Moon Machines (2008) s01e05 Episode Script
Space Suit
PRESIDENT KENNEDY: I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and retuming him safeIy to the earth.
ALDRIN: Picking up some dust.
NARRATOR: In the 1960s, an impossible dream came true when human beings walked on another world.
ARMSTRONG: The Eagle has landed.
NARRATOR: In all, 24 Americans went to the moon.
But it took an unseen army of over 400,000 engineers and technicians to make it possible.
This is the story of the men and women who built the machines that took us to the moon.
In the early 1960s, as NASA began training astronauts to meet President Kennedys challenge, it realized there was one key area of expertise it knew nothing about.
Nobody knew howto build a spacesuit that wouId enable a human being to survive in the lethal lunar environment.
There was enough cartoons and littIe movie clips and stuff like that around that you had this excitement about space.
But you had no clue, so it was something brand-spanKing-new.
AYREY: NASA was designing spaceships.
The Satum, the Apollo, the Lunarmodule- all these pieces of hard goods.
They knew how to bolt metal together.
They could do drawings.
They understood that.
But when it came to a space suit, you're talKing fabrics.
And when you try taKing it from the world that knows hard goods, it became a real problem.
NARRATOR: Jce Kosmo, a young science graduate, remembers being called by a puzzled NASA engineer.
He says, 'We're wondering if you might be interested in workng in some new areas that we're starting - life supportand spacesuits, whatever they are.
'' And that was his exact words- 'whatever they are.
'' And he said, ''Does that sound of interest to you?' Of course, I'm looKing for a job, and I want to get in the space program.
And I said, 'Well, you know, my background is in propulsion and structures.
I don't know much about spacesuits.
'' His remarkwas, 'WeII, no one else dces, either, and we're all gonna learn.
'' NARRATOR: But learn from what?.
In the early years of what became known as the Apollo program, there was very little experience to drawn on.
The first man to wear the sort of suit the astronauts would need was U.
S.
aviation pioneer Wiley Post.
In the 1930s, Post commissioned a flying suit for an attempt on the world altitude record.
THOMAS: They had taken a diving helmet from a diving suit.
And because Wiley Post was blind in one eye, they had physically moved the optical view port off to one side to make it easier for him to get the best possible visibility.
NARRATOR: Posts suit enabled him to reach 50,000 feet, higher than the cruising altitude of a modem airliner.
At this altitude, temperatures drop to -40 degrees Fahrenheit, and oxygen levels become dangerousIy low.
Over the next 20 years, rocket planes took men even higher.
To help them, a new generation of high-altitude suits were constructed.
MAN: LooKing real good from back here.
[ Man speaKing indistinctly on radio.]
THOMAS: The X-15 was basically a very compact, very slender rocket-looKing-type aircraft that was carried toa high altitude under the wing of a B-52.
And since it used rockets rather than jet engines for propulsion, it was capable of not only high-altitude and speed records but was also capable of suborbital space flight.
NARRATOR: It was followed in 1959 by America's first space program.
Mercury put man into orbit around the earth.
But in all these craft, the cockpit provided the first line of safety.
The flying suits were onIy there in case there was an accident.
Kennedy's plan to have men leave this safety and step out onto the moon would demand something much more sophisticated.
To illustrate the challenge, NASA introduced the U.
S.
pubIic to a new cartoon figure Andy Astronaut.
MAN: If Andy were to step out on the surface of the moon without a spacesuit, this is what would happen.
In the near vacuum of space, the gases within his body would immediately expand.
His blood wouId appear to boil from the rapid expansion of gases coming out of solution in his bloodstream.
Andy would soon feel the effects of another condition of space- lack of oxygen.
After 20 seconds in a vacuum and without oxygen, Andy would be trading in his astronaut wings for a more permanent variety.
NARRATOR: The problem was to build a spacesuit that could be pumped full of air to compensate for the lack of atmosphere but also remain supple and flexible.
Early prototype pressure suits were almost rigid.
HERRALA: A suit is like a balloon.
You know, if you're gonna have 3.
5 p.
s.
i.
inside it and vacuum outside it, then something has to keep all that air in.
So think of the suit as a balloon.
And if you have a cylinder, which is what we made, it's very difficult to bend it.
NARRATOR: NASA realized it needed to draw on new areas of expertise.
And in 1962, tenders were invited from U.
S.
industry to buiId the first Apollo spacesuit.
Eight companies submitted proposals.
Most were well-known names in the aerospace industry, but one was not.
The Intemational Latex Corporation was best known for its Playtex brasand girdles.
The company was the rank outsider, but it had one big advantage.
It didnt know much about space, but it knew more than any of its competitors about maKing flexible rubber clothes that moved with the human body.
AYREY: We had a lot of experience with dipping rubber products, such as ladies' brasand girdles and things of that nature.
So we knew we might have a good in with building a great suit.
NARRATOR: The company's prototype was based on a series of flexible rubber joints.
AYREY: The elbows and the joints all flexed because of this system right here.
It was a convolute, and a convolute is really nothing more than a rubber-dipped part that has all these little ridges to it.
It allows the air to compress on either side and movea bout so that you weren't fighting against the pressurized cylinder.
So where your elbow flexes and your knee flexes and your ankle flexes, this allows that to flex back and forth.
In addition, it has these metal cables right here.
And these take the load of the suit, because when the suit's under pressure, it's under tremendous load, and you don't want those legs growing any longer, the arms growing any longer.
So all the strength within that suit because of the pressure has to go through these metal cables right here on either side.
And they also act as a hinge, because as this suits flexing and waIKing about on the surface or you're bending your elbow, these cabIes right here allow it to flex back and forth.
NARRATOR: It was simple and obvious, but nobody else had anything quite like it.
And in April 1962, NASA took agamble and awarded I.
L.
C.
, as the company became known, the contract to build the Apollo spacesuit.
But there was a catch.
I.
L.
C.
knew all about rubber clothing but had almost no experience of handling major govemment contracts.
So NASA appointed anothercompany to oversee the whole operation.
Hamilton Standard was an established engineering faciIity that had originally pitched for the whole contract.
The companys engineers were surprised and delighted to havea role in the program.
HERRALA: When I toId my girlfriend I was gonna go work on putting a man on the moon, she asked me what I had been drinKing, was I sure I was sane, and a few other things like that.
NARRATOR: But the wedding between Hamilton and I.
L.
C.
was a marriage between two very different companies and would in the years to come cause NASA deep concern.
[ Machines whirring .]
By summer 1962, the cracks in the arranged marriage between I.
L.
C.
and Hamilton Standard were beginning to show.
Tom Herrala worked for Hamilton Standard.
