Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight

by Jay Barbree

  Neil thought of their home planet as small yet colorful, and compared to other space bodies it couldn’t put up a very good defense against a celestial onslaught, yet it had been defending itself pretty well for 4.6 billion years. But there was that asteroid or meteor that took out the dinosaurs and the one that cleaned out the millions of acres of forest on the Siberian surface, and such an object if humankind doesn’t prepare could take out Earth. That’s what Apollo 11’s mission was all about and Neil was hopeful their mission would help life to continue and flourish.

  There was a story going around that said when Neil was flying his F9F Panther on Korean combat patrol he flew over a ridge one early morning to see rows of North Korean soldiers sweating through their calisthenics. He could have mowed them down with his jet’s machine guns, killing hundreds of them, but he didn’t.

  Neil never told me the story but it is an easy one for me to believe. Life simply meant too much to the man to waste it.

  Once when we were having a drink at our favorite watering hole a young lizard scooted by my feet and I reached down with a cocktail napkin and picked him up. “Take him outside and let him go,” Neil requested, and I did, releasing the young life by the pool to scurry away to live or to be eaten by a larger creature.

  In Neil’s mind, killing those defenseless North Korean soldiers would have been the same as shooting a helpless enemy fighter pilot parachuting from his burning aircraft. Neil Armstrong was on his way to the moon in hopes of pioneering new places for life to thrive beyond Earth. He sure as hell wasn’t looking for ways to kill it. He could not and would not waste the smallest of God’s gift.

  * * *

  Neil returned his attention back to the just completed S4B-stage slingshot maneuver and the crew of three agreed it was time to eat.

  The crew downed sandwiches made from tube spreads of ham salad, chicken salad, and tuna, and for snacks they found their pantry stocked with peanut cubes, bacon bites, barbecue beef bites, and for the sweet tooth, caramel candy, dried apricots, peaches, and pears. The crew passed their thanks and kudos along to the chefs in Houston.

  Speed: 8,161 mph

  Earth Distance: 29,521 miles

  Mission Elapsed Time: 5 hours, 55 minutes

  The astronauts were spending their first day outbound grinning like kids in a down-home swimming hole. There was so much to experience, so much to do, so much to see watching Earth grow smaller in their wake as they took turns playing tourist guide with Buzz Aldrin describing the snow on the mountains in California for CapCom Charlie Duke. He added, “It looks like LA doesn’t have much of a smog problem today, and with the monocular, I can discern a definite green cast to the San Fernando Valley.”

  “How’s Baja California look, Buzz?”

  “Well, it’s got some clouds up and down it, and there’s a pretty good circulation system a couple of hundred miles off the west coast of California,” he told Charlie.

  The astronauts sent television pictures to their worldwide audience and Mike Collins took the tour guide position.

  “Okay, Houston, you suppose you could turn the Earth a little bit so we can get a little bit more than just water?”

  “Roger, 11,” CapCom Charlie Duke replied with a grin. “I don’t think we got much control over that. Looks like you’ll have to settle for water.”

  “Okay, Charlie,” Mike laughed, making room for Neil at the mike.

  Mission Control had asked the crew for ten minutes more television, requesting a narrative from Neil describing what they were seeing.

  Apollo 11 was about 60,000 miles from its homeport with the astronauts viewing a quarter of Earth. Neil began his ad-lib narration:

  We’re seeing the center of the Earth viewing a quarter of the sphere with the eastern Pacific Ocean. We have not been able to visually pick up the Hawaiian Island chain, but we can clearly see the western coast of North America. The United States, the San Joaquin Valley, the High Sierras, Baja California, and Mexico down as far as Acapulco, and the Yucatán Peninsula, and you can see on through Central America to the northern coast of South America, Venezuela, and Columbia.

  Apollo 11 was about 60,000 miles from its home planet with this view of Earth. (NASA)

  Mission Control thanked the crew for the television views as the fatigued astronauts realized it was time to call it a day.

