by Jay Barbree
He had maneuvered Eagle to the flattest place on that part of the Sea of Tranquility. He pushed his boots into the soft, greyish-brown dirt. No living creature had ever done this before on this desolate, utterly silent world, but what puzzled Neil most was the lighting. From inside Eagle the moon’s sky was black. But out on the surface it was still black, but a daylight black, and the surface looked tan. What he couldn’t understand, if you looked down-sun, down along your own shadow, or into the sun, the moon was tan. If you looked cross-sun it was darker. If you looked straight down at the surface, particularly in the shadows, it looked very, very dark. When you held lunar material in your hands it was also dark, grey or black.
Neil’s first task was to collect a contingency sample. If they had to abort the moonwalk early a small bag of lunar soil would make scientists happy. But he told himself he should do that in sunlight and for now he needed the camera. He needed to take pictures while his eyes were still adapted to the shadows.
“Okay, Buzz, we ready to bring down the camera?”
“I’m all ready,” Buzz told him. “I think it’s been all squared away and in good shape, but you’ll have to play out all the LEC,” Buzz instructed. “It looks like it’s coming out nice and evenly.”
Neil and Buzz used a special conveyor line with the acronym of LEC to lower the camera down to the surface, and Neil told Mission Control, “I’m standing directly in the shadow now looking up at Buzz in the window, and I can see everything quite clearly. The light is sufficiently bright backlighted into the front of the LM, that everything is very clearly visible.”
Neil mounted the camera on a bracket on his chest and stepped forward to take the number one photograph. It was to have been his first footprint on the moon, but no sooner than he looked for it by the footpad than he was ready to kick himself. In his movements to check out Eagle’s stance and operate the conveyor line to bring the camera down, he had walked over it. It was obvious his later steps had blotted out his first.
Then Bruce McCandless called, “We see you getting some pictures and the contingency sample, Neil.”
Neil didn’t move. He stood there disappointed with the loss of the first footprint, and McCandless asked again, “Neil, this is Houston. Did you copy about the contingency sample, over?”
No one was more aware than Neil how important the contingency sample was and he told Bruce, “Roger, I’m going to get to that just as soon as I finish these picture series.”
Buzz watched as Neil completed the photographs and walked away to a sunlit area. He asked, “Going to get the contingency sample there, Neil?” “Right,” Neil answered. “Okay. That’s good,” Buzz agreed.
Neil quickly reached into a thigh pocket and withdrew a collapsible handle with a bag on its end. He was in sunlight for the first time and he turned his back on the penetrating glare. He began digging into the surface. What he found surprised him. There was the same soft powder, but then there wasn’t. He met resistance. “This is very interesting,” he told Mission Control. “It’s a very soft surface, but here and there where I plug with the contingency sample collector, I run into a very hard surface. It appears to be very cohesive material of the same sort.” He scooped up enough lunar soil to fill the bag and told them, “I’ll try to get a rock in here, just a couple.” That’ll give the geologists their money’s worth.
“That looks beautiful from here, Neil,” Buzz told him, talking about the sample, but Neil took Buzz’s comment to mean the moon. “It has a beauty of its own. It’s like much of the high desert of the United States. It’s different but it’s very pretty out here.”
Neil got the contingency sample put away. Still holding the unneeded collector handle, he thought for a moment about throwing it like a javelin.
He smiled at how pleased Rick would be if his old man could set the record for throwing the javelin. How many times had he been on his older son’s case to practice not only in Little League but in all sports, and he smiled, wondering for a moment what the record was, and then thought better of the idea. Instead he tossed it underhand and it sailed a long way, spinning in the sunlight.
Pointing down from Eagle was a 16mm movie camera loaded with color film. It was there to film the actions of the two astronauts on the moon and Buzz told Neil, “Okay. I have got the camera on at one frame a second.”
“Okay.”
“Are you ready for me to come out?” asked Buzz.
“Yes,” Neil said and Buzz followed his instructions, asking, “How far are my feet from the edge?”
“You’re right at the edge of the porch.”
“Okay. Now I want to back up and partially close the hatch,” Buzz reported, quickly adding, “making sure not to lock it on my way out.”
“A very good thought,” Neil agreed, as a wave of laughter rolled through Mission Control.
* * *
Buzz moved slowly down and then said “Okay, I’m on the top step and I can look down over the landing gear pads. It’s a very simple matter to hop down from one step to the next.”