HERRALA: We were maKing propellers for both commercial aircraft and also for the Department of Defense.
Intemational Latex at that time, made brassieres.
We had two totally different personalities.
NARRATOR: His opposite number at I.
L.
C.
was Homer Reihm.
There was always this skepticism of Hamilton Standard's appreciation for our technology and our concem for Hamilton Standard not thinKing that consumer-products people are capable of doing this job.
THOMAS: This was a very interesting relationship because both organizations thought they should be the ones leading the challenge.
And it was described by many as a shotgun marriage.
NARRATOR: But despite the obvious rivalries, in the early months, nobody wanted to dwell on the problems.
NASAwas demanding results.
At I.
L.
C.
, the first suits were tumed from prototypes into production models.
AYREY: Our industry was fortunate because a lot of the people that had worked in Playtex were very good with sewing.
They could sew ladies' products together.
So we took a lot of those talented sewers and brought them over to the space-suit line.
FORAKER: I was sewing baby pants.
And then an engineer came to me and asked me if I would mind trying something else, and I said no.
But I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be maKing spacesuits.
NARRATOR: It demanded greater care and attention than anybody at the factory had ever experienced before.
AYREY: It was critical that these arms were sewn to within about 1/32 of an inch, which is just about smaller than a pin.
And these tolerances had to work every time.
They had to be perfect.
FORAKER: Everything was inspected.
They had to count those stitches and make sure we didn't have less or more in every inch.
AYREY: The sewing machines were just walKing very slowly, stitch by stitch, to make these suits, to put them together.
NARRATOR: One of the hazards was sewing pins.
Even a single one left in a suit by mistake couId cause a fatal accident in space.
EIeanor Foraker was expected to keep track of them.
She gave each seamstress different colored pins so she could trace who had done what.
FORAKER: I was walKing by an inspection table one day.
And I saw a pin.
It had a red head on it.
So I checked the paperwork and I found out who did that.
And I went to the lady, and I asked her.
And she just kept looKing at me and said, ''I didn't do it.
'' I said, 'Well, I'll tell you what.
Here's your pin.
'' And I jabbed her in the behind with it.
NARRATOR: MeanwhiIe, at Hamilton Standard, engineers were facing a different set of challenges.
Their job, as well as supervising the contract, was to build the life-support system - the backpack that provided the astronaut with oxygen and kept the spacesuit pressurized at a comfortable temperature.
They caled it an environmental-control system.
It was Earl Bahl's job to design it.
BAHL: Nobody had ever done this before.
We were goingto make, effectiveIy, a little space vehicle with a suit and this environmental-control system.
NARRATOR: One of the challenges was to provide the maximum oxygen for the minimum weight.
To do this, Bahl used whats known as a rebreathing system.
Now, normally when you breathe, you exhale oxygen and CO2, and that is just blown away.
You waste all that oxygen that you've just exhaled.
NARRATOR: Hamilton's system removed the carbon dioxide from the exhaled oxygen by passing it through lithium hydroxide.
It meant the same oxygen could be used over and over again.
It was at Ieast 20% more efficient than a traditional Aqua-Lung.
Hamilton, in its capacity as environmental-control experts, was aIso responsibIe for whatwas delicately referred t oas waste management.
Don Rethke became known as Dr.
Flush for his ingenuity in deaIing with the issue.
There was no bathroom as you and I know it.
There was no cosmic commode.
And their training was not that good to hold it for several days.
So they needed some degree of of body hygiene, if you want to call it.
BROSE: Don always was able to put humor behindthe work that he was doing, and many times it was appropriate, because he got pretty crappy jobs to deal with.
This is the pee pouch, andthis is the poo pouch, okay?.
Don't get the two confused, 'cause the wrong pouch will not work in the right pIace.
Inside the urine-collection assembly, which we Kind of affectionateIy called the pee pouch, was about a one-liter bag in the area down here.
And the attachmentto the body was done by a condom with a hose on the end of it, which you can urinate right into the bag.
NARRATOR: The condoms initially came in three different sizes- smaII, medium, and large.
But few astronauts, whatever their real dimensions, were willing to accept anything but large.
So NASA changed the categories.
We changed the name to''large,'' ''gigantic,'' and ''humongous,'' so large still worked.
NARRATOR: GraduaIIy, piece by piece, the Iife-support system came together.
What nobody reaIized as they started to test the suit was that there was a potentially lethal flaw.
In 1968, as NASA put the ApoIIo spacesuit through its paces, they discovered they had a problem.
Everybody had assumed that cool ai rpumped into the suit from the backpack wouId be sufficient to reguIate the temperature.
Butasastronauts nowstartedto use thesuits, they were becoming dangerousIy overheated.
NASA panicked.
to demonstrate a soIution to the astronaut-cooIing probIem.
JENNINGS: The whoIe program is in jeopardy.
There was a threat that we wouId Iose ourcontract if we didnt measure up to NASA's requirements.
UnfortunateIy, that wasnt as easy as peopIe expected.
NARRATOR: Dave Jennings was charged with finding a soIution in record time.
He was shown designs of a British garment which used water-fiIIed pIastic tubes.
Jennings set up an experiment to see how weII it worked.
Harlan Brose was his test subject.
We wrapped his arms and Iegs in PVCtubing.
We then put a sweat suit across my body.
Then, in addition, to make sure we didnt evaporate anything off of the sweat suit, we put a pIastic suit over me- pIastic boots, pIastic gIoves, pIastic aII over- so that no water couId possibIy get away from the body incIuding my head, I beIieve, was covered with a pIastic bonnet.
NARRATOR: The idea was to ensure that none of Brose's body heat couId escape.
Then the PVC tubes were hooked up to a bucket of iced water.
BROSE: When they tumed on the cooIing, it was just Iike jumping into Lake Superior.
Man aIive, was that coId.
And then the treadmiII wasnt running yet.
I said, ''Turn on the treadmiII.
Lets get warmed up a IittIe bit.
'' JENNINGS: And the treadmiII was sIanted at different eIevations to make him produce the Kind of effort he wouId if we was cIimbing a steep hiII and waIKingf ast, doing a great deaI of exercise.
BROSE: The cooIing effect was very comfortabIe.
I dont recaII coId spots or hot spots.
NARRATOR: The system worked weII, and NASA charged Hamilton with buiIding a water-cooIed undergarment.
The cooI water flowed into the connector and through the tubing to be circuIated around the users body.
NARRATOR: There were hundreds of feet offine tubing running over the entire body.
[ Radio beeps.]
NARRATOR: Hamilton's system wouId become the standard method of keeping astronauts cooI in space.
MAN: That was very good.
[ Radio beeps.]
