Michael Collins orbits the moon alone in the command module.
Reading you loud and clear.
How's it going? Roger.
The EVA is progressing beautifully.
I believe they're setting up the flag now.
Great! I guess you're about the only person around that doesn't have TV coverage of the scene.
That's all right.
I don't mind a bit.
Tell me if you've got a picture, Houston.
We got a beautiful picture, Neil.
The flag was kind of wrapped around the upper pole.
And as it unfurled, there was a rod that would snap into position.
See if you can pull that end.
But it didn't do that.
And it was sort of bunched in one end, so we had to even it out.
Straighten that end up a little.
And I tell people that of all the six flags up there, that clearly ours was the best-looking one.
They've got the flag up now.
You can see the Stars and Stripes on the lunar surface.
Beautiful, just beautiful.
If you look real close, you can see that I'm saluting the flag.
And for a military person, that was indeed a very, very proud moment to be on the moon saluting the flag.
Beautiful view.
Isn't that something? Magnificent sight out here.
Magnificent desolation.
Neil and Buzz, the President of the United States is in his office now and would like to say a few words to you.
Over.
Well, this was kind of the last thing I thought would happen.
And I felt like I was a silent, stuttering observer.
That would be an honor.
Go ahead, Mr.
President.
I'm sure that Neil knew that this might happen.
Hello, Neil and Buzz.
I'm talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House.
And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made.
I just can't tell you how proud we all are of what you've done.
For every American, this has to be the proudest day of our lives.
It was a particular moment that was gonna be very symbolic to people on the ground to have the President talk to the two guys on the moon.
For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one.
I was with Mr.
Nixon in the White House.
There was some pretty long speech he was supposed to make, and I wrote, "I think this would be a great mistake.
You'd be taking up airtime.
You didn't really have a lot to do with this program.
You inherited it.
You ought to keep it simple and keep it short.
" And he did.
And thank you very much, and I look forward -- All of us look forward to seeing you on the Hornet on Thursday.
Armstrong and Aldrin spend just over two hours exploring the surface of the moon.
You've got your feet underneath you.
They climbed back inside, closed the hatch, repressurized the lunar module, and then took a nap, and that was basically the space walk.
It was a technical tour de force.
It went very nicely.
9, 8, 7, 6, 5.
Abort stage, engine-arm, ascent, proceed.
With the planting of the flag on the moon by Buzz and Neil, Kennedy's political objective was satisfied.
Humans -- just happened to be Americans -- actually broke free of their own planet.
They traveled to another planet and eventually landed on it and explored it.
The legacy of Apollo is, when a group of people sees a challenge, human beings can accept a challenge and chart a course and do just remarkable things.
Given a task to do, one that seems impossible, given the desire to do it, humans can accomplish almost anything.
It's the culmination of more than 10 years of space pioneering and a foundation for more than four decades of exploring worlds beyond our own.
This is the story of our greatest adventure.
Just two months after the last flight of Project Gemini, NASA is testing the rockets that will launch men to the moon.
Space was on the front page of the newspapers.
They would read about it every day.
They relished in our successes.
We had learned the new technologies of space.
We had learned to work with computers.
We had learned to navigate.
We had learned to dock.
We had the confidence now to take the step go to the moon.
Apollo 1 is the first chance to test the new three-man capsule in space.
Rookie astronaut Roger Chaffee joins a crew of NASA elite.
Ed White -- the first American to walk in space.
And Commander Gus Grissom, one of the original Mercury 7 and a good bet to be the first man to walk on the moon.
The command module is larger than any other capsule NASA has launched into space and the most complex.
It was a new spacecraft.
It was something that we had to learn from the ground up, and we had to start from scratch.
Project Apollo is in overdrive, racing to get to the moon by the end of the decade.
There are three years left.
12, 14, 16, 18 hours a day.
Day after day.
Apollo 1 is less than four weeks from lift-off.
Tests now simulate realistic launch conditions.
The Apollo 1 crew was conducting their pad test at Kennedy Space Center -- a normal procedure that we do with all our launches.
The pad test requires running the capsule on its own electrical power while pressurized with 16 pounds per square inch of pure oxygen.
It's a deadly combination.
We should have drawn the line and said, "Let's call it off today.
Let's take a break.
" But we did not.
A fire breaks out in the sealed capsule.
Grissom, White, and Chaffee suffocate from the toxic fumes.
