Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0097/00975.txt

Text File | 1993-07-27 | 38KB | 666 lines

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$Pretitle{}
$Title{Apollo Expeditions To The Moon
Chapter 11: 'The Eagle Has Landed'}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Collins, Michael;Aldrin, Edwin, Jr.}
$Affiliation{NASA}
$Subject{neil
moon
eagle
lunar
surface
earth
feet
houston
time
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audio
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sound
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}
$Date{1975}
$Log{Hear Apollo 11 Lift-Off*57190033.aud
Hear Apollo 11 Machinery*57530068.aud
Hear The Eagle Has Landed*59020019.aud
Hear From Step To Leap*63470030.aud
Hear The President*60150137.aud
Hear The End Of The Road*63140031.aud
Hear Splashdown*62330041.aud
See Aldrin on the Moon*0097501.scf
See Lunar Module*0097502.scf
See Last Step*0097503.scf
See Tranquility Flag*0097504.scf
See Eagle Rendevous*0097505.scf
}
Title:       Apollo Expeditions To The Moon
Author:      Collins, Michael;Aldrin, Edwin, Jr.
Affiliation: NASA
Date:        1975

Chapter 11: "The Eagle Has Landed"

Prelude

All was ready.  Everything had been done.  Projects Mercury and Gemini.  Seven
years of Project Apollo.  The work of more than 300,000 Americans.  Six
previous unmanned and manned Apollo flights.  Planning, testing, analyzing,
training.  The time had come.

We had a great deal of confidence.  We had confidence in our hardware: the
Saturn rocket, the command module, and the lunar module. All flight segments
had been flown on the earlier Apollo flights with the exception of the descent
to and the accent from the Moon's surface and, of course, the exploration work
on the surface.  These portions were far from trivial, however, and we had
concentrated our training on them. Months of simulation with our colleagues in
the Mission Control Center had convinced us that they were ready.

Although confident, we were certainly not over confident.  In research and in
exploration, the unexpected is always expected.  We were not overly concerned
with our safety, but we would not be surprised if a malfunction or an
unforeseen occurrence prevented a successful lunar landing.

As we ascended in the elevator to the top of the Saturn on the morning of July
16, 1969, we knew that hundreds of thousands of Americans had given their best
effort to giveus this chance.  Now it was time for us to give our best.

                    -Neil A. Armstrong

     The splashdown May 26, 1969, of Apollo 10 cleared the way for the first
formal attempt at a manned lunar landing.  Six days before, the Apollo 11
launch vehicle and spacecraft had crawled from the VAB and trundled at 0.9 mph
to Pad 39-A.  A successful countdown test ending on July 3 showed the
readiness of machines, systems, and people.  The next launch window
(established by lighting conditions at the landing site on Mare
Tranquillitatis) opened at 9:32 a.m. EDT on July 16,1969.  The crew for A
pollo 11, all of whom had already flown in space during Gemini, had been
intensively training as a team for many months.  The following mission account
makes use of crew members' own words, from books written by two of them,
supplemented by space-to-ground and press-conference transcripts.

     ALDRIN: At breakfast early on the morning of the launch, Dr. Thomas
Paine, the Administrator of NASA, told us that concern for our own safety must
govern all our actions, and if anything looked wrong we were to abort the
mission.  He then made a most surprising and unprecedented statement: if we
were forced to abort, we would be immediately recycled and assigned to the
next landing attempt.  What he said and how he said it was very reassuring.

[See Aldrin on the Moon: Buzz Aldrin stands by Eagle's foil-wrapped footpad.]

     We were up early, ate, and began to suit up - a rather laborious and
detailed procedure involving many people, which we would repeat once again,
alone, before entering the LM for our lunar landing.

     While Mike and Neil were going through the complicated business of being
strapped in and connected to the spacecraft's life-support system, I waited
near the elevator on the floor below.  I waited alone for fifteen minutes in a
sort of serene limbo.  As far as I could see there were people and cars lining
the beaches and highways.  The surf was just beginning to rise out of an
azure-blue ocean.  I could see the massiveness of the Saturn V rocket below
and the magnificent precision of Apollo above.  I savored the wait and marked
the minutes in my mind as something I would always want to remember.

