examined by Surveyor: Lewis, Appointment on the Moon, 256–59.
“It would ace the Russians”: Kraft, Flight, 284.
“order-of-magnitude difference”: Chris Kraft interview, May 23, 2008, JSC Oral History Project.
his crew would be ready: Borman and Serling, Countdown, 189; Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 214–15.
“A one-third chance of success”: Time, December 24, 2008.
“I hope none of you take cold”: American Presidency Project, “The President’s Toast and Responses at a Dinner Honoring Members of the Space Program,” December 9, 1968.
on the way out: Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 179–80.
“The Russians suck”: Liebergot and Harland, Apollo EECOM, 131.
they shook hands firmly: Kraft, Flight, 299; Borman and Serling, Countdown, 208–11.
“We flew all the way to the Moon”: Quoted in Bizony, The Man Who Ran the Moon, 216.
felt vindicated: Thomas O. Paine Oral History Interview 2, by T. H. Baker, April 10, 1969, LBJ Library.
“To the crew of Apollo 8”: Borman and Serling, Countdown, 220.
Twelve: “Amiable Strangers”
“Both Neil and Buzz had more”: Author interview, Albert Jackson, August 31, 2017.
“We were old friends”: Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 198.
“If you had to ask somebody”: Author interview, Alan Bean, February 8, 2015.
“I didn’t want to be responsible”: Armstrong et al., First on the Moon, 145.
Lovell deserved better: Hansen, First Man, 338–39.
“the riskiest one to date”: Borman and Serling, Countdown, 198.
“Like a kid’s balloon at a party”: NOVA: To the Moon, PBS, July 13, 1999.
he had work to do: Hansen, First Man, 332.
Aldrin later insisted: Aldrin, Return to Earth, 169–71; Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 175–76; Kraft, Flight, 259.
Buzz kept his seat: Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 156–57.
“He planted his goals”: French and Burgess, In the Shadow of the Moon, 123; Aldrin described his father as “stern and disciplined” in Aldrin and Warga, Return to Earth, 136.
their own toddler: Author interview, Maddy Aldrin Crowell, January 2, 2015.
alligator named Agamemnon: Ibid.
his theories were wrong: Dean F. Grimm interview, August 17, 2000, JSC Oral History Project.
psychological tests: In the documentary Mission Control (2016), Aldrin blamed “overuse of alcohol” in both his father and mother for his post–Apollo 11 problems, and in his books and other interviews, he has openly discussed, most fully in Return to Earth, the suicide and depression in his family, primarily on his mother’s side.
for five days: Aldrin and Warga, Return to Earth, 187.
upcoming trip to the moon: In the 2007 documentary The Wonder of It All, Buzz said: “My mother committed suicide a little over a year before my flight to the moon, probably because, uh…she did not want to deal with…well…a contributing factor would be that she didn’t want to deal with the notoriety…uh…that would come along with, uh…her son having gone to the moon. There were other unhappinesses in the domestic relationship that were involved in that. But anyway, there was a basic depressive tendency that exists throughout members of my family. I felt my problem was dealing with a mental depression. Well, it turned out that that really wasn’t the problem—it was, uh, something that led to, uh, even more of an inherited tendency of both of my parents for the, uh, overuse of alcohol.”
“We’ve already seen”: Grelsamer, Into the Sky with Diamonds, 118.
orbital mechanics: Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 78; Alan Bean interview, June 23, 1998, JSC Oral History Project; Collins, Carrying the Fire, 323.
on the subject: Chaikin, A Man on the Moon, 143.
“Aldrin,” said one friend: Quoted in Barbour, Footprints on the Moon, 183.
the Mechanical Man: Spokane Daily Chronicle, July 14, 1969.
“I sometimes think”: Ted Guillory, quoted in Armstrong et al., First on the Moon, 87.
If a computer could talk: This profile of Buzz Aldrin is based on many sources, chief among them Aldrin’s three autobiographical books (Return to Earth, Men from Earth, Magnificent Desolation); interviews by the author and others with Aldrin and his relatives, friends, and acquaintances; the many books written by and about, and interviews granted by, astronauts and others involved with the Gemini and Apollo programs; and various histories of those programs.
“please speak up”: Author interview, Jim Lovell, March 12, 2015.
