Apollo 11 - 50th Anniversary of the Launch

[GalaxyBoy]

NPR 1A streamed the audio of the landing, complete from the start of the descent to the landing. Just enough commentary to explain some things (acronyms, etc.) that otherwise would be confusing to the average listener.

https://the1a.org/audio/#/shows/201...d-the-mission-that-almost-wasnt/118227/@00:00

Hang in there for the first 30 seconds, which is just ambient music.

 

[ncbill]

Maybe this will generate enough interest to renovate the museum in Armstrong's hometown...went there a few years ago and most of the hands-on exhibits were broken.

 

[braumeister]

They are still minting men and women like these astronauts and those on the team that contributed to this amazing achievement, but we seem to hear little about them.

If you have ever had the occasion to see what our military members are doing these days you know how incredibly impressive they are. It has always been so. And the astronaut corps is a very tiny selection from the cream of those (as well as from civilian life, as in the case of Neil Armstrong). One of the most impressive people I ever knew was a guy who washed out of astronaut training when he injured his back. He went on do valuable work in several space programs (he recruited me for the Skylab program).

One of my incredibly vivid "flashbulb memories" is of sitting around a television set with about ten of my friends to watch Armstrong's emergence from the LEM and his first steps onto the moon. I can still name everyone who was in the room. We had been glued to the radio during the afternoon for the landing, and were super excited about it.

I also had the opportunity to w*rk with both of Armstrong's sons for a few years in the 90s and they were both remarkable people. As samclem implied, they had adopted their father's attitude and were most definitely team players.

 

[audreyh1]

CBS was "livestreaming" their original coverage of the Apollo 11 launch, Walter Cronkite n' all. I'm hoping they'll do the same for the landing -

Apollo 11 Moon Launch 50th Anniversary

Thanks for that! I very much enjoyed watching the intro and the launch. And an interview with Arthur C. Clark on top of it! The movie 2001:A Space Odyssey had come out just the year before (1968).

The PBS series Chasing the Moon is very good in terms of background. We are in the middle of watching that.

P.S. Broadcaster and politician’s accents have really changed over the past 50 years, as have many American accents it seems. Odd hearing people speak - this is even more obvious in the PBS series.

 

[samclem]

Thanks for that! I very much enjoyed watching the intro and the launch.

. . . .

+1. I watched about an hour of a YouTube video that was the "as broadcast" CBS coverage. It is much different experiencing it this way than just watching a documentary. Walter's words were positive, but some of the awkward hesitations in his delivery made clear that something very awful might be about to happen, too. They mentioned that the Apollo 12 rocket was in the assembly building and would be available to launch in a couple of months if Apollo 11 was "for some reason unable to successfully complete its mission" so that the country might have another shot at landing on the moon within JFK's stated "before the end of this decade."

 

[pb4uski]

....And since we havent been back to the moon since the early 70's...that sort of goes to show how pointless it was. Id like to think with our current technology, it would be a lot easier to get there now? Why not go back?

WADR, if it wasn't for the moonshot, today's technology may not even exist and definitely wouldn't be as advanced as it is.

 

[HFWR]

What we didn't know or appreciate at the time was that the LEM had about 25 seconds of fuel left when it touched down.

EAGLE: Houston, Tranquility base here. The Eagle has landed.

CONTROL: Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot.

You can hear someone say “thirty seconds” over the comm just before touch down.

 

[COcheesehead]

Im not really sure what the point of the moon landing was? I have to assume it was to show dominance globally since we were competing with the soviets? More of a psychological thing? We never really did anything with the moon itself. There arent any colonies, there arent nukes that can be launched from the moon. Seems odd to me.

And since we havent been back to the moon since the early 70's...that sort of goes to show how pointless it was. Id like to think with our current technology, it would be a lot easier to get there now? Why not go back?

Put it in context. It was the Cold War. It was about national pride, beating the Russians. It goes back to Kennedy. The journey was the point.

 

[dirt_dobber]

from The John 10:10 Project
On July 20, 1969 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon. Prior to taking their first steps on the lunar surface, Aldrin celebrated communion to honor the God who had made their journey possible. After returning to Earth he noted that the first liquid poured on the moon, and the first food ever eaten there, were the sacramental bread and wine of communion.
Buzz also quoted from the book of Psalms 8:3,4 on the return trip to Earth.
Psa 8:3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
Psa 8:4 What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man that You care for him?
here is the link to the audio:
https://vimeo.com/345521289/998fd8fc41?platform=hootsuite

 

[ERD50]

I came across this video of the minutes leading up to landing, and watched twice, pausing and repeating a number of sections. The cool thing is, they have the flight info and some video, plus the two separate communications going on at once - the on ground mission control talking among themselves, and then the mission control to the astronauts.