     COLLINS: I am everlastingly thankful that I have flown before, and that
this period of waiting atop a rocket is nothing new.  I am just as tense this
time, but the tenseness comes mostly from an appreciation of the enormity of
our undertaking rather than from the unfamiliarity of the situation.  I am far
from certain that we will be able to fly the mission as planned.  I think we
will escape with our skins, or at least I will escape with mine, but I
wouldn't give better than even odds on a successful landing and return.  There
are just too many things that can go wrong.  Fred Haise [the backup astronaut
who had checked command-module switch positions] has run through a checklist
417 steps long, and I have merely a half dozen minor chores to take care of
nickel and dime stuff.  In between switch throws I have plenty of time to
think, if not daydream.  Here I am, a white male, age thirty-eight, height 5
feet 11 inches, weight 165 pounds, salary $17,000 per annum, resident of a
Texas suburb, with black spot on my roses, state of mind unsettled, about to
be shot off to the Moon.  Yes, to the Moon.

     At the moment, the most important control is over on Neil's side, just
outboard of his left knee.  It is the abort handle, and now it has power to
it, so if Neil rotates it 30 degrees counterclockwise, three solid rockets
above us will fire and yank the CM free of the service module and everything
below it. It is only to be used in extremis, but I notice a horrifying thing.
A large bulky pocket has been added to Neil's left suit leg, and it looks as
though if he moves his leg slightly, it's going to snag on the abort handle.
I quickly point this out to Neil, and he grabs the pocket and pulls it as far
over to the inside of his thigh as he can, but it still doesn't look secure to
either one of us.  Jesus, I can see the headlines now: "MOONSHOT FALLS INTO
OCEAN. Mistake by crew, program officials intimate.  Last transmission from
Armstrong prior to leaving the pad reportedly was 'Oops.'"

     ARMSTRONG: The flight started promptly, and I think that was
characteristic of all events of the flight.  The Saturn gave us one
magnificent ride, both in Earth orbit and on a trajectory to the Moon.  Our
memory of that differs little from the reports you have heard from the
previous Saturn V flights.

     ALDRIN: For the thousands of people watching along the beaches of Florida
and the millions who watched on television, our lift-off was ear shattering.
For Us there was a slight increase in the amount of background noise, not at
all unlike the sort one notices taking off in a commercial airliner, and in
less than a minute we were traveling ahead of the speed of sound.

[Hear Apollo 11 Lift-Off]
This beast is best felt.

     COLLINS: This beast is best felt.  Shake, rattle, and roll!  We are
thrown left and right against our straps in spasmodic little jerks.  It is
steering like crazy, like a nervous lady driving a wide car down a narrow
alley, and I just hope it knows where it's going, because for the first ten
seconds we are perilously close to that umbilical tower.

     ALDRIN: A busy eleven minutes later we were in Earth orbit.  The Earth
didn't look much different from the way it had during my first flight, and yet
I kept looking at it.  From space it has an almost benign quality.
Intellectually one could realize there were wars underway, but emotionally it
was impossible to understand such things.  The thought reoccurred that wars
are generally fought for territory or are disputes over borders; from space
the arbitrary borders established on Earth cannot be seen.  After one and a
half orbits a preprogrammed sequence fired the Saturn to send us out of Earth
orbit and on our way to the Moon.

     ARMSTRONG: Hey Houston, Apollo 11.  This Saturn gave Us a magnificent
ride.  We have no complaints with any of the three stages on that ride.  It
was beautiful.

     COLLINS: We started the burn at 100 miles altitude, and had reached only
180 at cutoff, but we are climbing like a dingbat.  In nine hours, when we are
scheduled to make our first midcourse correction, we will be 57,000 miles out.
At the instant of shutdown, Buzz recorded our velocity as 35,579 feet per
second, more than enough to escape from the Earth's gravitational field. As we
proceed outbound, this number will get smaller and smaller until the tug of
the Moon's gravity exceeds that of the Earth's and then we will start speeding
up again.  It's hard to believe that we are on our way to the Moon, at 1200
miles altitude now, less than three hours after liftoff, and I'll bet the
launch-day crowd down at the Cape is still bumper to bumper, straggling back
to the motels and bars.

