27 Aug RIP Neil Armstrong
I remember Man landing on the moon as clear as a bell. I was just about to turn 6 years old & in Grade 1 at primary School – We were I think all sent home from school & given a half a day off.
I remember sitting transfixed in front of my parents old black & white TV (remember the best way to fix the horizontal or vertical hold was to give the TV set a belt) & watching the Lunar Module land & Neil Armstrong walking down the steps & make his famous speech. I was amazed at the time how we could put a person on a thing that I could only see miles above me in the sky at night. What is even more amazing today is the computing power that it took to put a Man On The Moon is < the power in the smartphone you are carrying around with you in your pocket (power apparently was similar to an old 386 computer – for you computer geeks)
Apollo 11 was Armstrong’s 2nd time in space. During the Apollo 11 launch, Armstrong’s heart rate was > 110 beats per minute. He found the first stage to be the loudest – much noisier than the Gemini 8 Titan II launch – and the Apollo CSM was relatively roomy compared to the Gemini capsule. This ability to move around was suspected to be the cause of space sickness that had hit members of previous crews, but none of the Apollo 11 crew suffered from it; Armstrong was especially happy, as he had been prone to motion sickness as a child and could experience nausea after doing long periods of aerobatics.
The objective of Apollo 11 was to land safely rather than to touch down with precision on a particular spot. 3 minutes into the lunar descent burn, Armstrong noted that craters were passing about two seconds too early, which meant the Eagle would probably touch down beyond the planned landing zone by several miles. As the Eagle’s landing radar acquired the surface, several computer error alarms appeared. They promptly received word from CAPCOM in Houston that the alarms were not a concern.
When Armstrong noticed they were heading towards a landing area which he believed was unsafe, he took over manual control of the Lunar Module and attempted to find an area which seemed safer, taking longer than expected, and longer than most simulations had taken. For this reason, there was concern from mission control that the Lunar Module was running low on fuel. Upon landing, Aldrin and Armstrong believed they had about 40 seconds worth of fuel left, including the 20 seconds worth of fuel which had to be saved in the event of an abort.
The landing on the surface of the moon occurred at 20:17:39 UTC on July 20, 1969. When a sensor attached to the legs of the still hovering Lunar Module made lunar contact, a panel light inside the LM lit up and Aldrin called out, “Contact light.” As the LM settled on the surface Aldrin then said, “Okay. Engine stop,” and Armstrong said, “Shutdown.” The first words Armstrong intentionally spoke to Mission Control and the world from the lunar surface were, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.” Aldrin and Armstrong celebrated with a brisk handshake and pat on the back before quickly returning to the checklist of tasks needed to ready the lunar module for liftoff from the Moon should an emergency unfold during the first moments on the lunar surface. During the critical landing, the only message from Houston was “30 seconds”, meaning the amount of fuel left. When Armstrong had confirmed touch-down, Houston expressed their worries during the manual landing as “You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again”.
We have been lucky as a family to visit the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral (about 1 hour by car from Orlando Disney Theme Parks). For those of you who haven’t been there this to me is an Adults Theme Park. All parts of the space missions are available for viewing, you are taken through the launch sequence of Apollo 11 & landing on the moon. As well as this they have a “ride” where you can experience the launch of a space rocket & the feeling of zero gravity, meet real to life astronauts & from July 2013 be able to view & explore Space Shuttle Atlantis.
John F Kennedy Space Center At Cape Canaveral