Read The Eagle Has Landed: The Story of Apollo 11 Online
Authors: Jeffrey Smith
The Eagle Has Landed: The Story of Apollo 11 (17 page)
At Studio 41 on West 57
th
Street in Manhattan,
CBS News
was winding up 32 hours of continuous coverage of the lunar mission. Walter Cronkite’s broadcast desk, which had been raised 24 feet above the studio floor, featured a mural of the Milky Way as a celestial backdrop. Alongside Cronkite and his guest analyst,
Mercury 7
astronaut Wally Schirra, globes and a
Rand McNally
model of the Moon shared center stage. Cronkite, who during one stretch, spent 17.5 consecutive hours on the air, had been emotional at times; his eyes filled with tears when
Eagle
landed on the lunar surface. When the lunar module and CSM docked, successfully completing the lunar ascent phase of the mission, the seemingly tireless news anchor giddily exclaimed: “Hot diggety dog!”
CBS
and Cronkite were riding high. Ninety-four percent of all American homes had tuned into to watch the astronauts walk on the Moon—out of that viewership,
CBS
won a 45 percent share compared to
NBC’s
34 percent
(ABC
was a distant third, with 16 percent).
As the marathon broadcast neared its conclusion, Cronkite succinctly and melodically summarized the monumental achievement: “Man has finally visited the Moon after all the ages of waiting and waiting. Two Americans, with the alliterative names of Armstrong and Aldrin, have spent just under a full Earth day on the Moon. They picked at it and sampled it, and they deployed experiments on it, and they packed away some of it to pack with them and bring home.”
.
O
n Monday night, July 21, 1969, Michael Collins fired
Columbia’s
service propulsion engines for 2.5 minutes, accelerating the spacecraft’s speed to 6,188 miles per hour. Like so many other aspects of the
Apollo 11
mission, the engine burn was fraught with danger. If the spacecraft’s engines failed to respond, the astronauts would be stranded in lunar orbit. After accelerating to an escape velocity of 2,238 miles per hour, the CSM overcame the gravitational pull of the Moon and completed the process of
trans-Earth injection.
“We got you coming home,” Mission Control announced to the crew.
The return trip to Earth required two and one-half days, and during that time, only one course correction engine burn was required. As
Columbia
sped homeward, Collins reflected how it was “nice to sit here and watch the Earth getting larger and larger, and Moon getting smaller and smaller.”
The Earth-bound astronauts were informed by Mission Control that the recently launched unmanned Russian probe,
Luna 15,
had crashed on the Moon, yet again stymieing the Soviet lunar exploration program. The news coverage, however, was dominated by the
Apollo 11
mission. The front page of the July 21
st
issue of the
Washington Post
read: THE EAGLE HAS LANDED—TWO MEN WALK ON THE MOON. The
New York Times
featured a similar headline: MAN WALKS ON MOON—ASTRONAUTS LAND ON PLAIN AFTER STEERING PAST CRATER. Predictably, the Soviet Union downplayed the historic event, with
Pravda
burying the story in its back pages.
During their trip home, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins began preparing for their newfound roles as American heroes. In the months to follow, the trio would be universally acclaimed and their names and faces etched in history. Even before they returned to Earth, the astronauts undertook tasks to commemorate their historic mission. Using a cancellation stamp, the Earth-bound voyagers prepared a new 10-cent postage stamp, featuring the image of an astronaut on the Moon.
When
Columbia
was 174,000 miles from home, Earth’s gravitational pull overtook the opposing lunar force, further accelerating the spacecraft. On the eve of splashdown, the astronauts delivered their last daily television broadcast. Michael Collins spent a portion of his allotted broadcast time thanking the people behind the scenes: “This trip of ours to the Moon may have looked simple or easy. I’d like to assure you that has not been the case. The
Saturn V
rocket which put us in orbit is an incredibly complicated piece of machinery, every piece of which worked flawlessly.”
“This operation is somewhat like the periscope of a submarine. All you see is the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands of others, and to all of those, I would like to say, ‘Thank your very much,’” Collins concluded.
