SkyMan says: Fifty years ago today Apollo 11; 7/15-24/69. UPDATED 7/24
SkyMan
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As most of you are aware, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon landing. The mission lasted from July 16 - 24, 1969. Over the next 9 days I WILL BE ADDING POSTS TO THIS THREAD with what happened on that day 50 years ago, along with pictures of items from my space collection. I won't necessarily be posting every day, as many of the days 50 years ago were basically coasting/traveling from the Earth to the Moon or from the Moon to the Earth.
IMO what makes the Apollo 11 Moon landing so memorable were that humans were aboard. Over the last decade there have been many 50th anniversaries of robotic Moon landers, but they were either ignored or only briefly mentioned. While I will touch on some of the technical aspects of this mission, the predominate aspect that I wish to write about is the human efforts and the people that allowed Mankind to finally realize it's age old dream of flying to the Moon.
Some of you are probably wondering why I started the Apollo 11 post a day before the mission started. The first and MOST important thing to remember about Apollo 11 is that it wasn't just 3 astronauts going to the Moon. It took a Nation (and Presidential and Congressional leadership) committed to the effort. At it's height in the mid-1960's, the NASA budget took up roughly 5% of the Government budget (just for comparisons sake, NASA's current budget is roughly one half of one percent of the US budget). While there was severe criticism at that time of this spending of the Nation's money, the driving impetus of the Cold War (hence the term, Space Race) kept the funds flowing.
Aside from actually landing men on the Moon, it was a VERY good thing this money was spent on the space program. Because of the necessity of pushing the technological envelope new techniques, materials etc. were created that produced spin-offs that MASSIVELY increased the US' economic competitiveness. It's been a matter of academic debate since the Moon landings, but EVERYONE in the debate agrees that the US economy got FAR more back from the spending than the actual cost of the spending. It's agreed that, at a minimum, the long term effects on the increase in the economy were on the order 5 times the cost, with some people putting it as high as 10 times the cost. Most economists tend to put the increase in the economy at about 7 times the cost.
This massive budget led to a work force on the Moon landing project of roughly 400,000 people. Without each of these people doing their portion of the project to the best of their abilities the landings would not have been successful. As mentioned, I'm interested in the human aspect of this mission. I have been lucky enough to meet many of the workers on the project, as well as many of the astronauts that flew on the missions. One of my favorites was a guy called Don Shields. I was lucky enough to spend many an hour with him working as volunteers at a space museum in Novato, CA., and having food and drinks afterwards.
Don was an Air Force pilot who worked at Grumman, the builder of the lunar modules (LM). Specifically Don was the Grumman consulting pilot on LMs. He started with LM-2, which was universally recognized as having major issues. It eventually became the LM that is displayed in the National Air and Space Museum. Don then worked on LM-5, better known as Eagle. He trained Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on it's use, as well as being their interface with Grumman on what they would like with regards to LM-5.
As Al Worden, the Command Module Pilot (CMP) of Apollo 15 once told me, "We (the astronauts) weren't nuts. We wanted to get home. We knew we were doing a risky job, but it was a calculated risk. We had hundreds of people like Don who helped to minimize the risk before we set foot in our spacecraft".
On this day, July 15, 50 years ago today, Don's job was to inspect the Eagle nestled inside the third stage of the Apollo 11 Saturn V sitting on the launch pad, to make sure everything was shipshape. He was the last human to touch the Eagle while it was still on the Earth.
Here's a link to an audio recording of Don talking about his job. It's about 25 minutes long.
knowjournal.org/when/2013/07/01/lunar-exploration-memory
Here's a pic celebrating some of Don's accomplishments.
Comments
Great thread idea, Skyman.
The Right Stuff, indeed!
Nice write up. Just think if they spent 5% of the total budget today what they might do? I remember as a kid watching all of this unfold on television. As a kid I wanted to be an astronaut; mostly inspired by this event.
Great post and I look forward to following the future installments. I've stated it here before, but I think future generations will look at Apollo 11 as the most significant scientific human accomplishment of the last 1000 years. It's been a long time since intrepid explorers have pushed the envelope like that.
I would have really enjoyed watching a Saturn V launch. That monster could have lifted the entire ISS into orbit in only 3 missions. As it was, it required a couple dozen shuttle launches and a handful of other boosters to get the job done. It's amazing what can happen when the mission is clear.
