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On July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 was launched from the Kennedy Space Center in the first manned mission to the moon. Four days later, when the spacecraft touched down on the lunar surface, astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins became instant American heroes. These excerpts from Craig Nelson's new book, Rocket Men, reveal some intriguing dramas behind the well-known stories of the astronauts and their incredible feat. The Liftoff
Cradled in their formfitting couches, the three astronauts lay silently on their backs in 35-pound space suits, preparing for the countdown. The NASA load-in crew wished them luck—then closed the ship's hatch.
It was a Florida dawn in July, 85 degrees, with a light wind and a ten-mile visibility. On the tidelands, a huge audience had made it to the beaches to witness history. Across the horizon lay the entire script of American space travel in a line of U.S. Air Force and NASA launchpads.
In the tiny 11-by-13-foot capsule, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins faced a cockpit that included five windows, numerous gauges, an assortment of dials, and, as Collins later put it, "great handfuls of switches, around 400, if you included plungers, ratchets, handles, and knobs. You [had] to be careful not to hit one by accident."
Posted on the dashboard were last-minute to-dos, handwritten cue cards, and the user's guide for the rocket. Next to Armstrong's chair was the most important tool of all: the abort lever, resembling a big oven dial on a pole.
There was an unacknowledged prayer shared by astronaut crew and ground-control engineers alike at the start of every NASA mission—"Dear Lord, please don't let me screw up"—but this sentiment was felt more keenly on this flight. "We were our nation's envoys, we three, and it would be a national disgrace" if anything went wrong, said Collins. "We would be watched by the world; we must not fail. I really felt this pressure, an awesome responsibility, a completely negative sensation. By flight time, I had tics in both eyelids."
Armstrong commented, "I was aware that this was a culmination of the work of 300,000 or 400,000 people over a decade and that the nation's hopes rested on the results. With those pressures, it seemed the most important thing to do was focus on our job as best we were able and allow nothing to distract us."
Slowly, Apollo 11 began to rise. The sound of the liftoff overwhelmed the screams of a million spectators, many of whom now called out in unison, tears streaming down their cheeks, "Go! Go! Go! Go!"
Norman Mailer described the launch as mankind's finding a way to talk to God. The author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke, said, "At liftoff, I cried for the first time in 20 years—and prayed for the first time in 40." Walter Cronkite of CBS later said, "Everything else that has happened in our time is going to be an asterisk." And Wernher von Braun, the genius behind Apollo 11's Saturn V rocket, said, "It is equal in importance to that moment in evolution when aquatic life came crawling up on the land."
The astronauts themselves had very different feelings. Said Collins, "Shake, rattle, and roll! Noise, yes, lots of it, but mostly motion. We [were] thrown left and right against our straps in spasmodic little jerks."
The Landing
Apatch in the southwest corner of the moon's Sea of Tranquility had been chosen as the landing site, after photos taken during earlier missions had indicated that it was relatively free of boulders and craters.
Four days after liftoff, on July 20, the Eagle landing craft fell to an altitude of ten miles, then fired its rocket to slow itself out of orbit and into descent. A computer used radar to drop the craft to about 500 feet and approach with portholes tilted down so that Armstrong could assess the terrain. If he felt that the target site was unacceptable, he would use radar to land the module himself.
Just how difficult was it to fly this aircraft? In essence, Armstrong needed to fly a craft that was different from anything ever built, using controls devised from scratch, in one-sixth gravity, with no atmosphere, on a landscape whose features weren't truly known, and carrying enough fuel for only one attempt to land.
The first sign of trouble appeared when Houston's Mission Control lost radio contact with Eagle. The engineers jury-rigged a solution by patching communications from Eagle to Columbia (orbiting with Collins at the controls) and then to Houston. This added new pressure; in an emergency, there would be additional delays in communications.
While Armstrong looked out the window, Aldrin, monitoring displays and gauges on the dashboard, called out the data readings. Aldrin was so busy working, he never once looked out the window to watch the landing.
Although plummeting at 7,614 feet per second, neither man felt a sensation of descent. As Armstrong searched for the right place, it became clear that they were going to overshoot the target by almost four miles. At Mission Control, readouts showed that the astronauts were flying 20 feet per second faster than planned. (If the number reached 40, flight rules called for an abort.)
Armstrong now took control of the module. Said Aldrin later, "He slowed our descent [until], at 300 feet, we were descending at only three and a half feet per second. As Eagle dropped, we continued skimming forward. Neil still wasn't satisfied with the terrain. He stroked the hand controller and descent-rate switch like a motorist fine-tuning his cruise control [as] we scooted across boulders."
Said Armstrong, "I was surprised by the size of these boulders. Some were as big as motorcars."
Mission Control could not understand why Armstrong was taking so long. Said Floyd Bennett, planning chief, "I said, 'What is he doing?' We didn't know. He didn't have time to tell us that it was a rock field out there."
As fuel gauges dwindled, nerves began tightening further. Houston finally warned them that Armstrong had only 60 seconds of landing fuel remaining. Said Aldrin, "When the [low fuel] light came on, and we were still not close to the ground, I was concerned. But what could I do? Say, 'Neil, hurry up'? That would just excite him."
Armstrong said, "Finally, we found an area ringed on one side by fairly good-sized craters and on the other by a boulder field; it was about the size of a big house lot."
Aldrin called out, "Forty feet … Picking up dust … Thirty feet."
His nose and throat dry and cold from the tanked air, Armstrong finally saw a clear spot and put the ship into vertical landing position. The descent to the moon kicked up so much dust that at 30 feet, the ground below became a roiling cloud.
Neither man could feel it happen, but then, with about 17 seconds of fuel remaining, the dashboard's blue light ignited. A foot sensor had made contact.
At 3:17 p.m., Central Standard Time, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong announced to the world, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed."
Said Walter Cronkite on live television, clearly overcome, "Wow, boy! Man on the moon!"
Their faces grizzled with four days of stubble, Armstrong and Aldrin grinned, shook hands, and clapped each other's shoulders.
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