Buzz Aldrin discussed the future of space exploration: “We accepted the challenge of going to the Moon—the acceptance of this challenge was inevitable. The relative ease with which we carried out our mission, I believe, it is a tribute to the timeliness of that acceptance. Today, I feel we’re really capable of accepting expanded roles in the exploration of space.”
Mission commander Neil Armstrong spoke last, expressing appreciation to the thousands of men and women who made their mission an unqualified success: “We would like to give special thanks to those Americans who built those spacecraft—who did the construction, design, the tests, and put their hearts and all their abilities into those craft. To those people, tonight, we give special thanks to you. And, to all other people who are listening, and watching tonight, God bless you. Good night from
Apollo 11.”
.
A
t 11:22 a.m., on Thursday July 24, 1969, the
Apollo 11
crew jettisoned the spacecraft’s service module, 400,000 feet above the Earth’s surface. The 11,000-pound command module was now all that remained of the original 6,000,000-pound launch vehicle.
“It’s been a champ,” Michael Collins reminisced, watching the second to last component drift away into space.
After the service module was discarded, Collins turned the command module completely around, so the blunt end, protected by its heat shield, would lead the way during passage through Earth’s uppermost atmosphere. Traveling at a speed of 25,000 miles per hour, the spacecraft’s angle of re-entry was critical. A miscalculation would cause the capsule to either
bounce off
Earth, sending the astronauts on a perpetual journey into outer space, or cause it to incinerate in the atmosphere. The 40-mile-wide re-entry corridor, -6.48 degrees, was a narrow target for the command module pilot.
At 11:35 a.m., high above the northeastern coast of Australia,
Columbia
made a flawless re-entry, beginning the final leg of its historic journey. As expected, the astronauts encountered a rough ride, accelerating from zero gravity to a 6G force. Outside the capsule, temperatures soared to 5,000 degrees (F).
The ablative heat shield was the capsule’s only protection against incineration. Developed by
Avco,
the shield consisted of 4,000 cells, interwoven to form a protective honeycomb. The phenolic epoxy resin (reinforced plastic) was designed to melt away when exposed to the intense heat of re-entry, creating a protective cover around the blunt end of the spacecraft.
As
Apollo 11
sped through Earth’s atmosphere at 36,000 feet per second, the heat shield turned a flaming orange-red color. During the height of re-entry, radio waves could not penetrate the fiery cloud surrounding the capsule. The eerie silence lasted for four minutes, as the world anxiously awaited word from the home-bound astronauts.
When
Columbia
emerged from the clouds high above the Pacific Ocean, NASA officials and millions of television viewers breathed a sigh of relief. At 24,000 feet, two drogue parachutes stabilized the capsule in a vertical position, decelerating it enough for the main chutes to be effective. Three ringtail chutes, 83-feet in diameter, deployed at 10,000 feet, slowing the spacecraft to a safe landing speed.
Due to unfavorable weather conditions, the splash down site had been moved 215 miles down range from its original location. The aircraft carrier,
USS Hornet,
was 13 miles away from the target zone, where helicopters and recovery teams were poised for action.
“11,
this is
Hornet.
What’s your error of splashdown, and condition of crew?” the recovery team coordinator inquired.
“The condition of crew is excellent. We’re 4,000 to 3,500 feet, on the way down,” Neil Armstrong replied.
The spacecraft’s revised landing spot was 940 nautical miles southwest of Honolulu and 1,440 nautical miles east of Wake Island—13 degrees, 19 minutes North and 169 degrees, 9 minutes West. At 11:49 a.m.,
Columbia
splashed down in the Pacific Ocean, 8 days, 3 hours, 18 minutes, and 30 seconds after lift-off. Neil Armstrong acknowledged the successful landing: “Everyone okay inside. Awaiting swimmers.”
At Mission Control, applause erupted in the
Trench.
The flight controllers exchanged handshakes and raised their fists in triumph. While tiny American flags were excitedly waved, a handful of exhausted flight controllers lit victory cigars.
After landing in the unsettling Pacific waters, the capsule immediately flipped over into the stable two position, leaving the crew dangling upside down in their cockpit seats. The automatic deployment of
Columbia’s
airbags soon righted the spacecraft into the stable one position. The astronauts took a second motion sickness pill, having already swallowed one prior to re-entry, and were better able to tolerate the choppy seas, while awaiting arrival of the recovery team.