“wasn’t an organization man”: Aldrin and McConnell, Men from Earth, 136; Wendt and Still, The Unbroken Chain, 71.
his keen scientific mind: Many Apollo astronauts have written autobiographies, and several of them make clear their unfriendly feelings for Aldrin, who has acknowledged that he wasn’t the best-liked man in the astronaut corps. See Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 157, 231.
“I felt I had a better chance”: Collins, Carrying the Fire, 8.
“could tell a good wine”: Quoted in the Freelance-Star, July 16, 1969.
several months in a hospital: Collins, Carrying the Fire, 262–75.
extensive planning and training: Cunningham, The All-American Boys, 209; numerous astronaut interviews and autobiographies.
an occasional cigar: Author interview, Albert Jackson, August 31, 2017.
would stop the mission: Lunney et al., From the Trench of Mission Control, 240–43.
success of Apollo: Ibid., 189.
“People talking at once”: Ibid., 243–44.
“Maybe I’m an ‘Aunt Emma’”: Tindall wrote more than eleven hundred Tindallgram memos between 1964 and 1970 for both the Gemini and Apollo programs. Most of them are available for viewing at the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, https://www.hq.nasa.gov/alsj/, the best source of Apollo information outside NASA—and perhaps even better than NASA.
“it just came naturally”: Author interview, Steve Bales, May 10, 2015.
“not a terribly socially endearing thing”: Ibid.
They’d invented it: John R. Garman interview, March 27, 2001, JSC Oral History Project.
Thirteen: A Practice Run and a Dress Rehearsal
“connoisseur’s flight”: Wilford, We Reach the Moon, 211.
Twelve mascons: Lewis, Appointment on the Moon, 509.
“based on individual desire”: Albany Knickerbocker News, February 26, 1969.
“The decision really”: Pittsburgh Press, March 7, 1969.
“equivocated a minute”: Aldrin and Warga, Return to Earth, 206.
before other crewmen: Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 231; Aldrin and Abraham, Magnificent Desolation, 129.
Mike cut him off: Collins, Carrying the Fire, 346–47.
LM pilot exiting first: Cunningham, The All-American Boys, 215.
with no luck: Ibid.; Hansen, First Man, 365.
“plans called for”: New York Times, April 15, 1969.
“devastated”: Koppel, The Astronaut Wives Club, 230.
first to walk on the moon: Kraft, Flight, 323.
There were too many functions: Apollo note no. 430, February 4, 1969, Robert Gilruth Papers, Special Collections, Virginia Tech.
expressing themselves freely: Cernan and Davis, The Last Man on the Moon, 227.
“So, Rocco”: Slayton and Cassutt, Deke!, 238; Sherrod, “The General Makes a Decision,” untitled manuscript on the history of NASA; memo, June 17, 1969, “Minutes of Apollo Program Meeting, 12 June 1969,” in box 53, folder 4, George M. Low Collection, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
Fourteen: “You’re Go”
“If we get”: John Hodge interview, April 18, 1999, JSC Oral History Project.
After a late dinner: Collins,Carrying the Fire, 346–47.
on their toes: Author interview with Al Jackson, August 30, 2017.
“You guys”: Collins, Carrying the Fire, 34
6–47.
“I hate geology”: Armstrong et al., First on the Moon, 211.
“The branch chiefs”: Kranz, Failure Is Not an Option, 258.