And it was obvious, walking into that room, that something horrific had occurred.
There was a fire, and the crew got killed, which You know, the world stopped at that point in time.
It changed everything.
The cause is a spark from wiring under Grissom's seat accelerated by the oxygen.
The astronauts are dead within 30 seconds.
We had become complacent.
We had forgotten the hazards associated with a pure-oxygen atmosphere.
And we had taken too many things for granted.
There was no question we were responsible for the first space-flight disaster.
If you put a flame to aluminum in 16 psi of oxygen, it will burn.
NASA launches a full investigation, exposing deep flaws in its procedures and quality control problems throughout the capsule.
Apollo 1 maybe was the catalyst that allowed us to pick up the pieces and not just get the job done, but get it done right.
The capsule is redesigned from the inside out -- shielded wiring, fireproof materials, and a new hatch for quicker exit in an emergency.
Nearly two years later, Apollo 7 fulfills the mission of Apollo 1, testing the command module in Earth orbit.
From now on we're gonna stand up and assume responsibility for every action, and we'll never stop learning again.
The next step requires a lot more rocket power.
It's time to go to the moon.
With just four months to prepare, Apollo 8 will be the first manned flight to leave Earth orbit for deep space.
And he said, "We're thinking about changing the mission of Apollo 8 and going to the moon.
Do you want to do it?" And four months is not a long time to change your mission.
Lot of things happened on Apollo 8 that were, you know, unplanned.
Since this was the first flight on the Saturn 5, first flight to the moon -- first of a lot of things -- it was a pretty risky flight.
Our primary mission was to go to the moon, circle it 10 times, and come home alive.
Borman, Lovell, and Anders will fly the most powerful rocket ever -- the Saturn 5.
At 363 feet, it's the size of a 35-story office building and carries a million gallons of rocket fuel.
It's been flown only twice and never with men sitting on top.
But no other rocket can launch a manned spaceship beyond the bounds of Earth orbit.
The night before the launch, Saturn 5 was out there with floodlights on it.
And somebody had the bad taste of telling it was like a two-kiloton nuclear explosion if it blew up.
So we just hoped it wouldn't blow up.
This is Apollo Saturn Launch Control at 2 hours, 20 minutes and counting.
Countdown still going very satisfactory at this time.
We expect that astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and Bill Anders will be coming out in a matter of a few minutes.
We appear to have a beautiful morning here for a flight to the moon, and we're also synchronizing the clocks in the spacecraft with the mission control center in Houston.
I remember going into mission control.
The sound.
The smell.
The stale pizza and the old cookies and the burnt coffee.
You can pick up the hum of the room.
Very shortly we're going to launch this mission.
We were driven down to the Saturn 5.
We were the only people, except for a couple of nervous people, that were near the vehicle.
It had on board around 5 million pounds of high explosives.
And of course there's an old, old joke about, How does it feel to sit on top of a vehicle that was built by the lowest bidder? This is Apollo Saturn Launch Control.
T-minus 16 minutes and counting.
I had decided that there was about a one-third chance that the flight would be totally successful.
Then I thought there was a one-third chance that it wouldn't make it back.
The mission was more important than anything.
It was more important than our lives, than our families.
That's what we were there for.
We were killed more times in simulation than you can shake a stick at.
T-minus 90 seconds and counting.
It was very, very cold.
We sat in there and shivered and froze.
50 seconds and counting.
We have the power transfer.
We're now on the flight batteries within the launch vehicle.
45 seconds.
You could see up a little bit.
We were flat on our backs.
And I recall that circling over the spacecraft were a couple of sea gulls.
I've wondered what happened to those sea gulls.
They must have been the most surprised birds in the world when that thing lit up.
T-minus 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9 We have ignition sequence start.
The engines are on.
4, 3, 2, 1, 0.
Lift-off.
The clock is running.
The sideways shaking was unbelievable.
The vibration was so intense.
You couldn't see the instrument panel.
We have cleared the tower.
I thought we'd had it, yeah, during the launch.
Pad's clear.
I was hoping that Frank Borman didn't have his hand on the abort control.
He said he took his hand off, that he'd rather die than make a false abort.
One minute after lift-off, the Saturn 5 is already supersonic.
Well, the Saturn 5 is still the most powerful machine that man has ever devised.
20 tons of fuel a second.
71/2 million pounds of thrust.
I think we were all surprised at how strong that thing was.
It had had two or three iffy missions before ours, but it was a piece of cake.