There is a lot going on, conversations about the fuel (at one point, someone says "fuel crit", and some one else says "he didn't want to say 'critical'"!). I had to keep hitting 10 second replay to catch things.

At one point close to landing, "Flight" basically tells everyone to shut up, except for fuel call-outs.

And you can hear Aldrin and Armstrong calling out the 1202 ans 1201 alarms, which they apparently didn't fully understand (there are some other excellent videos on that). Short story, the alarms were due to an unintended radar unit left on, and it just was too much data for that computer to handle. But it did what it was designed to do, a very quick re-boot, try again, then it eventually over-loaded again, rinse/repeat. Seems ground was confident enough in how the craft was responding, that they decided to ignore the alarms.

They were having problems with keeping the high gain antenna aimed (high gain means it is very directional, like most TV antennas and unlike the old car antenna, a single rod which is omni-directional, so you pick up the radio station regardless of your direction). The 'skirts' they added to deflect heat from the engines were interfering with the antenna in some positions. It took me a while, but I was trying to figure out how they communicated at this point, but it was Michael Collins who still had comm to ground, and he relayed the messages to get their antenna re-directed. Gotta give Collins his due, he gets overlooked!

There are a few critical points where they need to make a go/no-go decision, and be ready to abort, one was really close to the landing time. Hard to keep cool under that kind of pressure! But they did.


Enjoy!

A detailed account of every second of the Apollo 11 descent and landing. The video combines data from the onboard computer for altitude and pitch angle, 16mm film that was shot throughout the descent at 6 frames per second. The audio recording is from two sources. The air/ground transmissions are on the left stereo channel and the mission control flight director loop is on the right channel. Subtitles are included to aid comprehension. This is part of the Apollo Flight Journal, Apollo 11 collection.

-ERD50

 

[samclem]

The ascent from the moon and the rendezvous/docking with command module were major sources of remaining risk after the landing. It would have been a tremendous national tragedy had Armstrong and Aldrin had to remain on the moon or in orbit --until their CO2 scrubbers eventually ran out of capacity--while the whole world waited.

President Nixon asked William Safire to write a speech for his use in an address to the nation in the event the Apollo 11 astronauts could not get off the moon or accomplish a rendezvous with the command module. The background and the short speech are here.

For planned later Apollo missions of longer duration on the moon, the weight capacity of the LEM was increased (to allow inclusion of the lunar rover vehicle, etc). NASA also considered adding a very minimalist Lunar Escape System (LESS) to allow a crew to attempt to reunite with the CM. Just two seats, engines, and inflatable fuel tanks that would have used fuel removed from the lander. No life support (wear your space suit), no navigation system (hand fly it to the CM). It would have been sporty.

NASA never developed the LESS, but it did get serious consideration. More here.

 

[Alan]

You can hear someone say “thirty seconds” over the comm just before touch down.

I listened to an excellent podcast series called “13 minutes to the moon” and in the interview with the guy counting down the fuel he said he had 18 seconds left on his stopwatch when they landed. Once the fuel low level switch triggered they had about 120 seconds of fuel left depending on how much Armstrong used the thrusters so the defined protocol was to abort the landing 60 seconds after the low fuel alarm.

I’m also watching that PBS/BBC series Chasing the Moon. Really well done and brings back lots of great memories.

 

[googily]

The CNN doc Apollo 11 (which was in the theaters and is also being shown daily at the Air and Space Museum) was on last night and it did a great job with the descent, pairing the audio, the film out the LEM window, and the altitude and fuel readouts.

I would put it at the top of the Apollo 11 documentaries. Next I'd go with PBS's Chasing the Moon, which was gorgeous and beautifully done but which was a tad long at 6 hours (covered all of the space program, not just 11). The Smithsonian Channel's series on Sunday nights has been really well done as well.

A few weeks ago I listened to the four-part NASA podcast on how they digitized the Mission Control loop recordings. It was an incredible process.

Also, yesterday I saw the 2003 doc Failure Is Not An Option, about the Mission Control staff. It was great, and it's on YouTube.

I was too young to remember 11, but I do have flickering memories of Saturn 5 liftoffs and Jules Bergman and other moments. It was such a huge part of being little back then.

 

[googily]

Also should have added this site, in case people haven't seen it:

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/

 

[braumeister]

Interesting footnote to the mission:

Buzz Aldrin was an active duty Air Force officer when he walked on the moon. This is the required travel voucher he had to file, paying him a little over $33 for his trip.

Itinerary:

• Houston
• Cape Kennedy
• Moon
• Pacific Ocean
• Hawaii
• Houston

Note that it's such a small amount because travel was provided by "Government Air" and also government quarters were provided.

 

[street]

In a small rural cemetery in very rural area, there is a headstone for a man that has the Apollo 11 spaceship engraved on it. The man was an engineer for Apollo 11 is what the stone sys.

The cemetery has less then 50 markers and in a very remote area.