on his SSR console: There are several versions of this simulation and what happened after it, and all differ slightly in the details. Murray and Cox, Apollo, 345–46, provide the basis for this one, supplemented by Kraft, Flight, 321–22, and several other accounts by the participants: Kranz, Failure Is Not an Option, 267–71; Lunney et al., From the Trench of Mission Control, 247–48; Jack Garman interview, April 14, 2014, part 2, by Colin Mackellar, at www.honeysucklecreek.net; Eugene F. Kranz interview, January 8, 1999, JSC Oral History Project; John R. Garman interview, March 27, 2001, JSC Oral History Project; Granville Paules interview, November 7, 2006, JSC Oral History Project; Lunney et al., From the Trench of Mission Control, 248; Author interview, Steve Bales, May 12, 2015; Author interview, Jack Garman, September 18, 2014. The four principals who discuss the aborted simulation involving the 1201 code disagree on the date; Kranz and Bales maintain that it happened on the last day of sims for Kranz’s White team, July 6, 1969, and Garman and Paules state that it happened about a month earlier, in late May or early to mid-June, although Garman gives two different estimates in two different interviews (“Just a few months before Apollo 11—I’m quite sure it was May or June” in his March 27, 2001, interview, and “About a month before the flight…they did one last one—well, I don’t know if it was the last one,” in his April 14, 2014, interview). Murray and Cox, who interviewed many of the people involved, conclude that it happened during the last day of simulation for Mission Control—the July date—and they note that Kranz reviewed the simulation logs for that period. In a March 15, 2016, CollectSPACE.com post, SimSup Dick Koos is quoted as saying of the simulation: “It took until July to be able to run it. The final sim was always normal—no aborts.” Finally, Richard H. Battin, who helped create the Apollo Guidance Computer at MIT, said in his April 4, 2000, interview for the JSC Oral History Project, referring to the 1201/1202: “Fortunately, they had already experienced that problem…in Houston several weeks before the flight.” I believe the preponderance of evidence points to the July 6 date.
“You must think”: William D. Reeves interview, March 9, 2009, JSC Oral History Project.
overruling a mission rule: Kranz, Failure Is Not an Option, 262.
wouldn’t put up with it: Kraft, Flight, 314.
“If you want to abort”: Aldrin and McConnell, Men from Earth, 226; Hansen, First Man, 388.
two years to choreograph: Watkins, Apollo Moon Missions, 149.
“to perform better”: Goldstein, Reaching for the Stars, 128.
“We literally trained out fear”: Bledsoe, “Down from Glory.”
“You’re not born”: MacKinnon and Baldanza, Footprints, 125.
“Fear is not an unknown”: Wilford, We Reach the Moon, 261.
Most of the other astronauts: Collins, Carrying the Fire, 360. Aldrin later claimed that he believed the odds of a successful landing and return to be slightly more favorable, sixty-forty; see French and Burgess, In the Shadow of the Moon, 393.
plenty of others at NASA were: Briefing for Dr. Paine, July 10, 1969, by George Hage, subject files, Apollo 11, Robert Sherrod Apollo Collection, NASA History Office.
LM’s descent or ascent: “How we will handle the effect of mascons on the LM lunar surface gravity alignments,” July 14, 1969, Tindallgram, 69-PA-T-109A, www.collectspace.com/resources/tindallgrams/tindallgrams01.pdf.
if anything unexpected occurred: Goldstein, Reaching for the Stars, 142.
“by a crossfire of searchlights”: Collins, Carrying the Fire, 358.
“You’re go”: Aldrin and McConnell, Men from Earth, 225.
Fifteen: The Translunar Express
“I am far from certain”: Collins, Carrying the Fire, 360.
“I could see the massiveness”: “Summary of Flight in Their Own Words,” Apollo 11 Mission Account, NASA.gov.
Collins pointed it out to Armstrong: Collins, Carrying the Fire, 363–64.
“If we could solve the problems”: DeGroot, Dark Side of the Moon, 234.
would do the job: Watkins, Apollo Moon Missions, 77, 84.
better strategic systems: Siddiqi, Challenge to Apollo, 856.
working on a moon landing: Ibid., 685–86, 856.
the history of rocketry: Ibid., 681–86.
Lord’s Prayer to himself: Bergaust, Wernher von Braun, 420–21; Neufeld, Von Braun, 432–33.
their normal weight: Aldrin and McConnell, Men from Earth, 226.
“It’s all dead air”: Time, July 25, 1969.
on the front lawn: Koppel, The Astronaut Wives Club, 224–25.
a sigh of relief: Borman and Serling, Countdown, 240–41; Gallentine, Infinity Beckoned, 53–60.
not considered essential: Life, September 5, 1964; Mindell, Digital Apollo, 123, 294. See also Frank O’Brien’s superlative The Apollo Guidance Computer.
Sixteen: Descent to Luna
“The unknowns were rampant”: Hansen, First Man, 529.
“I’ve never seen”: Quoted in Harland, The First Men on the Moon, 214.
lit up another Kent: Lunney et al., From the Trench, 250; Kranz, Failure Is Not an Option, 283–84.
