Moon Machines (2008) s01e04 Episode Script

PRESIDENT kENNEDY: I beIieve that this nation shouId commit itself to achieving the goaI before this decade is out of Ianding a man on the moon and returning him safeIy to the earth.
ALDRIN: Picking up some dust.
NARRATOR: In the 1960s, an impossibIe dream came true when human beings waIked on another world.
ARMSTRONG: The Eagle has Ianded.
NARRATOR: In aII, 24 Americans went to the moon.
But it took an unseen army of over 400,000 engineers and technicians to make it possibIe.
This is the story of the men and women who built the machines that took us to the moon.
PRESIDENT kENNEDY: As we set saiI, we ask God's bIessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.
[Cheers and appIause.]
NARRATOR: In the summer of 1961, as the United States embarked on its great space adventure, one question above aII others remained unresolved.
What kind of spacecraft wouId take a man to the moon and bring him back aIive? The United States had a total of 15 minutes of space-fight experience, 5 minutes outside the Earth's atmosphere.
And now we were committed to go to the moon.
We knew nothing about the moon.
No unmanned spacecraft had Ianded there or even taken decent pictures of it.
It was very vague how we wouId even get to the moon, what wouId the vehicIes Iook Iike, what kind of rocket we wouId need.
NARRATOR: During the initiaI briefings, everybody assumed the way to the moon was to send one huge spaceship aII the way there and aII the way back But at NASA, they aIready knew there was a probIem.
It required Ianding a big, heavy, buIky spacecraft on the Iunar surface.
It required Iifting an enormous amount of weight back off of the moon.
One additionaI disadvantage was that it required a rocket that probabIy was going to be 50, 60, maybe 70feet high.
And it finaIIy occurred to some of the engineers- How are these astronauts gonna get out of this big vehicIe and get down on the Iunar surface? NARRATOR: As NASA puzzIed over the probIem, an obscure engineer caIIed John Houbolt came up with a radicaI altemative.
Instead of taking a singIe giant spaceship to the moon and back why not buiId a second Iightweight craft that wouId shuttIe between the moon and a mothership? It wouId be smaIIer, Iighter, and much more maneuverabIe.
There was onIy one massive drawback To get back to Earth wouId require the Iunar shuttIe to rendezvous with the mothership in Iunar orbit.
STOFF: What scared everybody about it is you have to rendezvous and dock around the moon.
You're a quarter of a miIIion miIes from Earth.
And he's proposing this in 1961 when we had no space-fight experience and just rendezvousing and docking in Earth orbit concemed everybody.
CAUSEY: Every time he brought the idea up, he was shot down.
Everybody said that he didnt know what he was taIking about.
It was very embarrassing, because he is a very quiet, very reserved, reticent man, and he was very taken aback by the hostiIity.
NARRATOR: The opposition was led by NASA's foremost rocket expert, Wemhervon Braun, who had always favored the big-rocket approach and now toId Houboltto cut the Iunar-rendezvous crap.
CAUSEY: Wemhervon Braun had a very strong ego, was very popuIar in the United States, very famous in the United States, because of his appearance on teIevision.
And he beIieved very strongIy in the idea of taking a big rocket to the moon.
NARRATOR: In desperation, Houbolt finaIIy wrote directIy to NASA's top Ieadership.
CAUSEY: In these Ietters, Dr.
Houbolt said, ''I know that I'm stepping out of Iine here.
I know I might even get fired because I'm writing this Ietter, but I think its so important to bring this to your attention that I'm wiIIing to risk my career in doing it.
'' SEAMANS: He said something Iike, ''I know I may be a pain in the neck and I shouIdnt be writing this Ietter to you,'' and so on, ''but I feeI so strongIy about this, I feeI impeIIed to write you.
'' And he said in these Ietters to Dr.
Seamans that the Iunar-orbit-rendezvous idea was the onIy way to get us to the moon.
Dr.
Houbolt didnt say, ''I think its one way,'' or he didnt say, ''I think its the best way.
'' He said, ''I think its the onIy way.
'' SEAMANS: It was rather strident in the way it was written, and my first reaction was, ''I'd Iike some way to get that son of agun off my back'' NARRATOR: But Seamans was sufficientIy intrigued to recommend that Houbolts proposaI shouId at Ieast get a serious hearing.
It was a turning point.
At a meeting in June 1962, caIIed to hammer out a soIution, von Braun took everybody by surprise.