  A few preps later, the voice of Mission Control told the listening world:

  This is Apollo Control at 11 hours, 29 minutes into the flight of Apollo 11. We don’t expect to hear a great deal more from the crew tonight. At about 11 hours, 20 minutes we said good-night to them from Mission Control and they’re beginning their sleep period about 2 hours early.

  The early-to-bed was made possible because flight controllers found no need for firing Apollo 11’s thruster rockets for midcourse correction number two. The astronauts were currently on the desired course and any need to change their flight path would be handled in midcourse correction number three tomorrow. For now they busied themselves setting up their light mesh hammocks.

  Two of the hammocks, much like sleeping bags, were stretched and anchored beneath the left and right seats while the center couch was folded down for the third crew member, the astronaut on call if needed.

  Mike Collins took the first watch with a lap belt holding him in place in weightlessness. “It was a pleasure to doze off with no pressure points poking your body,” Collins would later say. “What could be better than just floating all the way to the moon?”

  Speed: 5,400 mph

  Earth Distance: 63,850 miles

  Mission Elapsed Time: 11 hours, 32 minutes

  Mission Control and the flight surgeon kept a close watch on the crew reporting,

  At 13 hours, 27 minutes into the flight of Apollo 11. Our flight surgeon reported a short while ago that command module pilot Mike Collins appeared to be sleeping soundly at this time. Biomedical data on the other two crewmen indicates that they are still awake.

  After some 40 minutes, Mission Control was back:

  The mission is progressing very smoothly. All spacecraft systems are functioning normally at this time, and the flight surgeon reports all three crewmen appear to be sleeping. For Commander Neil Armstrong, and lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin, they appear to have begun sleeping about 5 minutes ago. Command module pilot Mike Collins has been asleep for about an additional 30 minutes to an hour.

  * * *

  The crew’s sleep was uneventful for the most part with Mission Control reporting at 22 hours, 49 minutes ground elapse time. “The crew has been awake for some time according to the surgeon. Spacecraft communicator Bruce McCandless is standing by to make a call to the crew momentarily.”

  “Apollo 11, Apollo 11, this is Houston, over.”

  “Good morning, Houston. Apollo 11,” Neil answered.

  “Roger, Apollo 11. Good morning and when you’re ready to copy, 11, I’ve got a couple of small flight plan updates and the morning news.”

  The excitement of their first day was obviously the cause for the crew only sleeping five and a half hours, but in spite of their short sleep, once they were up they were raring to go.

  Speed: 3,689 mph

  Earth Distance: 114,204 miles

  Mission Elapsed Time: 23 hours, 22 minutes

  There were fewer chores on their second day leaving them with time to listen to music and marvel at the glow of Earth as they moved deeper and deeper into space.

  Neil found his music soothing and a perfect fit for the occasion. In his teens he’d played the baritone, a large, valved brass instrument shaped like a trumpet, in a quartet called the Mississippi Moonshiners.

  It was when Neil found chasing girls was fun. Playing the instrument he did he soon had the reputation of being the best kisser around. He carried this reputation to Purdue where he was a member of the university’s concert band. At the moment he was listening to a recording of “Music Out of the Moon.”

  Neil’s selection was very appropriate. W
hat most on Earth could not know was that since leaving the planet Apollo 11 had been in constant light with nothing to block the sun. It would be this way for the astronauts until they were almost to the moon.

  Neil was really looking forward to their dark passage when he would have a clear, distinct view of the universe. That’s when his backup Jim Lovell called, “Apollo 11, is the commander on board?”

  Jim Lovell, first to open the very road to the moon they were now traveling, had been there every step of the way as Neil’s backup. He was there ready to step in if for some reason Neil couldn’t make the flight.

  Armstrong rolled upright from his music-listening position, and quickly answered the call. “This is Neil, Jim, what’s up?”

  “I’m a little worried.”

  “Worried?” a puzzled Apollo 11 commander questioned. “Worried about what?”

  “You haven’t given me the word yet,” Lovell said. “You haven’t told me to stand down. Are you Go?”