I was entranced with the space race and moon missions in the 1960's. I was 13 when Armstrong and Aldrin landed and then walked on the moon. I always enjoy Skyman's posts on the topic of space flights.
With respect to the cost of the US Space Program, during the cold war, I was not aware that NASA was given 5% of the US Budget. That is a huge percentage. However, the economic benefit to the USA and the world springing from the Space Program is staggering. The ROI on the money spent by Uncle Sam on NASA and the Space Program during the cold war is far better than the return (if any) that would have resulted from devoting that money to social programs.
Great info and looking forward to the upcoming posts!
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I have a feeling I’m gonna love this thread. I believe these men are “true heroes”. Life certainly would be a lot different w/o them.
Is it okay to add to this thread?
Later, Paul.
Great post, Skyman! I look forward to seeing future enstallments.
Bless those of us old enough to have enjoyed it and young enough to remember it.
Yes.
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@SkyMan....Thanks for a great thread, I look forward to future installments. I have always enjoyed your contributions on this topic. It was a great chapter in American history, and I am glad I was able to see it happen. Cheers, RickO
Thanks @SkyMan!
Love these space threads!
Thank you SM.
Great post. I had model rockets in all corners of my bed room. Model rocketry clubs were in every town it seemed. The Saturn V liftoff, the mission, Watching Neil Armstrong walking on the moon. Adventure took priority over sitting on the sofa and playing it safe. Makes me glad I was born in the 50's
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Who could ever forget ? We were glued to the television.
Here is an absolutely facinating video for you rocket geeks I came across a few years ago. The video is of the actual launch of Apollo 11 on July 16th, 1968 in Ultra Slow Motion 16mm film with a fact filled Narrator. The video is 9 minutes long but it's a stunning video. BTW, I was about 2 and a half months old at this time.
Later, Paul.
Here we go, July 16. On this day 50 years ago in 1969, Apollo 11 launched to the Moon.
It was estimated that over 1,000,000 people came to view the launch of the spacecraft. It is unknown how many watched on TV, but certainly many millions more.
At the very tip of the spear, the top of the rocket, were 3 astronauts; Commander (CDR) Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot (CMP) Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot (LMP) Buzz Aldrin. While yesterday I wrote about the hundreds of thousands who supported the mission with their mental and physical labor, today I'm going to write a little about the astronauts.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill, "Never was so much, owed by so many, to so few". America had committed to going to the Moon in 1961 after consistently getting it's ass kicked by the Soviet Union in space since 1957. President Kennedy publicly made this commitment soon after the successful sub-orbital flight of Alan Shepard, the first US astronaut in space.
Alan Shepard was part of the first group of astronauts, a group of 7 astronauts picked in 1959 to fly the Mercury spacecraft and called the Mercury 7. In 1962 NASA selected the next group of astronauts, 9 of them, called the New Nine, or sometimes called the Gemini astronauts. Many times this has been called the most impressive group of astronauts that was ever selected. Armstrong was in this group. In 1963 NASA selected 14 more astronauts, called The Fourteen, or sometimes the Apollo astronauts. Aldrin and Collins came from this group. This was the first group that you didn't have to be a test pilot, although you had to have many hours of high performance jet flight.
The next group, 6 people chosen in 1965, was based on scientific background, and the scientists did not need to even know how to fly (although they were all taught to fly jet planes when they joined NASA, some of them graduating at the top of their Air Force flight classes). They were called The Scientists. Of these, one was forced to resign very soon after being selected, as his wife filed divorce proceedings, and NASA did not want any messy divorce scandals sullying it's public relations facade. Another resigned in August 1969 when it became obvious to him that the scientists were being consistently put on the back burner for flight assignments, and that he would never fly.
In 1966 NASA selected another group of 19 pilots and test pilots. They were called, rather tongue in cheek, The New Nineteen. One of this group resigned in 1968 for medical purposes.
There you have it, for one of the great endeavors in human history, if you count out those that resigned, there were 53 astronauts. Realistically speaking, only astronauts from the first 3 groups had flown by the time of Apollo 11. The astronauts from groups 4 and 5 were in support roles, until Apollo 13.
Of those 53 astronauts, 8 had died in plane accidents or the Apollo 1 fire, before Apollo 11 launched. That's a slightly greater than 15% chance of death. Seven of those deaths occurred in the first 3 groups (which totaled 30 astronauts), so almost a 25% chance of death in those groups.