     ALDRIN: Mike's next major task, with Neil and me assisting, was to
separate our command module Columbia from the Saturn third stage, turn around
and connect with the lunar module Eagle, which was stored in the third stage.
Eagle, by now, was exposed; its four enclosing panels had automatically come
off and were drifting away.  This of course was a critical maneuver in the
flight plan.  If the separation and docking did not work, we would return to
Earth.  There was also the possibility of an in-space collision and the
subsequent decompression of our cabin, so we were still in our spacesuits as
Mike separated us from the Saturn third stage.  Critical as the maneuver is, I
felt no apprehension about it, and if there was the slightest inkling of
concern it disappeared quickly as the entire separation and docking proceeded
perfectly to completion.  The nose of Columbia was now connected to the top of
the Eagle and heading for the Moon as we watched the Saturn third stage
venting, a propulsive maneuver causing it to move slowly away from us.

     Fourteen hours after liftoff, at 10:30 pm. by Houston time, the three
astronauts fasten covers over the windows of the slowly rotating command
module and go to sleep.  Days 2 and 3 are devoted to housekeeping chores, a
small midcourse velocity correction, and TV transmissions back to Earth.  In
one news digest from Houston, the astronauts are amused to hear that Pravda
has referred to Armstrong as "the czar of the ship;"

     ALDRIN: In our preliminary flight plan I wasn't scheduled to go to the LM
until the next day in lunar orbit, but I had lobbied successfully to go
earlier.  My strongest argument was that I'd have ample time to make sure that
the frail LM and its equipment had suffered no damage during the launch and
long trip.  By that time neither Neil nor I had been in the LM for about two
weeks.

The Most Awesome Sphere

     COLLINS: Day 4 has a decidedly different feel to it.  Instead of nine
hours' sleep, I get seven - and fitful ones at that.  Despite our concentrated
effort to conserve our energy on the way to the Moon, the pressure is
overtaking us (or me at least), and I feel that all of us are aware that the
honeymoon is over and we are about to lay our little pink bodies on the line.
Our first shock comes as we stop our spinning motion and swing ourselves
around so as to bring the Moon into view.  We have not been able to see the
Moon for nearly a day now, and the change is electrifying.  The Moon I have
known all my life, that two-dimensional small yellow disk in the sky, has gone
away somewhere, to be replaced by the most awesome sphere I have ever seen.
To begin with, it is huge, completely filling our window.  Second, it is
three-dimensional.  The belly of it bulges out toward us in such a pronounced
fashion that I almost feel I can reach out and touch it.  To add to the
dramatic effect, we can see the stars again.  We are in the shadow of the Moon
now, and the elusive stars have reappeared.

     As we ease around on the left side of the Moon, I marvel again at the
precision of our path.  We have missed hitting the Moon by a paltry 300
nautical miles, at a distance of nearly a quarter of a million miles from
Earth, and don't forget that the Moon is a moving target and that we are
racing through the sky just ahead of its leading edge.  When we launched the
other day the Moon was nowhere near where it is now; it was some 40 degrees of
arc, or nearly 200,000 miles, behind where it is now, and yet those big
computers in the basement in Houston didn't even whimper but belched out
super-accurate predictions.

     As we pass behind the Moon, we have just over eight minutes to go before
the burn.  We are super-careful now, checking and rechecking each step several
times.  When the moment finally arrives, the big engine instantly springs into
action and reassuringly plasters us back in our seats.  The acceleration is
only a fraction of one g but it feels good nonetheless.  For six minutes we
sit there peering intent as hawks at our instrument panel, scanning the
important dials and gauges, making sure that the proper thing is being done to
us.  When the engine shuts down, we discuss the matter with our computer and I
read out the results: "Minus one, plus one, plus one." The accuracy of the
overall system is phenomenal: out of a total of nearly three thousand feet per
second, we have velocity errors in our body axis coordinate system of only a
tenth of one foot per second in each of the three directions.  That is one
accurate burn, and even Neil acknowledges the fact.