  Halfway between Earth and the moon, Neil Armstrong is astonished by Jim Lovell’s call. (NASA)

  “Good Lord, Jim,” Neil laughed. “We’re halfway between Earth and the moon. “You’ve lost your chance to take this one, buddy.”

  “Okay,” Lovell returned the laugh. “I concede.”

  Speed: 3,481 mph

  Earth Distance: 123,307 miles

  Mission Elapsed Time: 25 hours, 58 minutes

  They sailed without the slightest bump across the halfway line in distance between Earth and the moon, but not yet across the gravity equalization point between the two bodies.

  What Neil didn’t know was that 23 years later the Galileo planetary craft would snap the first-ever picture of Earth and the moon showing the mission flown by Apollo 11. The aerospace editor of the Associated Press, Howard Benedict, one of the best damn friends Neil and I ever had, secured three copies of the photograph and I sent them to Neil. He was so impressed he signed a copy for this writer and one for Benedict to be treasured for a lifetime.

  On December 16, 1992, eight days after Galileo returned for its second pass around Earth, the planetary spacecraft captured this remarkable view of the Earth-moon system from 3.9 million miles away. (NASA)

  To complete their second day on their way to the lunar surface the feel-good astronauts put on an ad-lib television show with chef Mike Collins making a chicken stew, Buzz Aldrin doing push-ups, and Neil showing off by standing on his head.

  They signed off their television show with a shot of distant Earth and then got to bed late. They slept for ten hours.

  Speed: 2,406 mph

  Earth Distance: 184,874 miles

  Moon Distance: 73,732 miles

  Mission Elapsed Time: 48 hours, 00 minutes

  When they awoke, the astronauts took care of their duties including a midcourse correction before getting to the main event of the day: a meticulous checkout of their lunar module Eagle.

  Mike opened Eagle’s hatch and Neil squeezed through the two-and-a-half-foot-wide tunnel followed by Buzz.

  Neil was looking for a scratch or any sign of damage while Buzz, the lunar module pilot, began preparing Eagle for its separation from Columbia some 45 hours later. Their inspection found nothing and they happily reported to Mission Control their lander was “immaculate” and ready to go.

  With five-sixths of their flight completed, Earth’s gravity diminished, and the moon’s grip assumed dominance. Steady acceleration toward the small world required new thinking. The moon’s mass was one-sixth of that of Earth’s and it could be set down between the United States’s Pacific and Atlantic coastlines. It was in all practical sense a dead world. On its surface the moon’s horizon was much closer than on Earth and it was airless. No atmosphere or weather, and for their third sleep period, Apollo 11’s crew was restless. Neil, Mike, and Buzz knew what waited for them the next day. Entering lunar orbit was not a given. If their rockets did not slow their ship to the correct speed they would loop around the moon and return to the vicinity of Earth.

  Speed: 2,823 mph

  Moon Distance: 12,916 miles

  Mission Elapsed Time: 71 hours, 31 minutes

  When Apollo 11’s astronauts were awakened for their third and important day of entering lunar orbit, the moon’s gravity was now pulling them faster and faster to their target.

  “First off, it looks like it’s going to be impossible to get away from the fact that you guys are dominating all the news back here on Earth,” CapCom Bruce McCandless told them. “Even Pravda in Russia is headlining the mission and calls Neil the ‘Czar of the ship.’ West Germany has declared Monday to be ‘Apollo Day.’ Schoolchildren in Bavaria have been given the day off. BBC in London is considering a special radio alarm system to call people to their TV sets. And in Italy, Pope Paul VI has arranged for a special color TV circuit at his summer residence in order to watch you, even though Italian television is still black and white.

  “Back here in Houston, your three wives and children got together for lunch yesterday at Buzz’s house. And according to Pat it turned out to be a gabfest. The children swam and did some high-jumping over Buzz’s bamboo pole.”