“Yes, I found I could be very comfortable, and walking is also very comfortable,” Neil agreed, pausing long enough to recheck Buzz’s progress. “You’ve got three more steps and then a long one.”
“Okay. I’m going to leave that one foot up there and both hands down to about the fourth rung up.”
“There you go.”
“Okay. Now I think I’ll do the same.”
“A little more,” Neil suggested, “about another inch.” There was a pause and then Neil shouted, “There, you got it!”
A second human was on the moon and Neil greeted Buzz at the bottom of the stairs as they again heard cheering in Mission Control.
“Beautiful view.” Buzz grinned.
“Isn’t that something?” Neil agreed.
“Magnificent desolation,” Buzz said with feeling as he stared at a sky that was the darkest of black. No blue. No birds. No green below. There were many shades of grey on the surface and areas of utter black where rocks cast their shadows from an unfiltered sun, but no real color. Possibly tan under certain lighting.
Buzz Aldrin moves down Eagle’s ladder to join Neil on the moon. (NASA)
The land curved gently but noticeably away—all the way out to the horizon that was only half the distance Buzz and Neil were used to seeing on Earth. But there on the moon, they could actually see they were standing on a sphere, and when they walked and looked down their motion fascinated them. Each time they took one of their half-walking and half-floating steps their boots set in motion a spray of lunar soil sailing outward and upward sharply and quickly without the hindrance of an atmosphere, and they even tried running and leaping strides that were impossible to do on Earth. But when they tried to sustain a jog, the mass and velocity created kinetic energy and stopping quickly was impossible.
It was as if they had found a new playground after school and they even tried bunny hopping, an assortment of moves, and they wished they could stay on their new playground until they had explored every nook, every cranny; so much to see and do and so little time.
Buzz is firmly on the moon. (NASA)
The second human was on the moon and Neil greeted Buzz with the cheers of Mission Control. (NASA)
But despite their wish to drink in this new and strange and beautiful and wonderful place, Neil and Buzz had to move on to their chores.
First they reset their television camera’s location 60 feet from Eagle. This would help Earthlings see some of the things they were seeing and it would let the world watch them go about their business.
Next on their list of duties was to plant the American flag. By international agreement no country could claim the moon, even the first to get there. That was stated firmly in a plaque on Eagle’s front leg.
A plaque announcing Neil’s and Buzz’s arrival on the moon is secured to one of Eagle’s legs. It is still there today for the next to come visiting. (NASA)
“For those who haven’t read the
plaque,” Neil told the television viewers, “it says, ‘Here Man from the planet Earth first set foot upon the Moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.’ It has the crewmembers’ signatures and the signature of the President of the United States.”
Neil and Buzz then unfurled an American flag stiffened with wire so that it would appear to fly on the airless moon. But the moon’s subsurface was so hard they could barely get its pole to stand. Once they did they moved back to clear the view of the 16mm color movie camera looking down from Eagle’s window.
Then there were other protocols to meet.
Despite difficulty caused by the moon’s hard subsurface, Neil and Buzz get the flag to stand. (NASA)
In the lunar dust, Neil and Buzz placed mementoes for the five-deceased American and Russian space flyers, Gus Grissom, Ed White, Roger Chaffee, Vladimir Komarov, and Yuri Gagarin (the first in space had died in a plane crash the year before), and one small cargo—private and honorable—carried by Neil. It was not to be divulged. It was a diamond-studded astronaut pin made especially for Deke Slayton by the three Apollo 1 astronauts who planned to fly it on their mission before that dreadful fire. And there was one other remembrance. Very special and dear to Neil, a part of an unfinished life he so wanted to leave on the moon, and he did.
* * *
High overhead, aboard Columbia, Mike Collins continued orbiting the moon every two hours. “How’s it going?” he called.
“I guess you’re about the only person around that doesn’t have TV coverage of the scene,” CapCom told him.
“That’s all right. I don’t mind a bit. How’s the quality of the TV?”
“Oh, it’s beautiful, Mike. It really is. They’ve got the flag up now and you can see the stars and stripes on the lunar surface.”
“Beautiful. Just beautiful,” Mike Collins said, wishing he were there but knowing he had a much bigger job—keeping Neil and Buzz’s ride home waiting and ready.
* * *
So the estimated billion people on Earth watching could keep track, Neil relocated their television camera to its cable’s limits. Those viewing could now see even more and CapCom told him, “We’ve got a beautiful picture, Neil,” adding, “Could we get both of you on the camera for a minute, please?”