NARRATOR: By early 1964, I.
L.
C.
and Hamilton were sending a stream of compIeted suits to NASA in Houston.
Tom HerraIa was entrusted with their deIivery.
HERRALA: I drove it to my hoteI.
And then I had to take it out of my car and I had to bring it into my room and keep it in my room overnight to make sure that no one couId tamper with it, steaI it, or whatever it was, because it was cIassified confidentiaI.
It was aIso worth probabIy a pretty penny.
So yeah, the first suit I deIivered to NASA, I sIept with it.
It wasnt very enjoyabIe, either.
NARRATOR: AImost immediateIy, NASA began to reject them.
HERRALA: They were buIky.
They were tough to move around in.
They were tough to wear.
They were heavy.
And so the customer wasnt very happy aboutthem.
They expected to see much more progress.
One of the tests was in an aircraft that was used to simuIate Iunar gravity.
You had to be abIe to faII on your back Iike a turtIe and then successfuIIy get back up without any assistance.
UnfortunateIy, the new-design spacesuit wasnt abIe to do that.
HERRALA: There are Iaws of physics that say you cant do certain things.
NARRATOR: As the difficulties mounted, the Iong-suppressed differences between Hamilton and I.
L.
C.
bubbIed to the surface.
AYREY: Hamilton Standard wouId come down to our faciIity and try to teII us how to buiId suits.
And they thought they were heIping us.
There was more turmoiI in this process than needed to be.
HERRALA: Our companies had different types of personaIities in terms of how we dealt with products and the paperwork that supported the product.
Here weare trying to buiId a suit that the industry wouId find acceptabIe, and it just wasnt workng.
It was a very poor marriage, and it just didnt work THOMAS: Two years into the ApoIIo contract, the deveIopment basicaIIy reached a crisis stage.
There was no more time.
NASA was pIanning to fly the first ApoIIo flights in 1966, and the ApoIIo spacesuit was simpIy not ready to support that.
NARRATOR: In autumn 1964, NASA despaired of the suit ever meeting its test standards and took the enormous step of canceIing the contract.
The ApoIIo program was without a workng spacesuit.
Or even anybody to buiId it.
In spring 1965, NASA reIaunched the ApoIIo spacesuit program.
For some years, it had been hedging its bets and aIso investigating so-caIIed hard suits.
Many were Iike medievaI suits of armor.
Yet, try as they might, the designers of these remarkabI egarments couIdnt reduce their buIk and NASA once more soIicited proposaIs for a soft suit.
Once again, Hamilton Standard submitted a design.
So did I.
L.
C.
The two oId partners were now in competition.
AYREY: We onIy had six weeks to deveIop this suit and put it into the competition, which was quite a chaIIenge.
So we had engineers workng around the cIock They were breaKing into rooms to try to get parts they needed, because theyd be there at 2:00 in the moming trying to put the suit together.
REIHM: It was a frightening time in the factory.
The onIy thing that kept it from being desperation, I wouId guess, was our dream that we'd be successfuI.
NARRATOR: The hard work paid off.
I.
L.
C.
, free at Iast to foIIow its instincts as a cIothing manufacturer, came up with a new flexibIe and cIose-fitting suit that was better than any of the competition.
AYREY: We ended up winning the competition because our suit had great flexibiIity.
It was built the way we wanted to buiId it.
It had great narrow shouIders.
You can Iook at the pictures and see how tapered this suit was compared to the other two suits.
NARRATOR: The administrative difference was that I.
L.
C.
was now contracted directIy to NASA.
Hamilton was awarded a separate contract to continue buiIding the Iife-support system.
The two companies were equaIs, and NASA wouId keep the peace between them.
The suit now consisted of three separate garments.
The water-cooIed Iayer an extraordinariIy cIever pressurized inner suit with flexibIe joints and a white outer garment finished in a toughened nyIon fabric that provided protection from the extremes of temperature in space.
These can vary from -300 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade to 300 degrees in direct sunIight.
The Iunar boot had a Iarge, flat soIe to prevent the astronauts from sinKing into the soft Iunar surface.
The heImet had a series of sun visors to protect the astronauts from soIar gIare.
And then there was the gIove, probabIy the most compIex and troubIesome piece of the entire garment.
You wanted a gIove that couId pick up a dime but stop a buIIet.
And it was very difficult to do at the time.
NARRATOR: After various permutations, the outside was eventuaIIy made from a brand-new materiaI caIIed ChromeI-R.
AYREY: It was actuaIIy woven chromium steeI, and it was woven into a materiaI that wouId flex Iike a fabric.
And we used that aII around the gauntIet of the gIove, which is the part that wraps around the main part of the hand.
And this materiaI was $2,000 a yard, which was phenomenaI at tha ttime.
So it was a very unique materiaI deveIoped just for the spacesuit.
NARRATOR: It was a nightmare for the seamstresses to workwith, but graduaIIy the new suits took shape.
As the suits roIIed off the production Iine, they were exhaustiveIy tested.
The companys guinea pig was Tom Sylvester.
SYLVESTER: I ran.
I Kicked and punted and passed and did a roIIing bIock Iike they do in footbaII.
NARRATOR: From the rigid bIadder of just five years before, the suit had come a very Iong way.
It was stiII pumped fuII of air Iike a baIIoon, but it moved Iike a normaI suit of cIothing.
To test the suit in reduced gravity, NASA turned the world on its side.
AYREY: They wouId take thesuit and suspend it in this crazy contraption where they suspended the astronauts or test subjects in the suit, and they wouId waIk aIong this waII with this rig.
NARRATOR: Dave Jennings tried it out.
JENNINGS: I had free use of my Iegs, both Iegs independentIy.
I couId jump and bounce around, just Iike the pictures of the actuaI astronauts on the actuaI moon.
ExactIy.
I did the same thing - big Ieapsand bounds.
I found out that I couId do somersaults, and I found out I couId do backwards somersaults, which is something I'd always wanted to be abIe to do.
These backward somersaults were so much fun that I did a dozen of them.
And here were aII these engineers standing around, watching me-with their mouths open, I suppose.
NARRATOR: But the ultimate and most dangerous test was a huge speciaIIy constructed vacuum chamber.
AYREY: They were abIe to puII aII the air out to create a big vacuum, just Iike it wouId be on the moon.
That way we couId test oursuits to make sure there was no Ieakage.
NARRATOR: One such test narrowly avoided disaster.
Jim LeBIanc was the test subject in the vacuum chamber, CIiff Hess, the supervising engineer outside.
HESS: Jim, whiIe you're exercising, I'd Iike youto stay intermediate aII the time, okay?.
LeBLANC: Okay.