  McCandless went on to let the crew know the latest ball scores and told them, “Houston astrologer Ruby Graham says that all the signs are right for your trip to the moon. She says that Neil is clever, Mike has good judgment, and Buzz can work out intricate problems.”

  Neil grinned, quickly dismissing any thoughts of an astrologer as he and the crew turned to the important day ahead.

  Mission Control was feeding Apollo 11’s astronauts the latest numbers and star settings for entering lunar orbit in 2 hours and 57 minutes.

  Speed: 2,999 mph

  Moon Distance: 8,430 miles

  Mission Elapsed Time: 73 hours, 6 minutes

  Apollo 11 was now flying through the moon’s massive shadow and the view was testing the astronauts’ nerves.

  Here our nearest neighbor was looming before them, wrapping itself in a solar corona, while earthshine bathed its dark body with such illumination it was three-dimensional. The crew grabbed their cameras and a subdued Mike Collins asked Mission Control, “What sort of settings could you recommend for the solar corona? We’ve got the sun right behind the edge of the moon now.”

  “Roger.”

  “It’s quite an eerie sight,” said Buzz Aldrin. “There is a very marked sun’s corona coming from behind the moon.”

  Solar corona of the moon as first seen by Apollo 11’s astronauts. (NASA)

  “Roger.”

  “I guess what’s giving it that three-dimensional effect is the earthshine,” Buzz continued. “I can see Tycho fairly clearly. At least if I’m right side up, I believe it’s Tycho, in moonshine, I mean, in earthshine. And of course, I can see the sky is lit all the way around the moon, even on the limb of where there’s no earthshine or sunshine.”

  “Apollo 11, this is Houston. If you’d like to take some pictures,” CapCom told them, “we recommend using magazine Uniform which is loaded with high-speed black-and-white film.”

  “And, Houston,” Neil joined the conversation, “I’d suggest that along the ecliptic line we can see the corona light out to two lunar diameters from this location. The bright light only extends out about an eighth to a quarter of the lunar radius.”

  “Roger.”

  “Houston, it’s been a real change for us,” Neil continued. “Now we are able to see stars again and recognize constellations for the first time on the trip. It’s … the sky is full of stars. Just like the nightside of Earth. But all the way here, we have only been able to see stars occasionally and perhaps through the monocular, but not recognize any star patterns.”

  Neil’s view of a sky full of stars with Hydrogen Alpha located in constellation Orion 6,500 light-years distant. (Ed Bianchina’s Astronomy)

  “I guess it has turned into night up there, really, hasn’t it?” CapCom asked.

  “Really has,” Neil agreed, trying to be factual and unemotion
al yet at the same time letting Mission Control know what they were seeing pretty much defied description.

  They moved on out of the lunar eclipse and into a clear view of the moon they were approaching and Neil told flight controllers, “Houston, the view of the moon we have now is really spectacular. It fills about three-quarters of the hatch window, and of course we can see the entire circumference, even though part of it is in complete shadow and part of it’s in earthshine. It’s a view worth the price of the trip.”

  Apollo 11 approaches the moon. (NASA)

  In Mission Control every monitoring console was in the green. Apollo 11 was right on course with just ten minutes remaining before Neil, Mike, and Buzz were to fly behind the moon where their radios would be blocked. CapCom told them, “11, this is Houston. You are Go for LOI.”

  LOI (Lunar Orbit Insertion), the vital maneuver needed to reach the moon’s surface, and Apollo 11’s crew was prepared for any contingency. The astronauts would be out of contact with Mission Control and just before they lost signal, CapCom radioed, “Apollo 11, this is Houston. All your systems are looking good going around the corner, and we’ll see you on the other side, over.”

  “Roger,” Neil assured them as Apollo 11 vanished.

  Speed: 5,225 mph

  Moon Distance: 355 miles

  Mission Elapsed Time: 75 hours, 26 minutes

  Behind the moon it was as if Apollo 11 and its crew of three didn’t exist. They could not communicate with Mission Control. No telemetry or radio signals in, none out. The mission now existed only in their small world inside a spacecraft.