It's surprising when you count up how many astronauts actually flew by the time of Apollo 11. From Alan Shepard's flight through Apollo 11 only 23 astronauts flew. Think about that, going from literally no space flight experience at all, to successfully landing men on the Moon and returning them safely to Earth, took a grand total of 23 astronauts. That is not many people at all. (Even by the end of Apollo 17, the last flight to the Moon, only a grand total of 34 astronauts had flown). Then think about that number of 23 astronauts and compare it to the 8 killed by that time. Not the greatest odds, eh?
Here are some pieces from my collection that have signatures from those 23 astronauts (well 22 signatures, I'm saving Armstrong for later). The first one (ex: Deke Slayton) is a political cartoon done probably in late 1960 or early 1961 that showed all the problems that the Mercury program was having. Each of the Mercury 7 astronauts signed an astronaut depiction.
In the above cartoon, one of the signers, Gus Grissom, was killed during the Apollo 1 fire. Another astronaut who was killed in the fire was Ed White II. He had been the first American to walk in space, on Gemini 4.
Gemini was an EXTREMELY important program to the eventual Moon landing. During the program America learned how to perform rendezvous in space, how to do spacewalks, and how to live in space for up to 2 weeks. Here's a picture taken from Gemini 10 looking out at an Agena spacecraft they had just rendezvoused with. This is a new piece in my collection.
There were 29 astronauts in total that flew on Apollo missions. I have been lucky enough to meet in person 15 of the 29 who flew on Apollo missions, and call one of them my friend. Of these 29 astronauts, 18 had flown by Apollo 11. Here's a piece of my collection that I haven't shown before. I was able to win it at auction when it already had 18 signatures on it. At the time of purchase there were 6 astronauts alive who had flown on Apollo who had not signed the poster. One of them essentially doesn't do any signing, and the majority of the others were all in their late 80's, if not their 90's. I figured I would be lucky to get maybe 3 signatures added on, but the good Lord was kind to me, and I got all 5 signatures. So, this piece now has 23 of the 29 Apollo astronauts, 15 of whom had flown by Apollo 11. In all my years of collecting space memorabilia, I've only seen two pieces that have more Apollo era signatures on them, one with 24, and one with 26. This is a rare piece.
As mentioned above, training for and flying spacecraft was a risky business. Not surprisingly the astronauts were unable to get life insurance (except for standard military life insurance for the servicemen). Before a flight the crew would get together and sign a bunch of postal covers that were date stamped on the date of their launch. If the crew were lost during the flight their wives could dribble out the sale of the covers to make ends meet. As such, they got the nickname of life insurance covers. I've got one (ex: Aldrin). You'll note this one is actually dated July 20, 1969. Given that the launch was successful, the person who was holding onto the covers held them until they could be date stamped July 20, 1969, the date of the Moon landing. I bought this the first auction I ever bought any space memorabilia at, and as such, being a Newbie, didn't understand some of the market. It had 5 signatures on it, hence I thought it would be worth more than one with 3 signatures on it. However, since Armstrong is on the back, it is not worth as much as a cover with just three signatures on the front. It's still valuable, just not as much with one with 3 signatures on the front.
I have a neat Apollo 11 launch hardware piece, but it was also used during Apollo 12, and since that is my favorite Apollo mission (Dick Gordon was my friend), I'll save that for the Apollo 12 50th anniversary thread in November. Since today is the 50th anniversary of the launch, let's close today's post with a picture of the launch, signed by 4 of the Mission Control Directors. I'll be writing about Mission Control on July 20. The actual picture is a composite created from 2 pictures, one of the flag, and one of the Saturn V. You'll see about midway on the rocket a cloud. The cloud was caused by moisture condensation when the rocket went supersonic.
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Awesome!
Live coverage. Well, it was 50 years ago. But it's to the minute coverage, minus 50 years. Amazing.
Sy, any chance that you will be able to add Tom Mattingly to that poster?
He's the 6th Apollo astronaut that I was talking about. If a person meets him at the right time and place, he will sign an item for that one person, BUT that is VERY FEW and far between, maybe once or twice a year. Given that I live nowhere near him, the odds are nil. BTW, he goes by his middle name which is Ken.