CAUSEY: Everybody was getting together to, again, try and taIk about what decision they were gonna make on going to the moon.
SEAMANS: The von Braun team gave a presentation, and when they finished, Wemher stood up, and he said, ''I'm reaIIy proud of our group.
'' He said, ''Tha twas a wonderfuI presentation.
You considered everything very, very carefuIIy, but I have to teII you that thats not what I'm gonna recommend.
'' ''I'm gonna recommend that we go Iunar-orbit rendezvous.
'' It was such a surprise to everybody that even his own staff peopIe, severaI days Iater, had a private meeting with him, and they said, 'Why in the world did you say that?.
What Ied you to beIieve that?.
We were compIeteIy surprised that you decided to announce for Iunar-orbit rendezvous.
'' NARRATOR: BeIatedIy, von Braun had recognized it was the onIy way.
And in the faII of 1962, U.
S.
aircraft manufacturers competed to buiId what became known as the Iunar excursion moduIe, or LEM.
[ HeIicopter bIades whirring .]
NARRATOR: One of the competitors was a smaII aircraft company on Long IsIand.
The Grumman Corporation had aIready spent time and money investigating the idea of a dedicated Iunar Iander.
STOFF: For weII over a year, they had been studying this probIem of how to get to the moon.
And because they had been studying it on their own with their own money for Ionger than aII these other contractors, they submitted a much more detaiIed design.
NARRATOR: Grumman's proposaI was made up of two distinct stages, each with its own engine.
Adescent stage wouId take the astronauts down to the Iunar surface.
And then, when they wanted to return, a tiny ascent moduIe wouId separate, Ieaving the buIky descent stage on the moon and return the astronauts to the orbiting command moduIe.
They reaIIy understood that weight was so criticaI, you wanted to Ieave the heaviest part behind to get off the moon.
NARRATOR: Mission compIeted, this finaI stage of the LEM wouId aIso be discarded.
NASA Iiked it, and, in November 1962, Grumman won the contract to buiId the most compIicated and sophisticated spacecraft ever conceived.
But the process had taken aImost two years, and Grumman wouId spend the next five making up for Iost time.
As Grumman now got down to the detaiIed design work they were hampered by the fact that nobody knew much about the surface they were going to Iand on.
You must remember how many things we didnt know at the very beginning.
This expert was teIIing us that there are 10 meters ofimpaIpabIe dust on the surface of the moon.
And we worried tremendousIy about tipping over.
In fact, we made, I think something Iike 400 different computer runs because we didnt understand what the dynamics of the Ianding wouId reaIIy be.
NARRATOR: But the most pressing issue was weight.
For every pound the LEM weighed, it wouId take 4 pounds of fueI to Iift it off the Earth.
STOFF: Grumman's originaI design has a Iarge sphericaI top half, the ascent stage, with these very Iarge gIass windows.
WeII, there's no way you couId have those heavy gIass windows.
Weight was too precious.
So they had to go to much smaIIer windows.
There were aIso seats.
WeII, in zerogravity, or 1/6gravity, you reaIIy didnt need seats, so the seats were taken out.
In the early concepts for a IunarIander, there's no Iadder on the front Ieg because why do they need a Iadder?.
There's onIy 1/6gravity on the moon.
What if we just give them a rope that they hang from the hatch down to the Iunar surface? They cIimb down a rope.
They cIimb back up it.
We save weight.
Grumman buiIds a fuII-scaIe wooden mock-up.
Astronauts try cIimbing down the rope.
Nobody can get back up the rope.
So they had to add a Iadder down the front Ieg.
NARRATOR: As the prototypes evolved, the one constant was change.
STOFF: Astronauts come to Grumman to test the design, and what they found is that an astronaut wearing a square backpack cant frt out the round hatch.
So Grumman deIetes the round hatch in the front.
They put, instead, a big square hatch.
NARRATOR: FinaIIy, in the spring of 1965, NASA, worried design changes wouId never stop imposed a freeze.
It was an entireIy independent spacecraft with its own motors, fueI, Iife-support system, and navigation equipment.
To some at the time, it seemed excessive.
They couIdnt have known just how important it wouId turn out to be.
After 2 1/2 years of preparation, engineer sat the Grumman faciIity on Long IsIand finaIIy began buiIding what many regarded as the first true spaceship.
It was built in one of the world's first cIean rooms.
In zerogravity, any floating foreign body wouId be a hazard.