It just worked beautifully.
Unbelievable.
Five engines in the first stage blast the Saturn 5 to seven times the speed of sound.
The second stage cut in.
Big bang.
At 40 miles high, it's still accelerating.
When you staged, you were thrown forward in the belts and then backward in the belts.
And I thought I was being catapulted through the instrument panel.
And the thrust looks good.
All engines, all sources show that the stage is burning perfectly.
The third stage fires twice -- first, the boost into orbit.
The second burn takes the crew of Apollo 8 where no men have ever been -- deep space.
There was no way that the Earth's gravity could hold us back any longer.
So we were on our way.
We could see the Earth.
And we could actually see the Earth shrink.
It was quite a sensation.
That was a very exciting ride on that big Saturn, but it worked perfectly.
Our good commander, Frank Borman, had a little problem.
I got nauseous on the way to the moon.
I won't go into biological details, but basically it was a mess in the spacecraft.
But of course we didn't want to abort this mission.
That was the one thing we didn't want to do.
That created an enormous controversy back on the Earth.
The doctors had an opportunity to say, "Maybe we need to recall the mission" and all that baloney.
There wasn't anything we could do about it, anyway.
We were gonna go to the moon whether he was sick or not.
Pretty soon, you know, we just, "Well, what's for dinner?" You know? Apollo 8 hurtles through space faster than any humans have ever traveled on a nonstop flight to the moon a quarter-million miles away.
Each flight was like a big open house, and all the wives and all the husbands and what have you.
Chris Kraft came over, and I asked him, I said, "You know, are you as confident as Frank is about getting back?" It was a risk.
We know nothing is certain.
And particularly in space flight, is anything certain? He thought for a minute and said, "You know, Susan, I think we've got a good 50/50 chance of getting them back.
" And I said, "Oh, thank you! 'Cause that's a lot better than what I was thinking.
" Apollo 8 is shooting blindly for the moon.
Computers calculate their trajectory.
If the numbers are off by even a little, they'll either crash into the lunar surface or miss the moon completely and just keep going.
Apollo 8, Houston.
One minute to L.
O.
S.
All systems go.
This was one of the more exciting parts of the flight because we knew that if we lost radio communication when we were masked by the moon when we were supposed to on the flight plan, we were exactly on trajectory.
All right.
Roger.
Going Command reset, tape recorder forward, low bit rate.
We were upside down and backwards in complete darkness.
The biggest thing on our minds, Were we gonna hit the moon? And at the exact millisecond we were supposed to lose the radio, we lost it.
You stop to think -- going 240,000 miles and then aiming for a point 60 miles above a surface But I think we came out within a mile and a half of where we were supposed to be.
And I looked out, and I could see there were stars everywhere except this big, black hole.
It was blacker than pitch.
And that was the moon.
And it made the hair stand up on my neck.
It looked like a mess.
It had all kinds of meteor craters and volcanoes.
And it looked very, very unfriendly.
.
5 by 60.
5.
For the first time in human history, men look upon the far side of the moon with their own eyes They're just 70 miles away.
Good to hear your voice.
Well, it was on, I don't know, sixth or seventh or eighth revolution, we looked up.
And that's when, when we came into sunlight, we were all totally amazed by the Earthrise.
A beautiful sight.
There was a big scramble for cameras.
Everybody started snapping away.
Fortunately for me, I had a color film and a long lens.
Every newspaper, every print magazine, I think it's been on everything.
And true, it is probably one of the greatest photographs of that century, seeing the Earth as it really is.
It's tiny out there.
It's inconsequential.
It was ironic that we had come to study the moon and was really discovering the Earth.
Just prior to Christmas Eve, we read from the first few verses of the Book of Genesis.
It wasn't just Borman, Anders, and Lovell.
It was representative of mankind stepping away from their home planet for the first time.
The words were so beautiful.
Christmas.
The moon.
They were so far away.
Overwhelming.
Everybody cried.
The most apprehensive moment I have ever spent in mission control was the disappearance of that vehicle around the moon on Apollo 8 for the 10th time -- to fire those rockets to come back to the Earth.
That was the most apprehensive time of my life.
Apollo 8 orbits the moon for 20 hours.
One final critical burn will lift them out of lunar orbit and blast the command module on a path to intersect the Earth.
Had that rocket not fired, I'd still be orbiting the moon.
Forever.
And I really didn't want to do that.