     ALDRIN: The second burn to place us in closer circular orbit of the Moon,
the orbit from which Neil and I would separate from the Columbia and continue
on to the Moon, was critically important.  It had to be made in exactly the
right place and for exactly the correct length of time.  If we overburned for
as little as two seconds we'd be 'on an impact course for the other side of
the Moon.  Through a complicated and detailed system of checks and balances,
both in Houston and in lunar orbit, plus star checks and detailed platform
alignments, two hours after our first lunar orbit we made our second burn, in
an atmosphere of nervous and intense concentration.  It, too, worked
perfectly.

[Hear Apollo 11 Machinery]
A complicated and detailed system of checks and balances.

Asleep in Lunar Orbit

     We began preparing the LM.  It was scheduled to take three hours, but
because I had already started the checkout, we were completed a half hour
ahead of schedule.  Reluctantly we returned to the Columbia as planned.  Our
fourth night we were to sleep in lunar orbit.  Although it was not in the
flight plan, before covering the windows and dousing the lights, Neil and I
carefully prepared all the equipment and clothing we would need in the
morning, and mentally ran through the many procedures we would follow.

     COLLINS: "Apollo 11, Apollo 11, good morning from the Black Team." Could
they be talking to me? It takes me twenty seconds to fumble for the microphone
button and answer groggily, I guess I have only been asleep five hours or so;
I had a tough time getting to sleep, and now I'm having trouble waking up.
Neil, Buzz, and I all putter about fixing breakfast and getting various items
ready for transfer into the LM. [Later] I stuff Neil and Buzz into the LM
along with an armload of equipment.  Now I have to do the tunnel bit again,
closing hatches, installing drogue and probe, and disconnecting the electrical
umbilical.  I am on the radio constantly now, running through an elaborate
series of joint checks with Eagle.  I check progress with Buzz: "I have five
minutes and fifteen seconds since we started.  Attitude is holding very well."
"Roger, Mike, just hold it a little bit longer." "No sweat, I can hold it all
day.  Take your sweet time.  How's the czar over there?  He's so quiet." Neil
chimes in, "Just hanging on - and punching." Punching those computer buttons,
I guess he means.  "All I can say is, beware the revolution," and then,
getting no answer, I formally bid them goodbye. "You cats take it easy on the
lunar surface. . . ." "O.K., Mike," Buzz answers cheerily, and I throw the
switch which releases them.  With my nose against the window and the movie
camera churning away, I watch them go.  When they are safely clear of me, I
inform Neil, and he begins a slow pirouette in place, allowing me a look at
his outlandish machine and its four extended legs.  "The Eagle has wings!"
Neil exults.

     It doesn't look like any eagle I have ever seen.  It is the weirdest-
looking contraption ever to invade the sky, floating there with its legs
awkwardly jutting out above a body which has neither symmetry nor grace.  I
make sure all four landing gears are down and locked, report that fact, and
then lie a little, "I think you've got a fine-looking flying machine there,
Eagle, despite the fact you're upside down." "Somebody's upside down," Neil
retorts.  "O.K., Eagle.  One minute. . . you guys take care." Neil answers,
"See you later." I hope so.  When the one minute is up, I fire my thrusters
precisely as planned and we begin to separate, checking distances and
velocities as we go.  This burn is a very small one, just to give Eagle some
breathing room.  From now on it's up to them, and they will make two separate
burns in reaching the lunar surface.  The first one will serve to drop Eagle's
perilune to fifty thousand feet.  Then, when they reach this spot over the
eastern edge of the Sea of Tranquility, Eagle's descent engine will be fired
up for the second and last time, and Eagle will lazily arc over into a I 2-
minute computer-controlled descent to some point at which Neil will take over
for a manual landing.

     ALDRIN: We were still 60 miles above the surface when we began our first
burn.  Neil and I were harnessed into the LM in a standing position. [Later]
at precisely the right moment the engine ignited to begin the 12-minute
powered descent.  Strapped in by the system of belts and cables not unlike
shock absorbers, neither of us felt the initial motion.  We looked quickly at
the computer to make sure we were actually functioning as planned.  After 26
seconds the engine went to full throttle and the motion became noticeable.
Neil watched his instruments while I looked at our primary computer and
compared it with our second computer, which was part of our abort guidance
system.