Everybodys wearing surgicaI suits-whitesuits- booties, gIoves, hats.
If you have a beard, you wear a face mask They even preferred peopIe who didnt bathe very often because they didnt want skin flaking off and possibIy floating around in there and causing probIems.
NARRATOR: Then, just in case there was any debris, each LEM was turned upside down and shaken.
STOFF: Grumman puts it in a turnbIer, rotates it upside down, and actuaIIy spins it around and shakes it out.
And, every stage, there was aII sorts of bits and metaI shavings, and rivets wouId faII out of it.
aII the kind of things you dont want floating around in space that couId possibIy shortout an eIectricaI system, or somebody couId breathe in.
NARRATOR: But in the urban confines of Long IsIand, the one thing Grumman couIdnt do was the hazardous business of testing rocket motors.
For this, they wouId need somewhere much more remote.
In the early 1960s, the company went to White Sands in New Mexico.
Here, in the middIe of the desert, they built an engine-testing faciIity.
Lynn RadcIiffe was the first manager.
When I came aboard that first day, I knew absoIuteIy nothing about rocketry.
It was aImost as though I had waIked into a foreign country.
NARRATOR: The LEM was equipped with two very different rockets.
The first, the so-caIIed descent engine, wouId take the LEM from the command moduIe down toward the Iunar surface.
It was an entireIy new and untried piece of technoIogy.
STOFF: Up untiI this point in history, no one had ever built a rocket engine with a throttIe.
Either they were on, or they were off.
But in order to Iand on the moon now, you have to have a throttIe so you can sIow the spacecraft graduaIIy to come in for Ianding.
RADOLIFFE: This was an unbeIievabIe maneuver when you stop and think about it.
You're sitting on a coIumn of thrust, just hovering there Iike a heIicopter.
And then, as you Iet it go, the throttIe, a IittIe bit, you Iower it just at a few feet per second untiI you make contact.
AII of this is an amazing set of requirements to put on anyone trying to design a rocket.
NARRATOR: But It was the moduIe's second rocket, the so-caIIed ascent engine, that caused Grumman the most Iost sIeep.
It didnt need a throttIe, but it did need to work with absoIute reIiabiIity.
You're totalIy dependent on the ascent engine to work to put you back in orbit.
If, for any reason, the ascent engine faiIed to work.
.
the astronauts are doomed.
NARRATOR: To keep it simpIe, it used so-caIIed hypergoIic propeIIants, a rocket fueI and an oxidizer that expIode on contact.
There were no pumps and no igniter.
But the simpIicity came at a price.
The fueIs were extremeIy toxic.
RADOLIFFE: We got so famiIiar with what oxidizer Iooks Iike when it Ieaks.
You have this big red cIoud.
You couIdnt absorb more than five parts permiIIion on a continuing basis.
It wouId start to eat your Iungs away.
So if we had a spiII and if the wind was just right, we had to get the poIice out and get peopIe to evacuate.
[AIarm bIares.]
NARRATOR: But what reaIIy worried them was that the fueI was so corrosive that, at the end of a test, each engine had to be rebuilt.
It meant the finaI assembIy of an engine couId never be tested.
RADOLIFFE: UnbeIievabIy, the first time these engines wouId ever have been fired, ever- no checkout at the factory- the first time wouId be when they were fired in their mission.
Imperfection was not an option.
They had to be perfect.
NARRATOR: It was a situation nobody at Grumman wouId ever feeI comfortabIe with.
MeanwhiIe, on Long IsIand, engineers were combating yet another hazard of space flight.
In space, you're facing the sun.
Its 240 degrees.
The dark side is 240 degrees beIow zero.
You have to insuIate the spacecraft as weII as possibIe because there's huge fueI tanks in there, and the fueI's gonna boiI at 100 degrees and freeze at 30 degrees.
NARRATOR: Such a huge temperature variation couId aIso cause the craft to buckle.
Yet Grumman couIdnt afford heavy heat shieIds.
STOFF: FortunateIy, for the space program, DuPont had deveIoped this new materiaI.
It was aIuminized MyIar.
It was a goId coIor, and they found if you built it up to perhaps 25 Iayers, its an exceIIent insuIator.
NARRATOR: The LEM was coated in MyIar.
To many engineers, the finaI vehicIe was an insult to every notion of what a spacecraft shouId Iook Iike.
But, in the vacuum of space, it didnt need to be streamIined.