At 12:20 p.m., Navy swimmers arrived and inflated a flotation collar around the base of the capsule to improve stability. The hatch was briefly opened, and a recovery team diver hastily tossed three biological containment garments (BIGS) inside the capsule. Almost immediately after returning to Earth, the
Apollo 11
crew was forced to begin the isolation phase of their mission; NASA’s medical epidemiologists were uncertain if pathogenic biological organisms dwelled on the Moon, and were determined to prevent an unprecedented and potentially untreatable epidemic.
After spending eight days in space, the astronauts felt a bit dizzy and noted slight swelling in their feet and legs as they adjusted to the force of gravity, but had no difficulty donning their BIGS. Exiting the open hatch door, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins jumped into the adjacent inflatable life raft, where they spent several minutes spraying and wiping one other with liquid disinfectant.
One by one, the astronauts were lifted by a basket into the recovery helicopter hovering overhead. A hero’s welcome awaited them.
.
The greatest week in the history of the world, since Creation
C
onfined within their stifling biological contamination suits, the astronauts were unable to speak to each other or the recovery crew as they were taken by helicopter to the
USS Hornet.
Michael Collins tried a couple of deep knee bends to exercise his gravity-deprived body, but quickly discovered extraneous movements made him feel more uncomfortable in the claustrophobic isolation garment.
After landing on the deck of the aircraft carrier, the astronauts were immediately transferred to the mobile quarantine facility (MQF), which Collins referred to as “a gloried trailer without wheels.” The trailer was divided into three sections—a lounge area, galley, and sleep/bath area. Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were joined in quarantine by a NASA flight surgeon and a mechanical engineer, the latter of whom was responsible for cooking and housekeeping chores, as well as sterilization of the lunar rock samples.
The astronauts were finally allowed to remove their suffocating contamination suits, and for the first time in eight days, were able to take a shower. The freshly scrubbed trio was then led to the MQF’s lounge area, where a glass window separated them from President Richard Nixon, who had come aboard the
Hornet
to personally greet the heroes. Nixon praised the astronauts for their courage and skill, hailing the
Apollo 11
mission as “the greatest week in the history of the world, since Creation.”
The
Apollo 11
crew spent two nights aboard the
USS Hornet,
while the aircraft carrier cruised to Hawaii. At Pearl Harbor, the MQF was loaded on a flat bed truck, and the astronauts were paraded through the streets of Honolulu, lined with cheering crowds. At Hickam Air Force Base, the trailer was loaded onto a
C-141
transport plane and flown to Ellington Air Force Base in Houston. Thousands of gleeful Texans applauded all along the route from the air base to Mission Control.
At the Manned Space Flight Center, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins departed the trailer and entered the lunar receiving laboratory (LRL), a much more spacious facility with individual, private quarters. The astronauts were joined in the LRL by cooks, housekeepers, and flight surgeons. Once anyone entered the quarantine area, they would not be allowed to leave until the
Apollo 11
astronauts were released. A whimsical sign was erected over the entrance to the LRL: “Please don’t feed the animals.”
The
Apollo 11
crew remained in active quarantine for three weeks. During their confinement in the LRL, the trio underwent medical examinations and debriefings, and spent hours writing detailed reports about their lunar mission. In typical bureaucratic fashion, each astronaut was asked to submit a personal voucher for travel-related expenses—Neil Armstrong was ultimately reimbursed by the federal government, in the amount of $49.10. They were also required to fill out a customs declaration form, acknowledging the transport of Moon rock and soil samples into the United States, with a port of entry in Hawaii.
During the quarantine period, NASA scientists performed a variety of tests to determine if infectious microorganism had accompanied the astronauts from the Moon to Earth. A group of germfree mice were exposed to the astronauts and their lunar surface equipment. Soil and rock samples from the Moon were placed in a culture media to monitor the potential growth and development of pathogens. Human and animal culture cells, embryos, 33 species of plants and seedlings, and a variety of animals, including fish, birds, oysters, shrimp, houseflies, planarian, paramecia, and euglena, were also exposed to lunar material. When none of the life forms contracted previously unrecognized infectious diseases, fears of contamination with
Moon bugs
were temporarily dispelled.