From takeoff to splashdown, the moon landing explained
Scared that the Russians might beat them Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin climbed into the lunar module The Eagle and headed for the moon, but not everything went to plan.
Moon landing
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In 1961, the then United States President John F. Kennedy set the nation a mission. That mission was to perform a crewed lunar landing and return to Earth “before this decade is out”.
And so it came to pass. On July 16, 1969, about a million people lined the beaches and roads around the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.
There were hippies with long hair, and squares. Men in suits and uniforms, well-coiffured women in big sunglasses.
They were all there to see the Saturn V rocket take off with Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin on board.
The engines fired on the 110m tall rocket, creating plumes of smoke and a roar. At 9.32am it took off from Earth and 12 minutes later it was in orbit.
(At which point a few wonks got to relax; earlier, NASA engineers had estimated that if it exploded it would create a fireball 420m wide. That would have been a lot of dead hippies).
The rocket dropped two stages, their fuel used up, leaving the Apollo spacecraft to go on — now it was made of the third stage, the command module and the lunar module.
It orbited Earth one and a half times, before they used the next stage of the rocket to propel it towards the Moon.
The astronauts had a few days to explore their modules and equipment. They ate soup, cheese, meat spreads. They had a brief scare that the Russians might beat them.
After three days they got just beyond the Moon and fired the Apollo’s engines to get into lunar orbit.
On July 20, the final checks were done.
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Armstrong and Aldrin climbed into the lunar module, the Eagle. Collins stayed in the command module, Columbia. He would spend the next 20 hours on his own, floating around the Moon.
The lunar module — the Eagle — separated, and descended.
It landed in the Sea of Tranquillity — about 6km away from where they’d expected. Things didn’t go as smoothly as they’d hoped; Armstrong had to steer past big rocks and they started running out of time. The computer started beeping. They landed, though with only 30 seconds of fuel left. Later Armstrong would say the “unknowns were rampant”. But, now, they were down.
Armstrong radioed the famous words:
“Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
In the drama of the landing, Houston had been holding its breath.
“You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again,” a controller responds.
After a few hours, at 2.56am US time, Armstrong emerged from the module, and spoke the immortal words:
“That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”
(There are some who think he forgot the “a”, but he insists it was there.)
And Australia was watching — the Parkes radio telescope and NASA’s antenna at Honeysuckle Creek near Canberra were tuning in, as were Australian television sets.
Armstrong was followed about 20 minutes later by Aldrin, who took Communion as he waited his turn. He had brought bread, wine, a chalice, and the Bible with him.
Aldrin would later would express his disappointment at being the second man on the Moon. At the time, though, he admired the “magnificent desolation” of the cratered surface.
An estimated 650 million Earthlings watched as they raised the American flag, bounced around in slow motion, exploring and collecting moonrocks, took photos and talked to the President. By then JFK had been assassinated and Richard Nixon was on the line.
They had a sleep.
Just over 20 hours later, they took off again, the Eagle docking with Columbia, the two reuniting with Collins.
They took with them about 22kg of samples, and left behind medallions with the names of astronauts and cosmonauts who had died, as well as a small disc with goodwill messages from 73 countries. They also had to leave their trash, including their own waste.
The American flag stayed behind, as did a plaque that reads:
“Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”
And the three went home.
Nixon got to file away the speech he’d written in case of disaster.
“Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon to rest in peace,” the speech said.
“These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.
“These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.”
(While some said he’d forgotten about poor Collins, others say the chances were that disaster would strike upon landing, leaving Collins to go home alone. Although Nixon also neglected to mention Collins in the Moon phone call).
On July 24, 1969 the three splashed into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Hawaii at 12.50pm.
Aldrin described feeling heavy, struggling to move, and worrying about falling over on his sea legs.
They bobbed around in the water for a while before they were picked up by Navy divers from the USS Hornet. The astronauts were put into biological isolation garments, in case they brought Moon flu, and hoisted into a life raft.
Then, they sailed towards land.
That was just the beginning of another story. They were quarantined for 21 days in accordance with the Extraterrestrial Exposure Law. But they had better food, films, their own underwear, and even some whiskey.
And Buzz famously filled out an expense claim for $33.31, for the trip:
“From Houston, Tex., to Cape Kennedy, Fla., to the Moon, to the Pacific Ocean, To Hawaii and return to Houston, Tex.”
Once they were cleared, they started a 38-day world tour. In Sydney they were greeted like the Beatles as they toured the city in open-top cars.
And Australians sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Collins, the forgotten Apollo astronaut.
Sources: CSIRO, NASA, media and websites including Space.com.
Originally published as From takeoff to splashdown, the moon landing explained
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