It was one of the weirdest and most improbabIe flying machines ever conceived.
By the mid-1960s, with just over four years to go before kennedys deadIine, the Grumman faciIity on Long IsIand began roIIing out the first fuII-scaIe Iunar moduIes.
For some years, astronauts had been training on a simuIator known as the'flying bedstead.
'' Its basicaIIy a jet engine in the middIe, IittIe rocket engines aII around it on the outside, just Iike the Iunar moduIe, and astronauts sat in a IittIe capsuIe in the front.
And they wouId take off verticaIIy and hover and try to simuIate Ianding on the moon.
NARRATOR: It was unstabIe and dangerous, and the astronauts hated it.
NeiI Armstrong had to eject out of it right before it crashed.
At some point in the program, they actuaIIy stopped using it because It was just a Iot safer to Iand on the moon than It was to fly this machine down in Texas.
It was just too unstabIe.
NARRATOR: Now, as the compIeted LEM became avaiIabIe, they were abIe to train on the reaI thing.
It was instaIIed in a testfaciIity with a camera that projected images of an artificiaI Iunar surface through the windows.
STOFF: And they wouId actuaIIy run through compIete missions in the Iunar moduIe Next to it, there was a desk where the instructors sat, and they wouId introduce aII sorts of faults.
FIip a switch, something wouId go wrong.
The astronauts in the simuIator wouId have to deaIwith it and try to figure out what was wrong.
[ Beeping .]
Had to salvage the mission.
NARRATOR: Butt he cIock was ticking.
It was time to move beyond simuIations and take the LEM into space.
In the summer of 1967, the first space-ready Iunar moduIe was transported to Cape kennedy.
It wouId be mounted on Apollo 4, the first unmanned test of the LEM in space.
For the peopIe at Grumman, It was the finaI test.
But It was not to be.
AImost immediateIy, things began to go wrong.
STOFF: NASA gets a hoId of it.
They start running tests on it.
And NASA discovers this vehicIe is a mess.
They find hundreds of probIems.
Things that werent built right, werent instaIIed right, eIectricaI wires that are frayed, possibIy broken, and, most aIarming of aII, there are fueI Ieaks everywhere in the system.
NARRATOR: Grumman, under huge pressure from the scheduIe, had faiIed to compIete the preflight checks.
But NASA couIdnt wait, and the Apollo 4 mission went ahead without the LEM.
The whoIe incident of this first Iunar moduIe reaIIy Ied to great embarrassment on Grumman's part.
NARRATOR: Then, as Grumman raced to repair the Ieaks, there was a second probIem.
As the Iunar moduIe was pressure-tested in a vacuum chamber, a window bIew out.
There's debris aII over the pIace.
Wires are evidentIy nicked that you couId see with the naked eye.
There are physicaI hoIes in the structure.
And I was Iike, ''Oh, my God, here I am.
I'm on the job two weeks.
Look what happened.
'' NARRATOR: WhiIe his coIIeagues worried about why it had happened, RcoamboIi was toId to cIear up the mess.
Heasked NASA what to do.
ROCAMBOLI: NASA came back with criteria for cIeanIiness.
If you have particIes of this size and so many per cubic inch, you know, the astronaut wiII get an itchy eye maybe.
If there are so many more particIes and theyre bigger, he'II get a sore throat.
If theyre bigger stiII, he couId bIeed.
If theyre bigger stiII, he's in danger, his Iife.
NARRATOR: It wouId mean going through the LEM with a fine-tooth comb.
ROCAMBOLI: The technicians wouId go in there with filter paper and cameI-hairbrushes, and they wouId cIean what they couId not see and they wouId coIIect it on the filterpaper.
That was sent back toa Grumman quaIity Iab.
NARRATOR: But what had caused the bIowout?.
Was there a design fault?.
Had the window been badIy fitted? Or had it been damaged during construction? Grumman was never sure.
The soIution was never one of those that gave you a compIeteIy warm feeIing.
NARRATOR: Every window was checked and repIaced in the hope that it wouId be aII right.
And, six months Iater, Apollo 5 took an unmanned Iunar moduIe into space.
Twelve months Iater, Apollo 9 carried the first manned Iunar moduIe into space.
And Apollo 10 took a manned LEM around the moon.
MAN: Yeah.
NARRATOR: It was time to take the LEM down to the Iunar surface.
[ Man chuckles.]
MAN: Lift-off.
We have a Iift-off.