     I then began a computer read-out sequence to Neil which was also being
transmitted to Houston.  I had helped develop it.  It sounded as though I was
chattering like a magpie.  It also sounded as though I was doing all the work.
During training we had discussed the possibility of making the communication
only between Neil and myself, but Mission Control liked the idea of hearing
our communications with each other.  Neil had referred to it once as "that
damned open mike of yours," and I tried to make as little an issue of it as
possible.

A Yellow Caution Light

     At six thousand feet above the lunar surface a yellow caution light came
on and we encountered one of the few potentially serious problems in the
entire flight, a problem which might have caused us to abort, had it not been
for a man on the ground who really knew his job.

     COLLINS: At five minutes into the burn, when I am nearly directly
overhead, Eagle voices its first concern.  "Program Alarm," barks Neil, "It's
a 1202." What the hell is that?  I don't have the alarm numbers memorized for
my own computer, much less for the LM's.  I jerk out my own checklist and
start thumbing through it, but before I can find 1202, Houston says, "Roger,
we're GO on that alarm." No problem, in other words.  My checklist says 1202
is an "executive overflow," meaning simply that the computer has been called
upon to do too many things at once and is forced to postpone some of them. A
little farther along, at just three thousand feet above the surface, the
computer flashes 1201, another overflow condition, and again the ground is
superquick to respond with reassurances.

     ALDRIN: Back in Houston, not to mention on board the Eagle, hearts shot
up into throats while we waited to learn what would happen.  We had received
two of the caution lights when Steve Bales, the flight controller responsible
for LM computer activity, told us to proceed, through Charlie Duke, the
capsule communicator.  We received three or four more warnings but kept on
going.  When Mike, Neil, and I were presented with Medals of Freedom by
President Nixon, Steve also received one.  He certainly deserved it, because
without him we might not have landed.

     ARMSTRONG: In the final phases of the descent after a number of program
alarms, we looked at the landing area and found a very large crater.  This is
the area we decided we would not go into; we extended the range downrange. The
exhaust dust was kicked up by the engine and this caused some concern in that
it degraded our ability to determine not only our altitude in the final phases
but also our translational velocities over the ground.  It's quite important
not to stub your toe during the final phases of touchdown.

     From the space-to-ground tapes.

     EAGLE: 540 feet, down at 30 [feet per second] . . . down at 15 . . . 400
feet down at 9. . . forward. . . 350 feet, down at 4. . . 300 feet, down 3 1/2
. . . 47 forward . . . 1 1/2 ....... 13 forward. . . 11 forward, coming
down nicely. . . 200 feet, 4 1/2 down . . . 5 1/2 down. . . . . 5 percent . .
. 75 feet . . . 6 forward . . . lights on down. . 2 1/2 . . . 40 feet, down. .
2 1/2, kicking up some dust . . . 30 feet, 2 1/2 down . . . faint shadow . . .
4 forward . . . 4 forward . . . drifting to right a little . . . O.K. .

     HOUSTON: 30 seconds [fuel remaining].

     EAGLE: Contact light!  O.K., engine stop. . . descent engine command
override off. . .

     HOUSTON:  We copy you down, Eagle.

EAGLE: Houston, Tranquility Base here.  The Eagle has landed!

[Hear The Eagle Has Landed]
The descent to the moon.

     HOUSTON: Roger, Tranquility.  We copy you on the ground.  You've got a
bunch of guys about to turn blue.  We're breathing again.  Thanks a lot.

     TRANQUILITY: Thank you . . . That may have seemed like a very long final
phase.  The auto targeting was taking us right into a football-field-sized
crater, with a large number of big boulders and rocks for about one or two
crater-diameters around it, and it required flying manually over the rock
field to find a reasonably good area.

     HOUSTON:  Roger, we copy.  It was beautiful from here, Tranquility.
Over.

     TRANQUILITY: We'll get to the details of what's around here, but it looks
like a collection of just about every variety of shape, angularity,
granularity, about every variety of rock you could find.