I'm pretty cooI right now.
Okay.
WeII, you'II warm up here in a minute.
So Iets stay right here if you can stand it.
The testing started just normaIIy, Iike they aII do.
And Jim was at a vacuum in the spacesuit.
NARRATOR: With aII the air sucked out, aII that protected him was his pressurized suit.
Then something happened.
I heard over the headset that he was Iosing suit pressure.
MAN: G.
C.
, we have NARRATOR: The tube pressurizing his suit had become disconnected.
MAN: InIet valve is open.
NARRATOR: He was in serious danger.
HESS: There reaIIy wasnt any feeIing.
It was just happening so fast, trying to get the chamber back to a safe pressure and Jim to a safe pressure inside the suit.
LeBLANC: As I stumbIed backwards I couId feeI the saIiva on my tongue starting to bubbIe .
just before I went unconscious.
And thats Kind of the Iast thing I remember.
EssentiaIIy, he had no pressure on the outside of his body.
Thats a very unusuaI case to get, and there's very IittIe in the medicaI Iiterature as to what happens when you have that.
There'sa Iot of conjecture- that your fluids wiII boiI.
NARRATOR: Within 25 seconds, a co-worker sitting in a partiaIIy pressurized antechamber and wearing an oxygen mask was abIe to dash in.
At the normaI rate of repressurization, it wouId have taken 30 minutes to make the chamber safe.
Hess repressurized it in just over a minute.
LeBLANC: Thats much, much faster than you wouId ever come down in an airpIane.
It wouId reaIIy hurt your ears ifyou did that.
NARRATOR: FinaIIy, i twas safe to Iet a doctor in.
MiracuIousIy, LeBIanc had aIready regained consciousness.
LeBLANC: When I stood up in the chamber, I felt fine.
My ears ached a IittIe bit from, of course, the rapid repressurization.
And thats basicaIIy the onIy effect I had.
That was one of the few instances and Iived to teII about it with no obvious damage.
NARRATOR: Such an accident in space wouId have been fataI.
But thanks to testing Iike this, no astronaut has ever had to face a simiIar situation.
The suits were hoIding up to everything that couId be thrown at them, and the program was back on scheduIe.
On January 27, 1967, the Apollo 1 command moduIe caught fire during a practice countdown.
REIHM: I got a caII from one of my peopIe in Houston.
And hegces, ''You probabIy didnt hear of it.
They had a catastrophic fire at the Kennedy Center.
'' NARRATOR: AII three crew members died in the intense heat of the bIaze.
KOSMO: That was quite a shock I aImost had to puII over to the side of the road, catch my breath, because I thought, 'WeII, this is the end of our future.
'' The program started to just chum.
Chum and chum and chum.
NARRATOR: NASA demanded that aII inflammabIe materiaI be removed from the outside of thesuit.
But what to repIace it with? REIHM: I felt as though this was gonna probabIy be the biggest of aII the chaIIenges yet.
And then when we got into it, it proved me to be right in spades.
It was bigger than any chaIIenge we had gotten into.
NARRATOR: The company scoured the country, taIKing to manufacturers workng at the cutting edge of fabric technoIogy.
They needed something that was tough, flexibIe, and non flammabIe.
REIHM: We had to take research-type materiaIs and convert them into materiaIs you couId use and then put them in a spacesuit.
It was a horrendous effort by a Iot of peopIe.
NARRATOR: Reihm eventuaIIy tracked down a brand-new materiaI caIIed Beta cIoth.
AYREY: It was a woven fibergIass that was actuaIIy coated with Teflon before it was woven together to form this outer Iayer that protected against temperatures up to about 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit.
NARRATOR: It was compIeteIy non flammabIe and offered protection from temperatures way above anything ever IikeIy to be encountered, even in an emergency.
NASA was satistied.
ApoIIo missions 7, 8, g, and 10 took men into space without a hitch.
Then came JuIy 1969 and the biggest test of aII.
MAN: Okay, NeiI, we can see you coming down the Iadder now.
ARMSTRONG: Okay, I'm gonna step off the LEM now.
NARRATOR: As the Apollo 11 astronauts stepped out on the moon, the world ceIebrated.
But for those who had built the suits, the moonwaIk was severaI hours of pure anxiety.
REIHM: As NeiI Armstrong came down the Iadder and they started doing their things on the moon, I had a smiIe on my face.
But in my stomach were aII these butterflies.
KOSMO: Weve worked hard for about eight or nine years to make this happen.
And when you actuaIIy see it happening, one side of your mind is saying, ''Is this reaI?' And the other side is, 'Wow.
This is great.
I just hope he dcesnt faII over.
'' FORAKER: When the astronaut started jumping up and down, we were concemed that the pressure garment underneath of the outer Iayer couId come up with a smaII Ieak or something Iike that.
And we didnt want any accidents.
Every time they stumbIed or tripped or feII, it was Kind of Iike a IittIe white-knuckle grab and guIp a IittIe bit.
REIHM: The astronauts were obviousIy euphoricaIIy enjoying what they were doing and seemed to bead-Iibbing a IittIe bit of activity as they were going on.
And every time this ad-Iibbing wouId come up, I couId think of nothing but, ''PIease go back up that Iadder and get back into the safety of that Iunar moduIe.
'' AII I couId think of was, ''The world is IooKing at I.
L.
C.
right now, and we need to get this over with.
'' NARRATOR: It was 2 1/2 hours before the Apollo 11 astronauts finaIIy retumed to the Iunar moduIe.
REIHM: When he went back up the Iadder and shut that door, that was the happiest moment of my Iife.
It wasnt untiI quite a whiIe Iater that I reveIed over the accompIishment.
I had tears roIIing down my cheeks.
I mean, I was just crying in happiness, because aII that work that we'd done, aII those chores that we'd done and everything Iike that NARRATOR: The suit and backpack had done everything expected of them and in the years to come enabIed man to waIk run, jump, and work on the moon without a singIe significant faiIure.
YOUNG: Its a footbaII-sized rock DUKE: Itsa''Great Scott' size.
It was the cuImination of a Iong time.
And it was very, very satisfying.
[ Man speaKing indistinctIy on radio.]
HERRALA: Its the best thing we've ever done.
CERNAN: But this two-Iegged thing is great.
Man, I can cover ground Iike a kangaroo.
DUKE: How'd you Iike that?.
ENGLAND: BeautifuI maneuver there, Charlie.
What do you do for an encore? PARKER: Its the oId bouIder-roIIing trick Dont hit the rover.
YOUNG: By goIIy.
You've got a Iot of it on you, too.
DUKE: No, that's okay.
Hey, John, this is perfect, with the LEM and the rover and you and the oId flag.