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Here's what the Apollo 11 site looks like now:
Fifty years ago today, July 19, 1969, Apollo 11 completed one of it's critical maneuvers, lunar orbital insertion (LOI). After leaving the Earth at roughly 25,000 MPH the spacecraft slowed down to somewhere in the 3,000 MPH range as it fought Earth's gravity going "uphill". At roughly 4/5 of the distance from the Earth to the Moon Apollo 11 transitioned into the lunar gravity well and started to speed up. Just before going behind the Moon the spacecraft was traveling at just under 5,000 MPH.
If the spacecraft did not slow down, it was on what is called a free return trajectory, it will go behind the Moon, loop around and return to Earth, basically like a big figure 8. To slow down the astronauts must fire the Command and Service Module's (CSM) rocket engine. The burn must be just the right amount, too short, and they will not go into lunar orbit, going off on some cockeyed trajectory away from the Earth; too long a burn and they will crash into the Moon. The burn must drop the speed of the spacecraft to roughly 3,000 miles an hour. Needless to say, the burn was successful, and the spacecraft settled into lunar orbit. FWIW, it takes roughly 2 hours to do one orbit of the Moon. For the rest of the day the crew did assorted checkups on the spacecraft and some visual scouting of the Moon's surface.
Back in the day, after a mission, the Smithsonian would get first dibs on WHATEVER it wanted from the mission. De facto items that it always took were the capsule itself, as well as the spacesuits and helmets of the astronauts. Obviously there were a lot of other items they took, but they did not by any stretch take everything. NASA management then allowed the mission astronauts to take whatever of the remainder they wished to take. These items were then considered theirs. (I don't want to get into the politics of it at this point in time, but suffice it to say, via an act of Congress, possession of these items was confirmed in 2012. I'm happy to get into a discussion at a latter date about this, but not now).
These astronauts then "gifted" a large chunk of whatever they had taken to people who had been important to the mission... contractors, mission control, support crew etc. etc. Whatever the astronauts did not gift onwards they kept, and over time many of these pieces have hit the market.
Before each mission, a Flight Plan (FP) would be produced. It's a 3 ring binder affair that's turned sideways and read landscape fashion. Each page is printed on both sides. On the left hand side of a page is the Ground Elapsed Time (GET). GET is the amount of time since launch. There are 3 columns, from left to right CMP, CDR and LMP. An FP basically tells the crew members when to do specific tasks. Over time a crew will also write in comments, data from Houston, assorted data values (burn times, fuel etc.) from their CSM, etc. etc. In many regards a FP ends up functioning like a log. An FP is but one, although the major/primary one, of a group of checklists. The subsidiary checklists each deal with one specific function or area of the mission. At the end of the mission, Aldrin took the FP as well as several other checklists.
Over time Aldrin sold off the FP and the assorted other checklists page by page (sometimes in some small groupings of pages). I have been lucky enough to hold a good chunk of these pages in my sweaty little hands while reviewing them prior to auction. Needless to say, it was a thrill. Anyhow, one thing that surprised me was how few pages had ANY sort of writing on them aside from strictly numerical data copied down by the crew. The crew has always been known as a laconic crew, and this can readily be seen in the FP and other checklists.
Given the cost, on the market, of a single page, anywhere from $10,000 (on an essentially blank page) to dramatically upwards on pages dealing with mission critical events, I realized I was only ever likely to own one page, so I wanted to make it a good one. Like I said at the beginning of this thread, I'm interested in the human aspect of this mission. So, here's a flown page from the Apollo 11 FP that is part of my collection. Needless to say, it is one of my favorite pieces in the collection.
The FP page I got was used 50 years ago today, July 19. It shows a two hour period from 82 - 84 GET. On the front side of page, 82 - 83 GET, you can see a drawing of the configuration of the Columbia and Eagle as they orbit the Moon, as well as the tasks the LMP (Aldrin) was supposed to do. It's also easy enough to see why one of these lists is called a checklist.
The CSM got it's power via fuel cells. Fuel cells combine oxygen and hydrogen and produce electricity and water. The crew of a mission would use some of this water for consumption, but excess water was called waste water, and was vented to space every now and then as part of basic housekeeping of the CSM. The backside of the page, 83 - 84 GET, is why I bought this page. Aside from all the checkmarks you'll notice HANDWRITTEN in the CDR's column (Armstrong), "@ 84:00 waste water dump 25%". At the same time, handwritten in the LMP's column you'll see, "Sop up water w towels (waste)". So there you have it, the crew is in the most advanced machine of the era. They are orbiting the Moon preparatory to landing on it the next day, and what are they dealing with? Screwed up plumbing. It makes you feel right at home, doesn't it?