     HOUSTON: Roger, Tranquility.  Be advised there's lots of smiling faces in
this room, and all over the world.

     TRANQUILITY: There are two of them up here.

     COLUMBIA: And don't forget one in the command module.

     ARMSTRONG: Once [we] settled on the surface, the dust settled immediately
and we had an excellent view of the area surrounding the LM.  We saw a crater
surface, pockmarked with craters up to 15, 20, 30 feet, and many smaller
craters down to a diameter of I foot and, of course, the surface was very
fine-grained.  There were a surprising number of rocks of all sizes.

[See Lunar Module: "You cats take it easy," Collins radioed in farewell as the
lunar module separated for its historic decent to the surface of the Moon.]

     A number of experts had, prior to the flight, predicted that a good bit
of difficulty might be encountered by people due to the variety of strange
atmospheric and gravitational characteristics.  This didn't prove to be the
case and after landing we felt very comfortable in the lunar gravity.  It was,
in fact, in our view preferable both to weightlessness and to the Earth's
gravity.

     When we actually descended the ladder it was found to be very much like
the lunar-gravity simulations we had performed here on Earth.  No difficulty
was encountered in descending the ladder.  The last step was about 3 1/2 feet
from the surface, and we were somewhat concerned that we might have difficulty
in reentering the LM at the end of our activity period.  So we practiced that
before bringing the camera down.

[See Last Step: Leaving the ninth step of the ladder, Aldrin jumps down to the
Moon.]

     ALDRIN: We opened the hatch and Neil, with me as his navigator, began
backing out of the tiny opening.  It seemed like a small eternity before I
heard Neil say, "That's one small step for man . . . one giant leap for
mankind." In less than fifteen minutes I was backing awkwardly out of the
hatch and onto the surface to join Neil, who, in the tradition of all
tourists, had his camera ready to photograph my arrival.

[Hear From Step To Leap]
The First Man On The Moon

     I felt buoyant and full of goose pimples when I stepped down on the
surface.  I immediately looked down at my feet and became intrigued with the
peculiar properties of the lunar dust.  If one kicks sand on a beach, it
scatters in numerous directions with some grains traveling farther than
others.  On the Moon the dust travels exactly and precisely as it goes in
various directions, and every grain of it lands nearly the same distance away.

The Boy in the Candy Store

     ARMSTRONG: There were a lot of things to do, and we had a hard time
getting them finished.  We had very little trouble, much less trouble than
expected, on the surface.  It was a pleasant operation.  Temperatures weren't
high.  They were very comfortable.  The little EMU, the combination of
spacesuit and backpack that sustained our life on the surface, operated
magnificently.  The primary difficulty was just far too little time to do the
variety of things we would have liked.  We had the problem of the
five-year-old boy in a candy store.

     ALDRIN: I took off jogging to test my maneuverability.  The exercise gave
me an odd sensation and looked even more odd when I later saw the films of it.
With bulky suits on, we seemed to be moving in slow motion.  I noticed
immediately that my inertia seemed much greater.  Earth-bound, I would have
stopped my run in just one step, but I had to use three of four steps to sort
of wind down.  My Earth weight, with the big backpack and heavy suit, was 360
pounds.  On the Moon I weighed only 60 pounds.

     At one point I remarked that the surface was "Beautiful, beautiful.
Magnificent desolation." I was struck by the contrast between the starkness of
the shadows and the desert-like barrenness of the rest of the surface.  It
ranged from dusty gray to light tan and was unchanging except for one
startling sight: our LM sitting there with its black, silver, and bright
yellow-orange thermal coating shining brightly in the otherwise colorless
landscape.  I had seen Neil in his suit thousands of times before, but on the
Moon the unnatural whiteness of it seemed unusually brilliant.  We could also
look around and see the Earth, which, though much larger than the Moon the
Earth was seeing, seemed small - a beckoning oasis shining far away in the
sky.

     As the sequence of lunar operations evolved, Neil had the camera most of
the time, and the majority of pictures taken on the Moon that include an
astronaut are of me.  It wasn't until we were back on Earth and in the Lunar
Receiving Laboratory looking over the pictures that we realized there were few
pictures of Neil.  My fault perhaps, but we had never simulated this in our
training.