32 minutes past the hour.
Lift-off on Apollo 11.
-ARMSTRONG: Roger.
-MAN: Tower cIear.
ARMSTRONG: Roger, roII.
NARRATOR: On JuIy 16, 1969, Apollo 11 bIasted off from Cape kennedy.
Some 72 hours Iater, the IunarIander undocked from the command moduIe and headed for the moon.
It was the finaI chaIIenge.
Hundreds of thousands of man-hours of work worry, and effort were about to be put to the test.
My heart was in my mouth.
ALDRIN: Altitude 1,600.
RADOLIFFE: We'd come to a moment oftruth that wouId Iast onIy 12 minutes.
If I couId have heId my breath for 12 minutes, I probabIy wouId have.
ALDRIN: 700 feet, 21 down, 33 degrees.
NARRATOR: Grumman had simuIated the maneuver hundreds of times, but the reaIity was proving different.
The astronauts were heading for a bouIder fieId.
-MAN: Low IeveI.
-MAN#2: Low IeveI.
MAN#3: Thats good.
NARRATOR: As Armstrong searched for a safe Ianding pIace, the fueI began to run dangerousIy Iow.
MAN#1: The onIy caII-outs from now on wiII be fueI.
We had very smaII margins.
You know, a 120-seconds margin forIanding sounds ridicuIousIy short.
-MAN: 60.
-MAN#2: 60-seconds.
MAN#3: 60-seconds.
GAVIN: We were aII counting seconds as to how much fueI we thought remained.
MAN: 30-seconds.
-MAN#2: 30-seconds.
-MAN#3: Forward drift.
RADOLIFFE: It just seemed an interminabIe period of time before we got those wonderfuI words that the Eagle had Ianded.
NARRATOR: The LEM had Ianded with Iess than 20-seconds of spare fueI.
I cant describe this to you in words, but Iet me teII you.
There was a reIaxation that I think aII of us felt.
RADOLIFFE: It was such a tremendous reIief that they had made it safeIy onto the moon and they were going to go out and waIk on the moon and aII those wonderfuI things.
NARRATOR: Among those in the audience at mission controI was Wemhervon Braun.
Dr.
Wemhervon Braun turned around and Iooked back and he was searching for somebody.
And he finaIIy saw John Houbolt.
And he said, overaII of the shouting, he said, ''John, you were right.
We wouIdnt be here without you.
'' [Cheering .]
[Cheering .]
NARRATOR: But as the world ceIebrated, Grumman's engineers knew their most testing moment was yet to come.
WouId their ascent engine do its job? DUNNE: Two astronauts were gonna cIimb into this thing, and, essentiaIIy, they were gonna press a button.
And if it worked, it worked, and if it didnt, there werent many things that they couId do about it.
Once you pressed that button, that was it.
AII my co-workers were standing around in the aisIes, Iooking up at a monitor aIong with me.
And this is the, reaIIy, definition of a white-knuckle situation.
That moment of Iift-off was awfuI, just pIain awfuI.
[ Radio crackles.]
Is there an anxiety?.
AbsoIuteIy.
AbsoIuteIy, there's an anxiety.
One you cant beIieve.
Like, is this gonna work?.
We know we did everything, but, God, it better work I dont think that anyone couId, at that time, teII you 100% that It was gonna work MAN: 9, 8, 7 It was reaIIy quite tense.
MAN: Proceed.
NARRATOR: It worked Iike a dream.
ROCAMBOLI: They started putting TV cameras on Iater Ianders when you couId see the ascent engine, and it didnt buiId up Iike the Saturn V, where you saw the flames coming out and it sIowly Iifted off.
It went up Iikea shot, Iike wow NARRATOR: The LEM had performed faultIessIy and, at Grumman, they assumed there couId be nothing more terrifying or exciting to come.
In the spring of 1g70, as Apollo 13 headed towards the moon, Dick WiIde received a caII in the middIe of the night.
WILDE: The teIephone message was unmistakabIe.
We were being caIIed in to the pIant early because an expIosion aboard the command and service moduIe had taken out the eIectricaI and oxygen system.
NARRATOR: Some 200,000 miIes from Earth, the command moduIe had been Ieft powerless and disabIed.
WILDE: As I drove in to the pIant the coincidence, to me, was amazing.
This was Monday, ApriI 13, 1g70.
[Voice breaking .]
And this was Apollo 13.
STOFF: AII of a sudden, everyone's attention is riveted on Apollo.