Here's a picture of yours truly discussing the page (actually a xeroxed copy of it as I didn't want to take the risk of traveling with it) with Buzz, and yes, he is giving me the finger. Obviously we talked about various things, one of them was who wrote on the page. Buzz mentioned that it was Collins' handwriting.
At the end of this day, July 19, 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 bedded down, knowing that the next day they were going to attempt Mankind's first Moon landing.
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PBS TV has been running a great series on this event. I remember as a young lad buying a Revell model kit of the Gemini capsule. Thanks for this thread and related info. Am enjoying it.
Tomorrow is July 20. We will be going by Armstrong's home while he was at the Manned Space Center to pay homage..... Ed White's house is next door so bonus time and friends of ours live there now. We expect alot of traffic there tomorrow despite being a quiet neighborhood, maybe even the press. Thank you boys (the Apollo astronauts that is) for bringing me so many great rocks to study.
Best, SH
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I still have the small token my Mom got me to remember it.
Just finished watching this movie. It is incredible. Comprised purely of high-quality footage of the original event. Not a word of narration. Honestly I'm not into long, boring documentaries but this was amazing. It's available on Amazon Prime and probably other similar services.
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Awesome great fantastic post Skyman! Can`t wait to see more!
July 20, 1969, one of the Great days in human history. On that day, 50 years ago today, humans landed on the Moon for the first time. While I realize that for the human race it was the walking on the Moon that made it all seem real, you'll note that I didn't say walk, because for the people involved, landing on the Moon was the tough part. Walking on the Moon was basically a victory lap.
I've been able to meet and talk with both Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Of perhaps more interest, and information, than that to me was meeting, working with (in a volunteer capacity) and talking with Charlie Duke multiple times. Charlie was the CapCom in Mission Control when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon (and he became the 10th person to walk on the Moon during Apollo 16).
Mission Control was, and is, in many regards the heart and soul of manned spaceflight. In it's most basic form, it is the engineers and technicians who work with the astronauts of a mission both in preflight simulations, and during the actual flight. Located in Houston, Mission control during Apollo 11 had three 8 hour shifts to cover the flight. While each of these shifts were considered co-equal, the "top" shift was scheduled for the Moon landing. This shift was headed by Gene Kranz as Flight Director.
Hierarchically, there is a Flight Director with assorted subordinates that are the head of specific technical sections (such as the flight dynamics officer, nicknamed FIDO, or guidance officer, nicknamed GUIDO) dealing with the flight. The Flight director and the assorted section leaders are located in the main room of the building. This is the room you've all seen pictures of. The section leaders are located in front of the flight director, and in the aggregate have nicknamed themselves, "The Trenches", as they are the people who have to do the grunt work to make sure the mission succeeds. Each of these section leaders has an audio link to his section's workers in the backrooms, one room for each section. He/She can access these workers greater specific knowledge if they need it. In turn these workers in the backrooms can contact the contractors who built the actual spacecraft and brainstorm with them if it becomes necessary.
Basically what happens in a time critical situation is the section leader gives the flight director a go/no go call. The flight director can then either say go/no go depending on what he thinks, and at that point the CapCom communicates this call to the astronauts. CapCom is a contraction of Capsule Communicator. Back in the day (and nowadays too), the spacecraft was shaped like a capsule, hence the name CapCom. The capcom is always an astronaut, as it is thought that an astronaut can talk better to the astronauts in the mission, and better understand what they are asking of Mission Control.
According to Duke, the Apollo 11 crew took about 6 hours to prepare the LM Eagle for undocking from the CSM Columbia. At undocking something occurred that no one was aware of at that point in time. There was some residual air left in the tunnel between the LM and the CSM, so when they undocked the air rushing out acted as a small rocket for the LM, increasing it's speed. The affect this would have would occur later, when it pushed the LM further downrange from it's expected landing area.
After undocking and a brief mutual visual checkout of both spacecraft the LM fired it's engine to put it into a lower orbit, with a low point of 47,000 feet. It descended towards the Moon around the backside of the Moon. When it returned to the front side of the Moon, and thus in communication with Mission Control, it was supposed to initiate a roughly 14 minute long burn that would drop it from roughly 3,000 mph at 47,000 feet to a landing.