Come on out here and give me a saIute.
ALDRIN: Picking up some dust.
NARRATOR: In the 1960s, an impossible dream came true when human beings walked on another world.
ARMSTRONG: The Eagle has landed.
NARRATOR: In all, 24 Americans went to the moon.
But it took an unseen army of over 400,000 engineers and technicians to make it possible.
This is the story of the men and women who built the machines that took us to the moon.
In the early 1960s, as NASA began training astronauts to meet President Kennedys challenge, it realized there was one key area of expertise it knew nothing about.
Nobody knew howto build a spacesuit that wouId enable a human being to survive in the lethal lunar environment.
There was enough cartoons and littIe movie clips and stuff like that around that you had this excitement about space.
But you had no clue, so it was something brand-spanKing-new.
AYREY: NASA was designing spaceships.
The Satum, the Apollo, the Lunarmodule- all these pieces of hard goods.
They knew how to bolt metal together.
They could do drawings.
They understood that.
But when it came to a space suit, you're talKing fabrics.
And when you try taKing it from the world that knows hard goods, it became a real problem.
NARRATOR: Jce Kosmo, a young science graduate, remembers being called by a puzzled NASA engineer.
He says, 'We're wondering if you might be interested in workng in some new areas that we're starting - life supportand spacesuits, whatever they are.
'' And that was his exact words- 'whatever they are.
'' And he said, ''Does that sound of interest to you?' Of course, I'm looKing for a job, and I want to get in the space program.
And I said, 'Well, you know, my background is in propulsion and structures.
I don't know much about spacesuits.
'' His remarkwas, 'WeII, no one else dces, either, and we're all gonna learn.
'' NARRATOR: But learn from what?.
In the early years of what became known as the Apollo program, there was very little experience to drawn on.
The first man to wear the sort of suit the astronauts would need was U.
S.
aviation pioneer Wiley Post.
In the 1930s, Post commissioned a flying suit for an attempt on the world altitude record.
THOMAS: They had taken a diving helmet from a diving suit.
And because Wiley Post was blind in one eye, they had physically moved the optical view port off to one side to make it easier for him to get the best possible visibility.
NARRATOR: Posts suit enabled him to reach 50,000 feet, higher than the cruising altitude of a modem airliner.
At this altitude, temperatures drop to -40 degrees Fahrenheit, and oxygen levels become dangerousIy low.
Over the next 20 years, rocket planes took men even higher.
To help them, a new generation of high-altitude suits were constructed.
MAN: LooKing real good from back here.
[ Man speaKing indistinctly on radio.]
THOMAS: The X-15 was basically a very compact, very slender rocket-looKing-type aircraft that was carried toa high altitude under the wing of a B-52.
And since it used rockets rather than jet engines for propulsion, it was capable of not only high-altitude and speed records but was also capable of suborbital space flight.
NARRATOR: It was followed in 1959 by America's first space program.
Mercury put man into orbit around the earth.
But in all these craft, the cockpit provided the first line of safety.
The flying suits were onIy there in case there was an accident.
Kennedy's plan to have men leave this safety and step out onto the moon would demand something much more sophisticated.
To illustrate the challenge, NASA introduced the U.
S.
pubIic to a new cartoon figure Andy Astronaut.
MAN: If Andy were to step out on the surface of the moon without a spacesuit, this is what would happen.
In the near vacuum of space, the gases within his body would immediately expand.
His blood wouId appear to boil from the rapid expansion of gases coming out of solution in his bloodstream.
Andy would soon feel the effects of another condition of space- lack of oxygen.
After 20 seconds in a vacuum and without oxygen, Andy would be trading in his astronaut wings for a more permanent variety.
NARRATOR: The problem was to build a spacesuit that could be pumped full of air to compensate for the lack of atmosphere but also remain supple and flexible.
Early prototype pressure suits were almost rigid.
HERRALA: A suit is like a balloon.
You know, if you're gonna have 3.
5 p.
s.
i.
inside it and vacuum outside it, then something has to keep all that air in.
So think of the suit as a balloon.
And if you have a cylinder, which is what we made, it's very difficult to bend it.
NARRATOR: NASA realized it needed to draw on new areas of expertise.
And in 1962, tenders were invited from U.
S.
industry to buiId the first Apollo spacesuit.
Eight companies submitted proposals.
Most were well-known names in the aerospace industry, but one was not.
The Intemational Latex Corporation was best known for its Playtex brasand girdles.
The company was the rank outsider, but it had one big advantage.
It didnt know much about space, but it knew more than any of its competitors about maKing flexible rubber clothes that moved with the human body.
AYREY: We had a lot of experience with dipping rubber products, such as ladies' brasand girdles and things of that nature.
So we knew we might have a good in with building a great suit.
NARRATOR: The company's prototype was based on a series of flexible rubber joints.
AYREY: The elbows and the joints all flexed because of this system right here.
It was a convolute, and a convolute is really nothing more than a rubber-dipped part that has all these little ridges to it.
It allows the air to compress on either side and movea bout so that you weren't fighting against the pressurized cylinder.
So where your elbow flexes and your knee flexes and your ankle flexes, this allows that to flex back and forth.
In addition, it has these metal cables right here.
And these take the load of the suit, because when the suit's under pressure, it's under tremendous load, and you don't want those legs growing any longer, the arms growing any longer.
So all the strength within that suit because of the pressure has to go through these metal cables right here on either side.
And they also act as a hinge, because as this suits flexing and waIKing about on the surface or you're bending your elbow, these cabIes right here allow it to flex back and forth.
NARRATOR: It was simple and obvious, but nobody else had anything quite like it.
And in April 1962, NASA took agamble and awarded I.
L.
C.
, as the company became known, the contract to build the Apollo spacesuit.
But there was a catch.
I.
L.
C.
knew all about rubber clothing but had almost no experience of handling major govemment contracts.
So NASA appointed anothercompany to oversee the whole operation.
Hamilton Standard was an established engineering faciIity that had originally pitched for the whole contract.
The companys engineers were surprised and delighted to havea role in the program.
HERRALA: When I toId my girlfriend I was gonna go work on putting a man on the moon, she asked me what I had been drinKing, was I sure I was sane, and a few other things like that.
NARRATOR: But the wedding between Hamilton and I.
L.
C.
was a marriage between two very different companies and would in the years to come cause NASA deep concern.
[ Machines whirring .]
By summer 1962, the cracks in the arranged marriage between I.
L.
C.
and Hamilton Standard were beginning to show.
Tom Herrala worked for Hamilton Standard.
HERRALA: We were maKing propellers for both commercial aircraft and also for the Department of Defense.