That burn out of lunar orbit was one of the biggies.
A bunch of the girls were sitting there, and it was pretty quiet.
And I was extremely apprehensive.
They could go anywhere.
They could be off, going into deep space.
Could have hit the surface of the moon.
Anything.
The vehicle itself could have blown up, and we wouldn't have known anything about it.
You light your rocket.
You do it behind the moon to give you enough velocity to escape lunar gravity.
And then the Earth's gravity takes over, and you continually accelerate.
You fall back to the Earth.
On their return journey, the heat shield will hit the Earth's atmosphere at record speed.
And another NASA first -- a dawn splashdown.
By the time you approach the Earth's atmosphere, you're going 25,000 miles an hour again.
It's a pretty exciting time.
Things started getting pink and then red and then orange and then yellow.
There's fire all around the spacecraft.
6,000-degrees centigrade.
I kept thinking for sure there was a hole being burned in the bottom of the spacecraft.
You dig into the Earth's atmosphere a little bit and then come back out to relieve the heat load, then roll over 180 degrees and go back in.
It gets like a roller coaster.
Then finally you go slow enough that you're dropping straight down.
We hit the water quite hard.
So here we were, conquering heroes from the moon, hanging in our straps with all the trash in the spacecraft raining down on our faces.
We were floating in the Atlantic in the pitch dark in a rough sea.
I got seasick and threw up all over Anders and Lovell.
So that was the humble end to a great mission.
The achievements of Apollo 8 can't be overstated.
It paves the way for every Apollo mission to follow.
But just circling the moon isn't enough.
NASA still needs a spacecraft that can land on the lunar surface.
We couldn't go to the moon until we figured out if the lunar module's gonna work or not.
That was our job.
We want to develop the techniques that we're gonna have to use around the moon, and we're gonna take the first shot at them here around the Earth.
Whenever I saw a model of the lunar module, it had these rigid sides and really looked strong.
Turns out that the external portions of the lunar module are made up of Mylar and cellophane and is put together with Scotch tape and staples.
We had to have pads on the floor.
'Cause if you dropped a screwdriver, it would go right through the floor.
Holy Christmas.
And we're gonna try to fly this thing? We had a test rig at NASA Langley held up by a cable that represented five-sixths gravity, so we had one-sixth gravity in the spacecraft.
We flew that for a while, and then we had a thing called LLTV.
LLTV is the ugliest-looking contraption in the world.
It was not an exact simulation of the lunar module.
It didn't simulate the cockpit.
But it was your own fanny hanging out there.
In a simulator -- "Stop.
You just crashed.
Let's go out and talk about it.
" In the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle, the LLTV, you either landed it or you ejected or you killed yourself.
We started out with four of these things.
They were very unstable, and three of the four crashed.
Three people ejected, including Neil Armstrong during his training process.
When Armstrong ejected from the LLTV, ejected nearly horizontal.
Have you ever seen pictures of him doing -- Yeah.
Scary, isn't it? Every flight we flew leading up to Apollo 11 was absolutely essential.
Lift-off.
We have lift-off at 11:00 a.
m.
Eastern Standard Time.
Apollo 9.
David Scott, Rusty Schweickart, and Jim McDivitt.
Their mission -- test-fly the lunar module -- the LM -- in Earth orbit.
Apollo 9, you are go all the way.
Everything looks good.
9 was the first time we ever put two crewmen in a spacecraft that couldn't reenter into the Earth's atmosphere.
And, Apollo 9, at 5 minutes, everybody is as happy as a clam here.
Looking good.
The command module is sort of divided into two environments -- one where you're lying on your back, looking at an instrument panel up here.
And then the navigation station.
And you can stand up, move around down there.
So they were really two different things.
And then when you wanted to go into the lunar module -- The lunar module's upside down.
So you got to turn back around.
It was the first flight where we had all these things together.
The LM is the last essential piece in the Apollo flight plan -- a spacecraft that can land on the moon, then rendezvous and dock with the command module in lunar orbit.
Flying the lunar module for the first time was a real challenge.
3, 2, 1.
Lift-off.
All test pilots like to be a guy who flies the first flight on any vehicle.
I'm sure it was in Rusty's mind, and I know darn well it was in my mind -- We better get back to this place or we're gonna be toast.
I really mean toast.
Roger.
I'd like there to be light down there.
More than 17,000 miles an hour in a machine so fragile a few grains of sand rushing through space could tear it up.