At this point things started going wrong. When the Eagle came into Earth view, the communications link was poor, due to the attitude of the spacecraft with regards to the Earth and the Sun. Under mission rules, if mission control could not get at least 50% of the spacecraft's information (speed, engine info etc. etc.) then the landing would be called off. While rotating the LM somewhat improved communications it was a very dicey affair, and communications continued to be iffy during the whole descent.
Buzz Aldrin was nicknamed Dr. Rendezvous, because he has a Ph.D. dealing with rendezvousing in space. Prior to landing, the computer was configured to take in radar information dealing with height above ground and speed of approach. Unbeknownst to Mission Control, and TO THE BEST OF MY UNDERSTANDING NOT on the checklist, when Aldrin was configuring the radar and the computer for landing he added that the radar and computer should also keep track of the CSM in case an abort was needed.
One thing you need to remember about the Apollo computers is that by today's standards they were laughably weak. The ENTIRE computer capacity of the Saturn V and Apollo spacecraft was on the order of the KEY FOB in your pocket. On the way down to the Moon, unbeknownst to Armstrong, Aldrin and Mission Control, the addition of keeping track of the CSM was overloading the computer, and a 1202 alarm was called by Aldrin. In Mission Control most people thought that they had lost the landing. With no quick response from Mission Control, Armstrong even asked what the 1202 alarm means, and, to put it mildly, to have Armstrong express concern, you'd just about have to have a complete disaster on your hands.
One thing you need to remember about Mission Control during Apollo is that all these guys were VERY young. The people in the Trench were generally in their mid-twenties. The guys in the back rooms were even younger. Gene Kranz was an old man of 36. These were the people who had to make the split second decisions affecting men's lives and multimultimillion dollar missions, with, at the back of their minds realizing that the whole world was watching the Apollo 11 mission. Jack Garman, a 24 year old, in the guidance backroom figured out that the 1202 alarm was basically an overflow of the system. The computer was continuing to do it's highest priority tasks, e.g. ranging dealing with speed and height for the landing, and dropping lower priority tasks, e.g. tracking the CSM, off of the list. Garman contacted his boss in the front room, Steve Bales (26), who was the guidance officer (GUIDO), who gave the GO call to Kranz. In conversation with Duke, he says he was so excited by this time that he didn't wait for Kranz to say go, but said it himself to the LM. In actuality it had taken a very short period of time to make the call, it was just the stressed nature of the moment that had made it seem longer.
There were a couple more 1202 and 1201 alarms (1201 was they same type as a 1202 alarm) on the way down. At this point, Mission Control noticed that something was going wrong with the expected descent profile of the LM. Instead of continuing down in a braking parabolic curve to the Moon's surface it was flattening out and keeping the same speed. Fuel available was running out. Unbeknownst to Mission Control, the LM, due to the undocking issue mentioned above, was landing down range, out of the planned relatively flat and clear area. Specifically it was going to land in a football field sized crater that was surrounded with car size boulders.
Duke kept giving information to Armstrong. If you look at movies of mission control during the Apollo 11 landing you'll see seated next to Duke a gentlemen in a red shirt, Deke Slayton. Slayton was the head of the astronaut office, and an old pilot himself. According to Duke, Slayton at this point leaned over to Duke and told him to shut up about everything, except for the fuel remaining. First it was 60 seconds of fuel remaining. Then it was 30 seconds of fuel remaining. When Aldrin finally called out, "Contact lights (there were ~ 6 foot long probes at the base of the foot pads), Engine Stop", there were 17 seconds of fuel remaining in the LM.
After a few comments by Aldrin about "safing" various LM systems, Armstrong called out, "Tranquillity Base here, the Eagle has landed".
Here are two pieces from my collection. The first is signed by four of the Flight Directors:
Chris Kraft, Gerry Griffin,
Glynn Lunney, Gene Kranz.
A postcard of the famous visor shot, signed by Neil Armstrong.
If you want to relive the powered descent to the lunar surface, here's a good video. It's about 15 minutes long.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=RONIax0_1ec
In all films of the landing the camera is located in Aldrin's LM window. We do not see what Armstrong saw. Here's a roughly 4 minute long video that blends what Aldrin saw along with a video simulation of what Armstrong was seeing from his window as he approached the landing site.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ScFJBcLfasQ
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I remember watching it on TV while eating vanilla ice cream with raspberries.
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50 years ago today, July 21, 1969, the Apollo 11 crew worked on the second part of President Kennedy's goal, "To land a man on the Moon, and return him safely to Earth...". July 21 was a very busy day.