Intemational Latex at that time, made brassieres.
We had two totally different personalities.
NARRATOR: His opposite number at I.
L.
C.
was Homer Reihm.
There was always this skepticism of Hamilton Standard's appreciation for our technology and our concem for Hamilton Standard not thinKing that consumer-products people are capable of doing this job.
THOMAS: This was a very interesting relationship because both organizations thought they should be the ones leading the challenge.
And it was described by many as a shotgun marriage.
NARRATOR: But despite the obvious rivalries, in the early months, nobody wanted to dwell on the problems.
NASAwas demanding results.
At I.
L.
C.
, the first suits were tumed from prototypes into production models.
AYREY: Our industry was fortunate because a lot of the people that had worked in Playtex were very good with sewing.
They could sew ladies' products together.
So we took a lot of those talented sewers and brought them over to the space-suit line.
FORAKER: I was sewing baby pants.
And then an engineer came to me and asked me if I would mind trying something else, and I said no.
But I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would be maKing spacesuits.
NARRATOR: It demanded greater care and attention than anybody at the factory had ever experienced before.
AYREY: It was critical that these arms were sewn to within about 1/32 of an inch, which is just about smaller than a pin.
And these tolerances had to work every time.
They had to be perfect.
FORAKER: Everything was inspected.
They had to count those stitches and make sure we didn't have less or more in every inch.
AYREY: The sewing machines were just walKing very slowly, stitch by stitch, to make these suits, to put them together.
NARRATOR: One of the hazards was sewing pins.
Even a single one left in a suit by mistake couId cause a fatal accident in space.
EIeanor Foraker was expected to keep track of them.
She gave each seamstress different colored pins so she could trace who had done what.
FORAKER: I was walKing by an inspection table one day.
And I saw a pin.
It had a red head on it.
So I checked the paperwork and I found out who did that.
And I went to the lady, and I asked her.
And she just kept looKing at me and said, ''I didn't do it.
'' I said, 'Well, I'll tell you what.
Here's your pin.
'' And I jabbed her in the behind with it.
NARRATOR: MeanwhiIe, at Hamilton Standard, engineers were facing a different set of challenges.
Their job, as well as supervising the contract, was to build the life-support system - the backpack that provided the astronaut with oxygen and kept the spacesuit pressurized at a comfortable temperature.
They caled it an environmental-control system.
It was Earl Bahl's job to design it.
BAHL: Nobody had ever done this before.
We were goingto make, effectiveIy, a little space vehicle with a suit and this environmental-control system.
NARRATOR: One of the challenges was to provide the maximum oxygen for the minimum weight.
To do this, Bahl used whats known as a rebreathing system.
Now, normally when you breathe, you exhale oxygen and CO2, and that is just blown away.
You waste all that oxygen that you've just exhaled.
NARRATOR: Hamilton's system removed the carbon dioxide from the exhaled oxygen by passing it through lithium hydroxide.
It meant the same oxygen could be used over and over again.
It was at Ieast 20% more efficient than a traditional Aqua-Lung.
Hamilton, in its capacity as environmental-control experts, was aIso responsibIe for whatwas delicately referred t oas waste management.
Don Rethke became known as Dr.
Flush for his ingenuity in deaIing with the issue.
There was no bathroom as you and I know it.
There was no cosmic commode.
And their training was not that good to hold it for several days.
So they needed some degree of of body hygiene, if you want to call it.
BROSE: Don always was able to put humor behindthe work that he was doing, and many times it was appropriate, because he got pretty crappy jobs to deal with.
This is the pee pouch, andthis is the poo pouch, okay?.
Don't get the two confused, 'cause the wrong pouch will not work in the right pIace.
Inside the urine-collection assembly, which we Kind of affectionateIy called the pee pouch, was about a one-liter bag in the area down here.
And the attachmentto the body was done by a condom with a hose on the end of it, which you can urinate right into the bag.
NARRATOR: The condoms initially came in three different sizes- smaII, medium, and large.
But few astronauts, whatever their real dimensions, were willing to accept anything but large.
So NASA changed the categories.
We changed the name to''large,'' ''gigantic,'' and ''humongous,'' so large still worked.
NARRATOR: GraduaIIy, piece by piece, the Iife-support system came together.
What nobody reaIized as they started to test the suit was that there was a potentially lethal flaw.
In 1968, as NASA put the ApoIIo spacesuit through its paces, they discovered they had a problem.
Everybody had assumed that cool ai rpumped into the suit from the backpack wouId be sufficient to reguIate the temperature.
Butasastronauts nowstartedto use thesuits, they were becoming dangerousIy overheated.
NASA panicked.
to demonstrate a soIution to the astronaut-cooIing probIem.
JENNINGS: The whoIe program is in jeopardy.
There was a threat that we wouId Iose ourcontract if we didnt measure up to NASA's requirements.
UnfortunateIy, that wasnt as easy as peopIe expected.
NARRATOR: Dave Jennings was charged with finding a soIution in record time.
He was shown designs of a British garment which used water-fiIIed pIastic tubes.
Jennings set up an experiment to see how weII it worked.
Harlan Brose was his test subject.
We wrapped his arms and Iegs in PVCtubing.
We then put a sweat suit across my body.
Then, in addition, to make sure we didnt evaporate anything off of the sweat suit, we put a pIastic suit over me- pIastic boots, pIastic gIoves, pIastic aII over- so that no water couId possibIy get away from the body incIuding my head, I beIieve, was covered with a pIastic bonnet.
NARRATOR: The idea was to ensure that none of Brose's body heat couId escape.
Then the PVC tubes were hooked up to a bucket of iced water.
BROSE: When they tumed on the cooIing, it was just Iike jumping into Lake Superior.
Man aIive, was that coId.
And then the treadmiII wasnt running yet.
I said, ''Turn on the treadmiII.
Lets get warmed up a IittIe bit.
'' JENNINGS: And the treadmiII was sIanted at different eIevations to make him produce the Kind of effort he wouId if we was cIimbing a steep hiII and waIKingf ast, doing a great deaI of exercise.
BROSE: The cooIing effect was very comfortabIe.
I dont recaII coId spots or hot spots.
NARRATOR: The system worked weII, and NASA charged Hamilton with buiIding a water-cooIed undergarment.
The cooI water flowed into the connector and through the tubing to be circuIated around the users body.
NARRATOR: There were hundreds of feet offine tubing running over the entire body.
[ Radio beeps.]
NARRATOR: Hamilton's system wouId become the standard method of keeping astronauts cooI in space.
MAN: That was very good.
[ Radio beeps.]
NARRATOR: By early 1964, I.
L.