Coaxing the Flag to Stand

     During a pause in experiments, Neil suggested we proceed with the flag.
It took both of us to set it up and it was nearly a disaster.  Public
Relations obviously needs practice just as everything else does.  A small
telescoping arm was attached to the flagpole to keep the flag extended and
perpendicular.  As hard as we tried, the telescope wouldn't fully extend.
Thus the flag, which should have been flat, had its own unique permanent wave.
Then to our dismay the staff of the pole wouldn't go far enough into the lunar
surface to support itself in an upright position.  After much struggling we
finally coaxed it to remain upright, but in a most precarious position. I
dreaded the possibility of the American flag collapsing into the lunar dust in
front of the television camera.

[See Tranquility Flag: The flag of Tranquility Base was not a symbol of
territorial claim so much as identification of the nation that had carried out
the first manned landing.]

     COLLINS: [On his fourth orbital pass above] "How's it going?" "The EVA is
progressing beautifully.  I believe they're setting up the flag now." Just let
things keep going that way, and no surprises, please.  Neil and Buzz sound
good, with no huffing and puffing to indicate they are overexerting
themselves.  But one surprise at least is in store.  Houston comes on the air,
not the slightest bit ruffled, and announces that the President of the United
States would like to talk to Neil and Buzz.  "That would be an honor," says
Neil, with characteristic dignity.

     The President's voice smoothly fills the air waves with the unaccustomed
cadence of the speech-maker, trained to convey inspiration, or at least
emotion, instead of our usual diet of numbers and reminders.  "Neil and Buzz,
I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval Office at the White House, and
this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made . . .
Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man's world.
As you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our
efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth . . .,' My God, I never
thought of all this bringing peace and tranquility to anyone.  As far as I am
concerned, this voyage is fraught with hazards for the three of us - and
especially two of us - and that is about as far as I have gotten in my
thinking.

[Hear The President]
The heavens have become a part of man's world.

     Neil, however, pauses long enough to give as well as he receives.  "It's
a great honor and privilege for us to be here, representing not only the
United States but men of peace of all nations, and with interest and a
curiosity and a vision for the future."

     [Later] Houston cuts off the White House and returns to business as
usual, with a long string of numbers for me to copy for future use.  My God,
the juxtaposition of the incongruous: roll, pitch, and yaw; prayers, peace,
and tranquility.  What will it be like if we really carry this off and return
to Earth in one piece, with our boxes full of rocks and our heads full of new
perspectives for the planet?  I have a little time to ponder this as I zing
off out of sight of the White House and the Earth.

     ALDRIN: We had a pulley system to load on the boxes of rocks.  We found
the process more time-consuming and dust-scattering than anticipated.  After
the gear and both of us were inside, our first chore was to pressure the LM
cabin and begin stowing the rock boxes, film magazines, and anything else we
wouldn't need until we were connected once again with the Columbia.  We
removed our boots and the big backpacks, opened the LM hatch, and threw these
items onto the lunar surface, along with a bagful of empty food packages and
the LM urine bags.  The exact moment we tossed every thing out was measured
back on Earth - the seismometer we had put out was even more sensitive than we
had expected.

     Before beginning liftoff procedures [we] settled down for our fitful
rest.  We didn't sleep much at all.  Among other things we were elated - and
also cold.  Liftoff from the Moon, after a stay totaling twenty-one hours, was
exactly on schedule and fairly uneventful.  The ascent stage of the LM
separated, sending out a shower of brilliant insulation particles which had
been ripped off from the thrust of the ascent engine.  There was no time to
sightsee.  I was concentrating on the computers, and Neil was studying the
attitude indicator, but I looked up long enough to see the flag fall over. . .
Three hours and ten minutes later we were connected once again with the
Columbia.