The interesting thing about the lunar module is that you fly it standing up.
All the gauges, the panels, were set up so we could stand up.
And the reason for that was you get a lot better view trying to land out the front if you can see up close to the window.
Fired the engine, moved away.
We went out, staged.
We blew the descent stage off.
Then we lit the ascent stage.
It worked fine.
And we maneuvered on to where we could do the final rendezvous.
Worked just like it was planned.
The LM can fly at least around the Earth.
With only nine months before the end of the decade, there is one final test before NASA can attempt to land on the moon.
You know, Apollo 10 was only the second flight of the lunar module ever.
And we were gonna take it to the moon.
The Apollo 10 was a total dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing, with the exception of the landing itself.
Apollo 10.
You can tell the world that we have arrived.
Apollo 10-- Tom Stafford, John Young, and lunar module pilot Gene Cernan.
And we were gonna separate from the command module and go down over the landing site about 47,000 feet a couple times and re-rendezvous.
So it was somewhat of a hairy mission.
But, you know, that's what we were there for.
Our target was to cross the landing site for Apollo 11 at about 47,000 feet.
Man, we came scooting in going, what, 3,000 miles an hour over the -- At 47,000 feet, you are really, really hauling the mail at that point in time.
I almost felt like I had to pick up my feet to keep them from dragging on the top of those mountaintops.
I mean, we really came in low and fast.
Being the first or second man on the moon wasn't important to me at that point in time, but landing on the moon was.
What an opportunity.
What a challenge.
Well, we came close, and we didn't land.
And Apollo 10, I think a lot of people thought about the kind of people we were and, you know -- "Don't give those guys an opportunity to land, 'cause they might.
" So the ascent module -- the part we lifted off the lunar surface with, was short-fueled.
The fuel tanks weren't full.
So had we literally tried to land on the moon, we never could have gotten off.
Hey, Joe, we're about ready to dock.
Roger that.
So we did everything except -- You know, I tell Neil I painted a white line in the sky so he wouldn't get lost.
And that's about what we did.
And they were able to concentrate pretty much on the descent itself, which, you know, turned out to be, obviously, a pretty big challenge for them.
With the success of Apollo 10, NASA is ready to land the next mission on the moon.
The crew training for Apollo 11 are all veterans of space flight from the Gemini program.
Neil Armstrong is mission commander.
Michael Collins, command module pilot.
And Buzz Aldrin, lunar module pilot.
They're training for the mission of a lifetime.
Apollo 7, 8, 9, and 10 had all done a great job.
Each flight achieved all its important objectives, giving Apollo 11 all the information that was needed to try a descent to the lunar surface.
Neil Armstrong was what I'd say the quiet type.
He was very focused.
He was obviously the commander.
You could look at him, knew he was the guy in charge.
Buzz Aldrin was absolutely a whiz in the operation of the computer.
I think he knew what was going on inside the machine.
He understood the beauty, the complexity.
Mike Collins -- the guy that you wanted in case you ran into problems.
Extremely competent in his judgment.
Training for Apollo 11 is extremely intensive.
You have the training for all of the launch phase and all the aborts that may occur.
You had the training for what you were going to do on the surface of the moon, the extravehicular operation.
Every phase of the mission.
Only Armstrong and Aldrin will walk on the moon.
But mission planners are giving them plenty to do when they get there.
We were all going through geology training.
And frankly, it was a real eye-opener to me.
But somehow it just seemed a little make-believe for us to be geologists for that brief period of time.
So I felt some of the training that we did was Not really a charade -- It was more put on for show for the cameras and the people watching.
And "Yeah, we'll go through these exercises.
" I guess that is a little bit the way I looked at it.
The public's appetite for the new celebrities of space is insatiable and exhausting.
About two weeks before launch, you're in your almost fine count.
You're getting ready for the flight-readiness review.
And we have an enormous stack of checklists and procedures and flight plans that we go through.
What you want to do is you want to get away from it all and then start going through your own personal preparation, your countdown, your last few simulations.
So it's really essential to find some quiet time.
Eight years, one month, and 22 days after John Kennedy challenged America to land a man on the moon, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins are ready to fly.
The astronauts then sat down to breakfast.
They had a menu of filet mignon, scrambled eggs, toast, coffee, and tea.
This is Apollo Launch Control.
We're still aiming toward our planned lift-off at the start of the lunar window, 9:32 a.
m.