LM’s beginning orbit altitude: Cheatham and Bennett, “Apollo Lunar Mobile Landing Strategy,” 177.
“like popping a cork”: Eugene F. Kranz interview, January 8, 1999, JSC Oral History Project.
“It’s the same one”: Kranz, Failure Is Not an Option, 288.
with no problems: Kraft, “The View from Mission Control,” 882.
control the landing: Eyles, “Tales from the Lunar Module Guidance Computer.”
“Okay, the only callouts”: Houston and Heflin, Go, Flight!, 164–65.
everyone started to breathe again: Flight Dynamics Controllers, Oral Histories of NASA Flight Dynamics Controllers, 191.
What a wonderful name: NOVA: To the Moon, PBS, July 13, 1999.
clapped Bales on the shoulder: Mission Control documentary.
“Thank you, John”: Hansen, Enchanted Rendezvous; NOVA: To the Moon. Sources for this account of the lunar landing include Aldrin and Warga, Return to Earth; Aldrin and McConnell, Men from Earth; Aldrin and Abraham, Magnificent Desolation; “Armstrong Recalls Moon Landing Details”; Armstrong et al., First on the Moon; Bogo, “Blasting Off the Moon’s Surface”; Collins, Carrying the Fire and Liftoff; French and Burgess, In the Shadow of the Moon; Lunney et al., From the Trench; Hansen, First Man; Harland, The First Men on the Moon; Houston and Heflin, Go, Flight!; Kraft, Flight; Kranz, Failure Is Not an Option; Lewis, Appointment on the Moon; Mindell, Digital Apollo; Stachurski, Below Tranquility Base; Vine, “Walking on the Moon”; Wilford, We Reach the Moon; JSC Oral History Project interviews with John Aaron, Richard Battin, Bob Carlton, Jack Garman, Frank E. Hughes, Christopher Kraft, Gene Kranz, and others; author interviews with John Aaron, Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Steve Bales, Bob Carlton, Mike Collins, and Jack Garman; Eric Jones’s superb Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Journal.
Seventeen: Moondust
“We were lucky”: Vine, “Walking on the Moon.”
“Good…good…good”: Houston Chronicle, July 21, 1969.
had known about beforehand: Michael Collins interview by Robert Sherrod, Collins autobiographical file, Robert Sherrod Collection, NASA History Office; Hansen, First Man, 488.
Armstrong would later express: Hansen, First Man, 494.
in front of a TV: Editors of Life, Neil Armstrong, 76.
the Apollo 11 crew: Scott et al., Two Sides of the Moon, 245–47.
“like being on a sandy athletic field”: Kondratyev et al., Space Research XI.
urine-collection device: Aldrin and Warga, Return to Earth, 235.
quickly fell asleep: Lunney et al., From the Trench, 254.
would ever know: Wilson, “Mercury Atlas 10,” 59.
BEST WISHES: Folder 5, box 38, Michael Collins Papers, Virgi
nia Tech.
The alignment looked good: Collins, Carrying the Fire, 416
last of the revelers: Time, August 1, 1969.
and headed home: Ed Buckbee, interview with the author, February 11, 2015; e-mail correspondence, December 4, 2017.
Epilogue
“Max, they’re going to go back there”: Oberg, “Max Faget, Master Builder.”
“Sometimes it seems that Apollo”: Cernan and Davis, Last Man on the Moon, 344.
Bibliography
Books
Aldrin, Edwin E., Jr., and Wayne Warga. Return to Earth. New York: Random House, 1973.
———, and Malcolm McConnell. Men from Earth. New York: Bantam Books, 1989.
———, and Ken Abraham. Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon. New York: Three Rivers, 2009.
———. No Dream Is High Enough. Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2016.
Armstrong, Neil, Michael Collins, and Edwin E. Aldrin Jr. First on the Moon. Boston: Little, Brown, 1970.
Baker, David. The History of Manned Space Flight. New York: Crown, 1981.
Barbour, John, and the writers and editors of the Associated Press. Footprints on the Moon. New York: Associated Press, 1969.
Barbree, Jay. “Live from Cape Canaveral”: Covering the Space Race from Sputnik to Today. New York: Smithsonian Books, 2007.
Bergaust, Erik. Wernher von Braun. Washington, DC: National Space Institute, 1976.
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