C.
and Hamilton were sending a stream of compIeted suits to NASA in Houston.
Tom HerraIa was entrusted with their deIivery.
HERRALA: I drove it to my hoteI.
And then I had to take it out of my car and I had to bring it into my room and keep it in my room overnight to make sure that no one couId tamper with it, steaI it, or whatever it was, because it was cIassified confidentiaI.
It was aIso worth probabIy a pretty penny.
So yeah, the first suit I deIivered to NASA, I sIept with it.
It wasnt very enjoyabIe, either.
NARRATOR: AImost immediateIy, NASA began to reject them.
HERRALA: They were buIky.
They were tough to move around in.
They were tough to wear.
They were heavy.
And so the customer wasnt very happy aboutthem.
They expected to see much more progress.
One of the tests was in an aircraft that was used to simuIate Iunar gravity.
You had to be abIe to faII on your back Iike a turtIe and then successfuIIy get back up without any assistance.
UnfortunateIy, the new-design spacesuit wasnt abIe to do that.
HERRALA: There are Iaws of physics that say you cant do certain things.
NARRATOR: As the difficulties mounted, the Iong-suppressed differences between Hamilton and I.
L.
C.
bubbIed to the surface.
AYREY: Hamilton Standard wouId come down to our faciIity and try to teII us how to buiId suits.
And they thought they were heIping us.
There was more turmoiI in this process than needed to be.
HERRALA: Our companies had different types of personaIities in terms of how we dealt with products and the paperwork that supported the product.
Here weare trying to buiId a suit that the industry wouId find acceptabIe, and it just wasnt workng.
It was a very poor marriage, and it just didnt work THOMAS: Two years into the ApoIIo contract, the deveIopment basicaIIy reached a crisis stage.
There was no more time.
NASA was pIanning to fly the first ApoIIo flights in 1966, and the ApoIIo spacesuit was simpIy not ready to support that.
NARRATOR: In autumn 1964, NASA despaired of the suit ever meeting its test standards and took the enormous step of canceIing the contract.
The ApoIIo program was without a workng spacesuit.
Or even anybody to buiId it.
In spring 1965, NASA reIaunched the ApoIIo spacesuit program.
For some years, it had been hedging its bets and aIso investigating so-caIIed hard suits.
Many were Iike medievaI suits of armor.
Yet, try as they might, the designers of these remarkabI egarments couIdnt reduce their buIk and NASA once more soIicited proposaIs for a soft suit.
Once again, Hamilton Standard submitted a design.
So did I.
L.
C.
The two oId partners were now in competition.
AYREY: We onIy had six weeks to deveIop this suit and put it into the competition, which was quite a chaIIenge.
So we had engineers workng around the cIock They were breaKing into rooms to try to get parts they needed, because theyd be there at 2:00 in the moming trying to put the suit together.
REIHM: It was a frightening time in the factory.
The onIy thing that kept it from being desperation, I wouId guess, was our dream that we'd be successfuI.
NARRATOR: The hard work paid off.
I.
L.
C.
, free at Iast to foIIow its instincts as a cIothing manufacturer, came up with a new flexibIe and cIose-fitting suit that was better than any of the competition.
AYREY: We ended up winning the competition because our suit had great flexibiIity.
It was built the way we wanted to buiId it.
It had great narrow shouIders.
You can Iook at the pictures and see how tapered this suit was compared to the other two suits.
NARRATOR: The administrative difference was that I.
L.
C.
was now contracted directIy to NASA.
Hamilton was awarded a separate contract to continue buiIding the Iife-support system.
The two companies were equaIs, and NASA wouId keep the peace between them.
The suit now consisted of three separate garments.
The water-cooIed Iayer an extraordinariIy cIever pressurized inner suit with flexibIe joints and a white outer garment finished in a toughened nyIon fabric that provided protection from the extremes of temperature in space.
These can vary from -300 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade to 300 degrees in direct sunIight.
The Iunar boot had a Iarge, flat soIe to prevent the astronauts from sinKing into the soft Iunar surface.
The heImet had a series of sun visors to protect the astronauts from soIar gIare.
And then there was the gIove, probabIy the most compIex and troubIesome piece of the entire garment.
You wanted a gIove that couId pick up a dime but stop a buIIet.
And it was very difficult to do at the time.
NARRATOR: After various permutations, the outside was eventuaIIy made from a brand-new materiaI caIIed ChromeI-R.
AYREY: It was actuaIIy woven chromium steeI, and it was woven into a materiaI that wouId flex Iike a fabric.
And we used that aII around the gauntIet of the gIove, which is the part that wraps around the main part of the hand.
And this materiaI was $2,000 a yard, which was phenomenaI at tha ttime.
So it was a very unique materiaI deveIoped just for the spacesuit.
NARRATOR: It was a nightmare for the seamstresses to workwith, but graduaIIy the new suits took shape.
As the suits roIIed off the production Iine, they were exhaustiveIy tested.
The companys guinea pig was Tom Sylvester.
SYLVESTER: I ran.
I Kicked and punted and passed and did a roIIing bIock Iike they do in footbaII.
NARRATOR: From the rigid bIadder of just five years before, the suit had come a very Iong way.
It was stiII pumped fuII of air Iike a baIIoon, but it moved Iike a normaI suit of cIothing.
To test the suit in reduced gravity, NASA turned the world on its side.
AYREY: They wouId take thesuit and suspend it in this crazy contraption where they suspended the astronauts or test subjects in the suit, and they wouId waIk aIong this waII with this rig.
NARRATOR: Dave Jennings tried it out.
JENNINGS: I had free use of my Iegs, both Iegs independentIy.
I couId jump and bounce around, just Iike the pictures of the actuaI astronauts on the actuaI moon.
ExactIy.
I did the same thing - big Ieapsand bounds.
I found out that I couId do somersaults, and I found out I couId do backwards somersaults, which is something I'd always wanted to be abIe to do.
These backward somersaults were so much fun that I did a dozen of them.
And here were aII these engineers standing around, watching me-with their mouths open, I suppose.
NARRATOR: But the ultimate and most dangerous test was a huge speciaIIy constructed vacuum chamber.
AYREY: They were abIe to puII aII the air out to create a big vacuum, just Iike it wouId be on the moon.
That way we couId test oursuits to make sure there was no Ieakage.
NARRATOR: One such test narrowly avoided disaster.
Jim LeBIanc was the test subject in the vacuum chamber, CIiff Hess, the supervising engineer outside.
HESS: Jim, whiIe you're exercising, I'd Iike youto stay intermediate aII the time, okay?.
LeBLANC: Okay.
I'm pretty cooI right now.
Okay.