Eastern Daylight.
All the flights sort of can be looked at as a dangerous endeavor.
You're flying machines, and machines break.
Nobody, you know, wrung their hands about, "Oh, my God.
Why am I doing this? Look at this.
All these things can go wrong, and this thing can break.
It's crazy.
Let's don't do it.
" Everybody's standing in line.
"Let's go.
If you don't want to go, I'll go.
" This is Apollo Launch Control.
T-minus 3 hours, 4 minutes, 32 seconds and counting.
Right on time as far as the astronaut countdown is concerned.
The prime crew now departing from their crew quarters here at the Kennedy Space Center.
The transfer van now departing on the start of its eight-mile trip to Launchpad "A" here at Complex 39.
Right now our count at three hours, three minutes and counting.
Well, my position in the launch was gonna be in the center with Neil on the left in the commander's position and Mike Collins on the right.
But that meant that I would be the last one to be put into the spacecraft.
Astronaut Edwin Aldrin will stand by in the elevator, seated in a chair, while his two comrades first board the spacecraft.
So I had my little air-conditioning unit all by myself.
I could look out and see the sun beginning to come up.
And I could sort of see the evidence of people out there gathered to watch.
I could see them, and they couldn't quite see me, I guess.
Once Armstrong and Collins are aboard, then Aldrin will be called, and he will take the middle seat in the spacecraft.
This was a lonely situation.
Here I am on the outside of this rocket.
We're gonna be on the inside pretty soon.
And we're not gonna see the outside again anymore if things go right.
This is Apollo Saturn Launch Control.
We've passed the 6-minute mark in our countdown for Apollo 11, the flight to land the first men on the moon.
The swingarm now coming back as our countdown continues.
Firing command coming in now.
We're on an automatic sequence as the master computer supervises hundreds of events occurring over these last few minutes.
T-minus 15 seconds.
Guidance is internal.
12, 11, 10, 9 Ignition sequence start.
6 Once the spacecraft rockets out of Earth orbit, the moon is a three-day journey.
The crew is the tip of the iceberg.
In Apollo 11, there were 400,000 people underneath that all had to do their job or we weren't gonna make it.
And I think every crew realized that.
It was a team effort of NASA that got us to the moon.
These are probably the finest systems engineers in the world.
They're all young.
Average age was 26.
I was the oldest guy that day.
I was 36.
"Okay, guys, it's now time to get down to business.
We're about ready to land a man on the moon.
" And I start talking to them because I feel compelled to talk.
I was probably the most emotional of the flight directors.
"From the day of our birth, we were meant for this time and place.
And today we will land an American on the moon.
Whatever happens here today, I will stand behind every decision you will make.
We came into this room as a team, and we will leave as a team.
" Then I tell my ground controller to lock the control-room doors.
And from now on no person will leave or enter this room until we have either landed, we have crashed, or we have aborted.
Those are the only three outcomes from this time on.
The first thing, obviously, that we're gonna have to do is to undock from the command module.
And then we rotated around so that Mike could sort of make a quick check of our landing gear.
Then the first thing we need to do is to establish communication with the Earth.
Houston -- Eagle.
How do you read? Five-by Eagle.
We're standing by for your burn report.
Over.
Roger.
The burn was on time.
Tempo in the room picks up right as we acquire spacecraft telemetry, and we immediately got problems.
"X" and "Z" nulled We got communications problems you cannot believe.
Please have him reacquire on the high gain.
Over.
We couldn't communicate with the lunar module.
Mike Collins could because he could see them.
He could point his antennas at them and talk to them.
So what we would do is we would say, "Mike, have the crew select a different antenna.
" Houston, we've lost them.
Tell them to go aft Omni.
Over.
Take Omni Bravo or Omni Delta.
Will you roll the spacecraft a little bit for us? He'd roll the spacecraft, we'd get data.
Eagle -- Houston.
We recommend you yaw 10 right.
It will help us on the high-gain signal strength.
Over.
Yeah, you should have him now, Houston.
Eagle, we got you now.
It's looking good.
Over.
And at descent minus 5 minutes, I give the go for a power descent.
Go.
You're a go to continue powered descent.
You're a go to continue powered descent.
The descent was very tricky business.
Our plan was to start at about 50,000 feet altitude, 3,000 miles per hour, to use one continuous rocket burn to decelerate to a hover in the landing area.
Eagle -- Houston.
Everything's looking good here.
Over.
