Timothy Birdnow

Today marks the 53rd anniversary of Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong's giant leap.

A couple of points of interest about it:

There was a good bit of competition between Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin over who would get to be the first guy to set foot on the Moon. Armstrong was given the command and so he got the honors. Word has it Aldrin was rather bitter. Both were A type personalities, and pretty much genius-level. It was generally believed by the people at NASA that Armstrong was more level-headed than Aldrin.

Poor Michael Collins was the guy who had every right to be bitter; he had to babysit the Command Module while the other two got to actually walk on another planet!

It was claimed Armstrong said his "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" statement upon setting foot on the Moon without preparation. I have never believed that; I'm convinced NASA would have scripted something. Can't have the first words be "oh, crap!" or "Look; I'm here!" But Armstrong himself claims the comment was impromptu. I don't know; if you listen to it it sounds rehearsed, and he left out the word a when saying "one small step for man" which suggests he forgot his line.

Contrary to how it was  portrayed the mission was almost a disaster. In the final descent they got a numer of  emergency lights and an immediate decision had to be made as to whether to go ahead and land or abort. There was no time to ponder this; they were reaching the end of their course window and would crash if they dithered. So they decided to go for it as an abort was the more dangerous option at this point.

But a go on this was also a very risky proposition, as the landing field was filled with boulders, something that ground control could not know when it was chosen. Armstrong had to pilot a very unmanueverable craft away from the LZ and find a new place to land. He was almost out of fuel. Finally he found a spot that looked doable and landed the Eagle at Tranquility Base. It was just in the nick of time.

The Lunar Module was so small the astronauts couldn't even sit down. The entire cabin was 160 cubic feet! But then, they were on the Moon a total of 2.4 hours, in low gravity.

Neil Armstrong praised the Moon Suits for their comfort and ease of operation. The worst problem they had was a bum finger from the suit glove not fitting properly.

They also leaked a bit and Moon dust actually got inside the suits. Not much for Apollo 11, but the later Apollo 17 got so much dust the astronauts suffered allergy attacks.

Speaking of the dust, it was everywhere and Armstrong said it was a soft powder about a quarter of an inch deep. Nobody knew that.

This was in many ways America's finest hour. We set ourselves to an impossible task, one that nobody had ever come remotely close to accomplishing though all had dreamed of it. And we did it. This was the true spirit of the America that was. It's sad how little we've accomplished since, both in space and on the Earth.

We aren't the men we used to be!

One final note; on that historic day all eyes were glued to their television sets, including one five year old boy who didn't really understand what all the fuss was about - just some people wandering around a desert in the dark. Guess who that boy was?

Read more about this historic event.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:27 AM | Comments (17) | Add Comment
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