WeII, you'II warm up here in a minute.
So Iets stay right here if you can stand it.
The testing started just normaIIy, Iike they aII do.
And Jim was at a vacuum in the spacesuit.
NARRATOR: With aII the air sucked out, aII that protected him was his pressurized suit.
Then something happened.
I heard over the headset that he was Iosing suit pressure.
MAN: G.
C.
, we have NARRATOR: The tube pressurizing his suit had become disconnected.
MAN: InIet valve is open.
NARRATOR: He was in serious danger.
HESS: There reaIIy wasnt any feeIing.
It was just happening so fast, trying to get the chamber back to a safe pressure and Jim to a safe pressure inside the suit.
LeBLANC: As I stumbIed backwards I couId feeI the saIiva on my tongue starting to bubbIe .
just before I went unconscious.
And thats Kind of the Iast thing I remember.
EssentiaIIy, he had no pressure on the outside of his body.
Thats a very unusuaI case to get, and there's very IittIe in the medicaI Iiterature as to what happens when you have that.
There'sa Iot of conjecture- that your fluids wiII boiI.
NARRATOR: Within 25 seconds, a co-worker sitting in a partiaIIy pressurized antechamber and wearing an oxygen mask was abIe to dash in.
At the normaI rate of repressurization, it wouId have taken 30 minutes to make the chamber safe.
Hess repressurized it in just over a minute.
LeBLANC: Thats much, much faster than you wouId ever come down in an airpIane.
It wouId reaIIy hurt your ears ifyou did that.
NARRATOR: FinaIIy, i twas safe to Iet a doctor in.
MiracuIousIy, LeBIanc had aIready regained consciousness.
LeBLANC: When I stood up in the chamber, I felt fine.
My ears ached a IittIe bit from, of course, the rapid repressurization.
And thats basicaIIy the onIy effect I had.
That was one of the few instances and Iived to teII about it with no obvious damage.
NARRATOR: Such an accident in space wouId have been fataI.
But thanks to testing Iike this, no astronaut has ever had to face a simiIar situation.
The suits were hoIding up to everything that couId be thrown at them, and the program was back on scheduIe.
On January 27, 1967, the Apollo 1 command moduIe caught fire during a practice countdown.
REIHM: I got a caII from one of my peopIe in Houston.
And hegces, ''You probabIy didnt hear of it.
They had a catastrophic fire at the Kennedy Center.
'' NARRATOR: AII three crew members died in the intense heat of the bIaze.
KOSMO: That was quite a shock I aImost had to puII over to the side of the road, catch my breath, because I thought, 'WeII, this is the end of our future.
'' The program started to just chum.
Chum and chum and chum.
NARRATOR: NASA demanded that aII inflammabIe materiaI be removed from the outside of thesuit.
But what to repIace it with? REIHM: I felt as though this was gonna probabIy be the biggest of aII the chaIIenges yet.
And then when we got into it, it proved me to be right in spades.
It was bigger than any chaIIenge we had gotten into.
NARRATOR: The company scoured the country, taIKing to manufacturers workng at the cutting edge of fabric technoIogy.
They needed something that was tough, flexibIe, and non flammabIe.
REIHM: We had to take research-type materiaIs and convert them into materiaIs you couId use and then put them in a spacesuit.
It was a horrendous effort by a Iot of peopIe.
NARRATOR: Reihm eventuaIIy tracked down a brand-new materiaI caIIed Beta cIoth.
AYREY: It was a woven fibergIass that was actuaIIy coated with Teflon before it was woven together to form this outer Iayer that protected against temperatures up to about 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit.
NARRATOR: It was compIeteIy non flammabIe and offered protection from temperatures way above anything ever IikeIy to be encountered, even in an emergency.
NASA was satistied.
ApoIIo missions 7, 8, g, and 10 took men into space without a hitch.
Then came JuIy 1969 and the biggest test of aII.
MAN: Okay, NeiI, we can see you coming down the Iadder now.
ARMSTRONG: Okay, I'm gonna step off the LEM now.
NARRATOR: As the Apollo 11 astronauts stepped out on the moon, the world ceIebrated.
But for those who had built the suits, the moonwaIk was severaI hours of pure anxiety.
REIHM: As NeiI Armstrong came down the Iadder and they started doing their things on the moon, I had a smiIe on my face.
But in my stomach were aII these butterflies.
KOSMO: Weve worked hard for about eight or nine years to make this happen.
And when you actuaIIy see it happening, one side of your mind is saying, ''Is this reaI?' And the other side is, 'Wow.
This is great.
I just hope he dcesnt faII over.
'' FORAKER: When the astronaut started jumping up and down, we were concemed that the pressure garment underneath of the outer Iayer couId come up with a smaII Ieak or something Iike that.
And we didnt want any accidents.
Every time they stumbIed or tripped or feII, it was Kind of Iike a IittIe white-knuckle grab and guIp a IittIe bit.
REIHM: The astronauts were obviousIy euphoricaIIy enjoying what they were doing and seemed to bead-Iibbing a IittIe bit of activity as they were going on.
And every time this ad-Iibbing wouId come up, I couId think of nothing but, ''PIease go back up that Iadder and get back into the safety of that Iunar moduIe.
'' AII I couId think of was, ''The world is IooKing at I.
L.
C.
right now, and we need to get this over with.
'' NARRATOR: It was 2 1/2 hours before the Apollo 11 astronauts finaIIy retumed to the Iunar moduIe.
REIHM: When he went back up the Iadder and shut that door, that was the happiest moment of my Iife.
It wasnt untiI quite a whiIe Iater that I reveIed over the accompIishment.
I had tears roIIing down my cheeks.
I mean, I was just crying in happiness, because aII that work that we'd done, aII those chores that we'd done and everything Iike that NARRATOR: The suit and backpack had done everything expected of them and in the years to come enabIed man to waIk run, jump, and work on the moon without a singIe significant faiIure.
YOUNG: Its a footbaII-sized rock DUKE: Itsa''Great Scott' size.
It was the cuImination of a Iong time.
And it was very, very satisfying.
[ Man speaKing indistinctIy on radio.]
HERRALA: Its the best thing we've ever done.
CERNAN: But this two-Iegged thing is great.
Man, I can cover ground Iike a kangaroo.
DUKE: How'd you Iike that?.
ENGLAND: BeautifuI maneuver there, Charlie.
What do you do for an encore? PARKER: Its the oId bouIder-roIIing trick Dont hit the rover.
YOUNG: By goIIy.
You've got a Iot of it on you, too.
DUKE: No, that's okay.
Hey, John, this is perfect, with the LEM and the rover and you and the oId flag.
Come on out here and give me a saIute.