Throttle up, and I get confirmed throttle up.
And telemetry drops out again, and I'm back in this ground role.
Do I have enough information to continue the descent or not? All flight controllers, gonna go for landing.
- RETRO.
- Go.
- FI DO.
- Go.
- Guidance.
- Go.
- Control.
- Go.
- GC.
- Go.
- Surgeon.
- Go.
Cap Com, we're go for landing.
Houston, you're a go for landing.
Over.
Program alarm.
And about that time, we got a computer alarm of 1202.
The computer was giving us trouble.
It was a big attention-getter.
My first thought, "Oh, no.
We've lost it.
We're not gonna make it.
" All we had was 1202, which is kind of disconcerting.
You lose information, plus you've got an alarm, and you don't really know what it is.
Give us the reading on the 1202 program alarm.
I was reaching for my checklist to turn to this program alarm when the guidance guy, Steve Bales, said, "We're go, Flight, on that alarm.
" Gene took his word.
You know, "Okay, we're go.
" He didn't ask for an explanation.
We're go.
Now the landing radar can begin to pick up range and velocity of the ground beneath us.
And it compares that with what the computer thinks it ought to be, and there's a big difference.
- Roger.
Well, this is extremely serious.
Is the computer breaking? Is it telling us it's not functioning right? - 1201.
- Roger.
1201 alarm.
What is the alarm telling us? We're go.
Same type.
We're go.
Same type.
It was a different number, but same type.
He said, "Same type, Flight.
We're go.
" 47 degrees.
Roger.
The computer was so busy, and it couldn't get all the jobs done.
So it was dropping off these other little jobs down on the end and not doing them, which were jobs that weren't really that critical.
Just as Mission Control decides to ignore the computer alarms, the LEM sends another strange signal.
47 degrees.
We just saw this strange trajectory that we'd never seen in training.
300 feet, down 31/2.
47 forward.
He went down to about 400 feet, stopped his descent, and leveled off and started flying horizontally across the moon.
He didn't tell us, but out the window what they were seeing was a big boulder field.
Our computer was steering us toward football-stadium-sized craters surrounded by steep slopes and covered with very large boulders.
250 down at 21/2.
19 forward.
Altitude, velocity light.
Neil had the one thing we did not have.
He had the out-the-window view.
16 forward.
He knew whether he was over a safe place to land 200 feet.
or over a boulder field.
My job was to tell him how much fuel he had.
And when it had zero, that was our best knowledge.
We had zero.
51/2 down.
9 forward.
The fuel states were falling.
And were getting close to what was gonna be an abort situation.
100 feet, 31/2 down.
9 forward.
When we got to about 100 feet, the low-level light came on, and Charlie Duke gave us a call of 60 seconds.
Simple call -- "Eagle, 60 seconds.
" 60 seconds.
We better get on the ground pretty soon.
He had 60 seconds to land.
And after that 60 seconds, it would be abort.
Down 21/2.
I didn't want to disturb Neil's concentration 'cause I knew he was really working that problem.
Picking up some dust.
And now the crew is kicking up some dust.
So we know they're darn close to the surface.
But they were scooting pretty fast across it last time we heard.
4 forward, drifting to the right a little.
We used most of our remaining fuel finding a relatively level and smooth landing spot.
101/2.
30 seconds.
We had 30 seconds to land.
I mean, it was deathly silent.
And I don't think he was gonna actually abort.
I mean, that wouldn't have been the right stuff.
Contact light.
Okay, engine stop.
ACA out of detent.
I looked over at him, and he looked at me.
And there was not a great emotion, but there was a smile of satisfaction on both of our faces.
We shook hands.
413 is in.
And you finally can say, "We just landed on the moon.
" We hit the moon with 17 seconds of fuel remaining.
Houston, this is Neil.
Radio check.
Neil, this is Houston.
Loud and clear.
Inside the LEM, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin suit up for the most remarkable extravehicular activity of all time -- the first EVA on the moon.
Break, break.
Buzz, this is Houston.
Radio check and to verify TV circuit breaker in.
We changed shifts.
My Cap Com replacement was Bruce McCandless.
Bruce came in, and I told him about the status of everything and said, "Adios".
And I went home and turned on my TV.
And I watched it with everybody else and my little kids and my wife.
And we were home watching the first step on the moon.
Okay, Neil.
We can see you coming down the ladder now.