AII around the world, peopIe are watching whats going on praying for The astronauts.
Are they gonna make it?.
Are they gonna die in space? NARRATOR: It was the nightmare scenario.
They were hurtIing uncontroIIabIy into space with diminishing suppIies of fueI, eIectricity, and oxygen.
It was the most serious, worrisome thing because of the imminent possibiIity of Iosing ourastronauts.
NARRATOR: With the command moduIe out of action, there was onIy one hope.
NARRATOR: The crew retreated into the Iunar moduIe, which carried its own suppIies of oxygen and fueI.
But what to do now?.
The LEM's highIy speciaIized rocket motor Iacked the power to break their momenturn.
At mission controI, there were desperate meetings.
There was one possibiIity.
If they couId use the LEM's motor to sIing shot them around the moon, it might just be possibIe for them to return safeIy to the Earth.
It was a huge gambIe.
WILDE: We aII knew that the crew was in a dire situation.
A rescue Iike this had never been attempted.
So in the background, there was always the concem that this effort was gonna faiI.
PeopIe were gIued to their teIevisions and their radios, Iistening to what was going on, and they were certainIy concemed that we might have Iost three astronauts.
LOVELL: Masterarm's on.
One minute.
We're burning 40%.
NARRATOR: But the maneuver worked.
SIowly, the craft curved around the moon in what was known as a free-return trajectory to Earth.
The astronauts were on their way home.
MAN: Okay, Aquanus, you're Iooking good.
NARRATOR: But did they have the fueI and power to traveI the quarter of a miIIion miIes back to the Earth? Everything depended on the LEM.
It had been designed to keep two peopIea Iive for50 hours.
Now It was being asked to keep three peopIe aIive for up to 100.
There was agraduaI buiId up of carbon dioxide.
The LEM had been equipped with finite suppIies of Iithium hydroxide, the agent used to remove carbon dioxide from the recircuIating air suppIy.
Once again, there were desperate meetings among NASA's engineers.
There was one inspired possibiIity.
If they couId raid the command moduIe for extra suppIies of Iithium hydroxide, they had a chance.
But that was not as simpIe as it sounded.
WILDE: No one had fore seen the kind of probIem where the LEM wouId be used as a Iifeboat.
And, unfortunateIy, the command-moduIe Iithium was packaged in square cartridges, and the Iunar moduIe's were packaged as round cartridges.
So the probIem became, ''How do you frt a square cartridge into a round canister?.
' NARRATOR: NASA suggested using duct tape and tubing from the spacesuits to jury-rig a connection.
It worked.
I think aII of us had a sense of tension in those hours that weve not felt before or since.
NARRATOR: FinaIIy, as the craft approached the Earth, The astronauts faced the ultimate chaIIenge.
How to safeIy smash through the Earth's atmosphere.
The answer was to return to the crippIed command moduIe, with its protective heat shieId and, to minimize friction, discard the LEM, affectionateIy christened Aquanus.
MAN: This is ApoIIo ControI Houston.
At 141 hours, 31 minutes into the flight, weve had Iunar-moduIe jettison.
NARRATOR: Then, as they bIasted through the Earth's atmosphere, there was a break in communication.
RADOLIFFE: That was an awfuIIy worrisome time.
We did not hear from them.
You cant have radio communications whiIe this thing is going through that entry untiI it comes out to a point where you can pick it up again.
NARRATOR: There was what felt Iike an interminabIe wait before the Apollo 13 parachutes finaIIy came into sight.
[Cheers and appIause.]
I think singIy that was the high point of the program because we had saved astronauts from imminent danger.
It was even more important, in retrospect, than the first Ianding.
The sense of reIief was You couId feeI it.
It was reaIIy quite emotionaI.
NARRATOR: The Iunar moduIe had not onIy performed far beyond its design Iimits.
It had brought The astronauts back from a death too horribIe to contempIate.
RADOLIFFE: You wouId think that, yeah, I couId be doing a IittIe breast-beating now, but I reaIIy dont feeI that.
What I reaIIy feeI is thankfuIness that it happened.
I'm reaIIy gratefuI that it happened.
NARRATOR: For the Grumman engineers who had devoted nearly every minute of their waking Iives for nearly a decade to buiIding the Iunar moduIe, It was the crowning moment.
Everybody wanted to be part of that program.
Everybody was proud to be on the program.
And tha twas a wonderfuI feeIing.