Neil
Armstrong was supposed to be asleep. The moonwalking was done.
The moon rocks were stowed away. His ship was ready for departure.
In just a few hours, the Eagle's ascent module would blast off
the Moon, something no ship had ever done before, and Neil needed
his wits about him. He curled up on the Eagle's engine cover
and closed his eyes.
But
he could not sleep.
Neither
could Buzz Aldrin. In the cramped lander, Buzz had the sweet
spot, the floor. He stretched out as much as he could in his
spacesuit and closed his eyes. Nothing happened. On a day
like this, sleep was out of the question.
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Apollo 11 Earthrise. [More]
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July
20, 1969: The day began on the farside of the Moon.
Armstrong, Aldrin and crewmate Mike Collins flew their spaceship
60 miles above the cratered wasteland. No one on Earth can
see the Moon's farside. Even today it remains a land of considerable
mystery, but the astronauts had no time for sight-seeing.
Collins pressed a button, activating a set of springs, and
the spaceship split in two. The half named Columbia, with
Collins on board, would remain in orbit. The other half, the
Eagle, spiraled over the horizon toward the Sea of Tranquillity.
"You
are Go for powered descent, " Houston radioed, and the
Eagle's engine fired mightily. The bug-shaped Eagle was so
fragile a child could poke a hole through its gold foil exterior.
Jagged moonrocks could do much worse. So when Armstrong saw
where the computer was guiding them--into a boulder field-he
quickly took control. The Eagle pitched forward and sailed
over the rocks.
Meanwhile,
alarms were ringing in the background.
"Program
alarm, " announced Armstrong. "It's a 1202."
The code was so obscure, almost no one knew what it meant.
Should they abort? Should they land? "What is it?"
he insisted.
Scrambling
back in Houston, a young engineer named Steve Bales produced
the answer: The radar guidance system was pestering the computer
with too many interruptions. No problem. "We've got you..."
radioed Houston. "We're Go on that alarm."
And on they went. Things, however, were not going exactly
as planned. The
Sea of Tranquillity was supposed to be smooth, but it didn't
look so smooth from the cockpit of the Eagle. Armstrong scanned
the jumbled mare for a safe place to land. "60 seconds, "
radioed Houston. "30 seconds." Mission control was
hushed as the telemetry came in. Soon, too soon, the ship
would run out of fuel.
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Mission Control during the Apollo 11 descent. [More]
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Capcom
later claimed the "boys in mission control were turning
blue" when Armstrong announced "I [found] a good
spot." As for Armstrong, his heart was thumping 156 beats
per minute according to bio-sensors. The fuel gauge read only
5.6% when the Eagle finally settled onto the floor of the
Sea of Tranquillity.
Houston
(relieved): "We copy you down, Eagle."
Armstrong
(coolly): "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle
has landed."
Immediately,
they prepared to leave. This was NASA being cautious. No one
had ever landed on the Moon before. What if a footpad started
sinking into the moondust, or the Eagle sprung a leak? While
Neil and Buzz made ready to blast off, Houston read the telemetry
looking for signs of trouble. There were none, and three hours
after touchdown, finally, Houston gave the "okay."
The moonwalk was on!
At
9:56 p.m. EDT, Neil descended the ladder and took "one
small step" (left foot first) into history. From the
shadow of the Eagle, he looked around: "It has a stark
beauty all its own--like the high desert of the United States."
Houston reminded him to gather the "contingency sample, "
and Neil put some rocks and soil in his pocket. If, for any
reason, the astronauts had to take off in a hurry, scientists
back on Earth would get at least a pocketful of the Moon for
their experiments.
Soon,
Buzz joined him. "Beautiful view!" he exclaimed
when he reached the lander's broad footpad. "Isn't that
something!" agreed Armstrong. "Magnificent sight
out here."
"Magnificent
desolation, " said Aldrin.
Those
two words summed up the yin-yang of the Moon. The impact craters,
the toppled boulders, the layers of moondust--it was utterly
alien. Yet Tranquillity Base felt curiously familiar, like
home. Later Apollo astronauts had similar feelings. Maybe
this comes from staring at the Moon so often from Earth. Or
maybe it's because the Moon is a piece of Earth, spun off
our young planet billions of years ago. No one knows; it just
is.
Truly,
much of the scene was weird. The airless landscape jumped
out at the astronauts with disconcerting clarity and, as a
result, the horizon felt unnaturally close. Worse yet, the
whole world seemed to curve, a side-effect of the Moon's short
thousand-mile radius. "Distances [here] are deceiving, "
noted Aldrin.
The
sky was equally baffling. Although the Eagle had landed on
a bright lunar morning, the sky was as black as midnight.
An astronomer's paradise? No. Not a single star was visible.
The glaring, sunlit ground ruined the astronaut's night vision.
Only Earth itself was bright enough to be seen, luminous blue
and white, hanging overhead.
Armstrong
was particularly fascinated by moondust, which he kicked and
scuffed with his boots. On Earth, kicking dust makes a little
cloud in the air--but there is no air on the Moon. "When
you kick the surface, [the dust goes out in] a little fan
which, to me, is in the shape of a rose petal, " recalls
Armstrong. "There's just a little ring of particles--nothing
behind 'em--no dust, no swirl, no nothing. It's really unique."
Enough of that. It was time for work.
Almost forgotten in Apollo lore are the checklists
sewn to the forearms of the spacesuits. These "honey-do"
memos from NASA were jam-packed with activities--from inspecting
the lander to deploying the TV to collecting samples. Some
of the tasks were as detailed as bending over and reporting
to Mission Control how it went. They had a lot to do.
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Neil
and Buzz deployed a solar wind collector, a seismometer and
a laser retroreflector. They erected a flag and uncovered
a plaque proclaiming, "We came in peace for all mankind."
They took the first interplanetary phone call--"I just
can't tell you how proud we all are, " said President
Nixon from the Oval Office. They collected 47 lbs of moon
rocks and took 166 pictures. Check. Check. Check.
Right:
Buzz Aldrin totes experiments from the Eagle onto the lunar
surface. [More]
Finally,
after two and a half busy, exhilarating hours, it was time
to go. The checklist continued: Climb back in the Eagle. Stow
the rocks. Prepare the ship for departure (again). Eat dinner:
Beef stew or cream of chicken soup. And finally, sleep.
That
was the limit. "You just are not going to get any sleep
while you're waiting [for liftoff], " Aldrin said after
the mission.
The
Eagle was not a sleepy place. The tiny cabin was noisy with
pumps and bright with warning lights that couldn't be dimmed.
Even the window shades were glowing, illuminated by intense
sunshine outside. "After I got into my sleep stage and
all settled down, I realized there was something else [bothering
me], " said Armstrong. The Eagle had an optical telescope
sticking out periscope-style. "Earth was shining right
through the telescope into my eye. It was like a light bulb."
To
get some relief, they closed the helmets of their spacesuits.
It was quiet inside and they "wouldn't be breathing all
the dust" they had tramped in after the moon walk, said
Aldrin. Alas, it didn't work. The suit's cooling systems,
so necessary out on the scorching lunar surface, were too
cold for sleeping inside the Eagle. The best Aldrin managed
was a "couple hours of mentally fitful drowsing."
Armstrong simply stayed awake.
When
the wake-up call finally came,
"Tranquility
Base, Tranquility Base, Houston. Over."
Armstrong
answered with alacrity,
"Good
morning, Houston. Tranquility Base. Over."
The
long day was done. It was time to go home, to Earth, for a
good night's sleep.
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