I could see the moon, and intellectually I knew that there were friends of mine on the moon and that I was gonna talk to them and they were gonna go out and walk around.
But I couldn't bring myself to believe it because the moon didn't look any different, you know, and surely it should have.
Okay, Neil.
We can see you coming down the ladder now.
The marvel of it all.
The miracle of it all.
My God, we not only landed on the moon, we're getting ready to go out and walk.
And look at those guys -- a bunch of kids seeing something for the first time.
And you're pointing at these things.
And it's like a -- just a joyous ride where you hope that the ride will never end, that you'll never have to get off.
You're gonna get the contingency sample.
Okay, that's good.
As the first priority, they had to take a scoop of lunar soil, put the bag in a pocket in the pressure suit.
And that guaranteed that even if something went wrong three or four minutes into the space walk that we would have some, you know, sample of lunar material to bring home.
Kennedy's challenge was we would land on the moon and we would return safely.
Didn't say anything about picking up any rocks.
Just said, "Land on the moon.
" But if one of you are gonna land on the moon, you ought to pick up some rocks.
15 minutes later, Buzz Aldrin is ready to join Armstrong on the surface of the moon.
I could care less who went out first as long as they both got out and got back in safely.
'Cause I needed both crewmen inside the spacecraft to accomplish my part of the mission.
There you go.
For those who haven't read the plaque, we'll read the plaque that's on the front landing gear of this LEM.
We had a couple of things to do, and one was to unveil the plaque that was on the landing gear.
"We came in peace for all mankind.
" That statement really, to me, was a very symbolic one of not just our mission, but all of the Apollo effort.
Columbia, this is Houston.
Reading you loud and clear.
Over.
Nearly 60 miles above them, Michael Collins orbits the moon alone in the command module.
Reading you loud and clear.
How's it going? Roger.
The EVA is progressing beautifully.
I believe they're setting up the flag now.
Great! I guess you're about the only person around that doesn't have TV coverage of the scene.
That's all right.
I don't mind a bit.
Tell me if you've got a picture, Houston.
We got a beautiful picture, Neil.
The flag was kind of wrapped around the upper pole.
And as it unfurled, there was a rod that would snap into position.
See if you can pull that end.
But it didn't do that.
And it was sort of bunched in one end, so we had to even it out.
Straighten that end up a little.
And I tell people that of all the six flags up there, that clearly ours was the best-looking one.
They've got the flag up now.
You can see the Stars and Stripes on the lunar surface.
Beautiful, just beautiful.
If you look real close, you can see that I'm saluting the flag.
And for a military person, that was indeed a very, very proud moment to be on the moon saluting the flag.
Beautiful view.
Isn't that something? Magnificent sight out here.
Magnificent desolation.
Neil and Buzz, the President of the United States is in his office now and would like to say a few words to you.
Over.
Well, this was kind of the last thing I thought would happen.
And I felt like I was a silent, stuttering observer.
That would be an honor.
Go ahead, Mr.
President.
I'm sure that Neil knew that this might happen.
Hello, Neil and Buzz.
I'm talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House.
And this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made.
I just can't tell you how proud we all are of what you've done.
For every American, this has to be the proudest day of our lives.
It was a particular moment that was gonna be very symbolic to people on the ground to have the President talk to the two guys on the moon.
For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one.
I was with Mr.
Nixon in the White House.
There was some pretty long speech he was supposed to make, and I wrote, "I think this would be a great mistake.
You'd be taking up airtime.
You didn't really have a lot to do with this program.
You inherited it.
You ought to keep it simple and keep it short.
" And he did.
And thank you very much, and I look forward -- All of us look forward to seeing you on the Hornet on Thursday.
Armstrong and Aldrin spend just over two hours exploring the surface of the moon.
You've got your feet underneath you.
They climbed back inside, closed the hatch, repressurized the lunar module, and then took a nap, and that was basically the space walk.
It was a technical tour de force.
It went very nicely.
9, 8, 7, 6, 5.
Abort stage, engine-arm, ascent, proceed.
With the planting of the flag on the moon by Buzz and Neil, Kennedy's political objective was satisfied.
Humans -- just happened to be Americans -- actually broke free of their own planet.
They traveled to another planet and eventually landed on it and explored it.
The legacy of Apollo is, when a group of people sees a challenge, human beings can accept a challenge and chart a course and do just remarkable things.
Given a task to do, one that seems impossible, given the desire to do it, humans can accomplish almost anything.