     COLLINS: I can look out through my docking vehicle and see that they are
steady as a rock as they drive down the center line of that final approach
path.  I give them some numbers.  "I have 0.7 mile and I got you at 31 feet
per second." We really are going to carry this off!  For the first time since
I was assigned to this incredible flight, I feel that it is going to happen.
Granted, we are a long way from home, but from here on it should be all
downhill.  Within a few seconds Houston joins the conversation, with a
tentative little call.  "Eagle and Columbia, Houston standing by." They want
to know what the hell is going on, but they don't want to interrupt us if we
are in a crucial pot in our final maneuvering.  Good heads!  However, they
needn't worry, and Neil lets them know it.  "Roger, we're station-keeping."

[See Eagle Rendevous: Eagle's historic voyage is almost done as it moves
towards its rendezvous with Columbia.]

All Smiles and giggles

     [After docking] it's time to hustle down into the tunnel and remove
hatch, probe, and drogue, so Neil and Buzz can get through.  Thank God, all
the claptrap works beautifully in this its final workout.  The probe and
drogue will stay with the LM and be abandoned with it, for we will have no
further need of them and don't want them cluttering up the command module. The
first one through is Buzz, with a big smile on his face.  I grab his head, a
hand on each temple, and am about to give him a smooch on the forehead, as a
parent might greet an errant child; but then, embarrassed, I think better of
it and grab his hand, and then Neil's.  We cavort about a little bit, all
smiles and giggles over our success, and then it's back to work as usual.

     Excerpts from a TV program broadcast by the Apollo 11 astronauts on the
last evening of the flight, the day before splashdown in the Pacific:

     COLLINS: ". . . The Saturn V rocket which put us in orbit is an
incredibly complicated piece of machinery, every piece of which worked
flawlessly.  This computer above my head has a 38,000-word vocabulary, each
word of which has been carefully chosen to be of the utmost value to us.  The
SPS engine, our large rocket engine on the aft end of our service module, must
have performed flawlessly or we would have been stranded in lunar orbit. The
parachutes up above my head must work perfectly tomorrow or we will plummet
into the ocean.  We have always had confidence that this equipment will work
properly.  All this is possible only through the blood, sweat, and tears of a
number of people.  First, the American workmen who put these pieces of
machinery together in the factory.  Second, the painstaking work done by
various test teams during the assembly and retest after assembly.  And
finally, the people at the Manned Spacecraft Center, both in management, in
mission planning, in flight control, and last but not least, in crew training.
This operation is somewhat like the periscope of a submarine.  All you see is
the three of us, but beneath the surface are thousands and thousands of
others, and to all of those, I would like to say, 'Thank you very much.'"

[Hear The End Of The Road]
What is man that thou art mindful of him?

     ALDRIN: ..... This has been far more than three men on a mission to the
Moon; more, still, than the efforts of a government and industry team; more,
even, than the efforts of one nation.  We feel that this stands as a symbol of
the insatiable curiosity of all mankind to explore the unknown.  Today I feel
we're really fully capable of accepting expanded roles in the exploration of
space.  In retrospect, we have all been particularly pleased with the call
signs that we very laboriously chose for our spacecraft, Columbia and Eagle.
We've been pleased with the emblem of our flight, the eagle carrying an olive
branch, bringing the universal symbol of peace from the planet Earth to the
Moon.  Personally, in reflecting on the events of the past several days, a
verse from Psalms comes to mind. 'When I consider the heavens, the work of Thy
fingers, the Moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained; What is man that
Thou art mindful of him?'"

     ARMSTRONG: "The responsibility for this flight lies first with history
and with the giants of science who have preceded this effort; next with the
American people, who have, through their will, indicated their desire; next
with four administrations and their Congresses, for implementing that will;
and then, with the agency and industry teams that built our spacecraft, the
Saturn, the Columbia, the Eagle, and the little EMU, the spacesuit and
backpack that was our small spacecraft out on the lunar surface.  We would
like to give special thanks to all those Americans who built the 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 a special
thank you, and to all the other people that are listening and watching
tonight, God bless you.  Good night from Apollo 11."

[Hear Splashdown]
The responsibility of this flight lies first with history.

     [Portions of the text of this chapter have been excerpted with permission
from Carrying the Fire, Qc 1974 by Michael Collins, and Return to Earth, Qc
1973 by Aldrin-Warga Associates.]