The LM has two main parts called the descent stage and the ascent stage. The descent stage has one engine that produced roughly 10,000 pounds of thrust. After landing on the Moon, the descent stage also functioned as the "launch pad" for the ascent stage. The ascent stage had one main engine for liftoff, that produced roughly 3,500 pounds of thrust. The ascent stage also had 4 quads (e.g. 16 total engines) that were used for attitude control, e.g. pitch, roll and yaw. Each of these engines produced 100 pounds of thrust. The main engine for the ascent stage had to work or the astronauts would be marooned on the Moon's surface. Because of this it used a simple combustion system, where all that was necessary, in essence, was to open two valves to allow two fuels to mix together. These fuels were hypergolic, which means that when they mix they immediately explode. There is NO need to have the equivalent of a spark plug, or anything of that sort.
One thing that most people don't realize is how close to the Eagle Armstrong and Aldrin stayed during their walk. If you put the Eagle a little offset from the 50 yard line, all of the walks of the astronauts would fit inside a football field. When Armstrong and Aldrin planted the American flag it was quite close to the LM. When the ascent stage lifted smoothly away from the Moon's surface it blew over the first American flag planted on the Moon's surface.
The Eagle rendezvoused with the Columbia in orbit. Armstrong and Aldrin transferred back into Columbia, along with assorted items, most notably the Moon rocks. Roughly 2 hours later Eagle's ascent stage was jettisoned. Roughly 5 hours after that, Columbia fired it's 20,500 pounds of thrust engine (which also used hypergolic fuels), and Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were on their way home.
Here are two pieces from my collection. The first is a picture of the CSM, Columbia taken from the LM Eagle (by Aldrin I believe). There were 6 successful Moon landing missions, and each of them had one CMP who stayed in lunar orbit while his two companions went down to the Moon's surface. I've had this picture signed by 3 of the CMPs. First off is Michael Collins, Apollo XI. The second is Dick Gordon of Apollo XII. He was the Commander of Apollo 18, but unfortunately for him, while he was training for the mission, Apollo 18 got canceled. Dick wrote, "A view that I have not had the pleasure of viewing". The third astronaut is Al Worden of Apollo 15. He had three days alone in the CSM. He wrote, "This photograph shows the best time I had during my flight".
One thing I found particularly amusing when getting this signed was Dick could not remember what the white antenna(?) was that extends from the spacecraft at roughly the 10 o'clock position. At the table next to him was Collins. Dick leaned over and asked Mike what it was, and Collins couldn't remember either. It was fun to listen to them try and figure it out (which they didn't).
Yours truly with Michael Collins.
The second piece is a picture taken by Collins of the ascent stage of the Eagle as it comes in for rendezvous. The Earth is in the background.
U.S. Type Set
Very important to bring everyone back. If not, then this 50th would have a completely different undertone.
Thanks for all of your informative information AND photographs @SkyMan.
Again, great post.
Awesome post...thanks for the great detail. I was an 8 year old living in Rota Spain at the time and we watched it on Spanish TV. Can still picture the moments in my mind.
You have some wonderful pieces in your collection and thanks as always for sharing!
K
Thank you SkyMan. You have a wonderful collection and have reminded us of something we should all be proud of.
July 24, 1969, the crew of Apollo 11 landed safely back on Earth. Due to concerns about bringing back a potential Moon organism the astronauts had to immediately don biological isolation garments, and were quickly helicoptered to the waiting aircraft carrier, Hornet, where they were installed in the Mobile Quarantine Facility (MQF), a glorified RV, to keep them isolated from humanity. The MQF was landed at Pearl Harbor a couple of days later and flown to Houston, arriving on July 28. The astronauts were kept in isolation for a total of 3 weeks, and then released to the world.
For those of you who have enjoyed this series of posts for Apollo 11, I plan to do a daily series of posts on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 12; November 14 - 24. This is the Apollo mission I got most interested in, and have the most number of pictures, hardware and checklist pages from, as well as a couple of signed $1 bills.
Here's the last Apollo 11 piece in my collection. It's a US flag that traveled on Apollo 11 to the Moon. I keep it displayed in my home next to the political cartoon picture of the Mercury astronauts that are having so many problems trying to get into space that was posted on July 16. The combination of the two symbolizes to me what the USA can do when it puts it's mind to it.
U.S. Type Set