“Say again, Houston,” Neil asked.
“We’d like to get both of you in the field of view of the camera for a minute.”
Buzz was in the middle of setting up experiments and while he found the request puzzling, he moved in front of the camera.
“Neil and Buzz,” CapCom Bruce McCandless told them, “the President of the United States is in his office now and would like to say a few words to you, over.”
“That would be an honor,” Neil responded.
Buzz felt his heart increase its beats. He was surprised. Later Neil would tell him he had been told the president might call, but had not wanted to mention it until it was firm.
“Go ahead, Mr. President. This is Houston out.”
“Hello, Neil and Buzz,” President Richard Nixon began, “I’m talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House, and this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made. I just can’t tell you how proud we all are of what you are doing for every American. This has to be the proudest day of our lives. And for people all over the world, I am sure they, too, join with Americans in recognizing what an immense feat this is. Because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man’s world. And as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth. For one priceless moment in the whole history of man, all the people on this Earth are truly one; one in their pride in what you have done, and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.”
There was a long silence, a grateful silence by a listening world, and Neil responded. “Thank you, Mr. President. It’s a great honor and privilege for us to be here representing not only the United States but also men of peace of all nations, and with interest, and a curiosity, and a vision for the future. It’s an honor for us to be able to participate here today.”
“And thank you very much and I look forward,” President Nixon told Neil, “all of us look forward to seeing you on the Hornet on Thursday.”
“I look forward to that very much, sir,” Buzz joined in.
What Neil and Buzz would find in the future when they were making their world tour was that they would be greeted by people everywhere saying “we,” not just the United States, “We did it—we went to the moon!”
* * *
There was so much more they wanted to do but Buzz found the Sea of Tranquility more rugged than he’d expected. There were high and low areas—not the best place to set up the experiments but he managed to deploy a solar-powered seismometer to detect moonquakes and a laser reflector to help scientists measure the distance at any given time between Earth and the moon. Buzz and Neil were most pleased when Mission Control told them they were giving them an extra fifteen minutes.
Then when they had the solar-powered seismometer running, Tranquility Base appeared to be a fully operating scientific outpost. Neil left the experiments to Buzz and began moving about their landing site exploring on his own.
He quickly abandoned any thoughts of trying to reach and inspect that football field size crater he had to avoid during landing. But there was a smaller crater he’d flown over only about 200 feet away. He only thought about this one for a second and moved into quick strides to reach it. He found the smaller pit to be about 80 feet across and 15 to 20 feet deep. No larger than a good-size house.
While Neil took the pictures, Buzz set up Apollo 11’s experiments. (NASA)
A baby crater, Neil thought, “Muffie’s Crater.” He smiled, quietly remembering his and Janet’s two-year-old who they’d lost to a brain tumor, and he permitted himself a moment. He stood there, remembering how Muffie would have loved sliding down into the pit. He had an overwhelming urge to do it for her. He’d love to have a sample of lunar bedrock anyway for the geologists. But then better judgment grabbed him. What if he couldn’t get back up without the help of Buzz?
He settled for taking pictures and describing what he saw before heading back where Mission Control had put Buzz to work hammering a metal core tube sample into the hard subsurface. They then told Neil to gather rocks that would best represent their location—the Sea of Tranquility.
Once done, Buzz was pleased. He was leaving a scientific station on the moon. (NASA)
Muffie’s Crater. (NASA)
With time running out they moved back to Eagle’s ladder and Buzz was told to head back in. But before he did he took the camera from Neil and photographed the Apollo 11 commander loading lunar material boxes on Eagle.
After completing all his duties Neil handed Buzz the camera. He had only a couple of minutes but he managed this one photograph of Neil busy loading moon rocks to bring back to Earth. (NASA)
Buzz handed the camera back to Neil and said, “Okay, adios, amigo.”
Neil waved and watched him go up the ladder.
The two had packed their precious booty in sealed containers, and would now use their conveyor line to haul the boxes up to the ascent stage. Working with untried equipment in a vacuum, they struggled to get the samples aboard Eagle.
After a few starts and stops they managed to get it all on board and went through their long checklist, and then it was time to shut down history’s first moonwalk on a place where a day lasts a month and time seems to crawl.
Neil sensed that if he came back to this same location on the moon a hundred, a thousand, a million years from now he would find the scene as he had left it. In his visit, he had little time to get to know this small corner of the solar system. Yet the knowledge and the samples from the moon he and Buzz were bringing back were priceless.
He joined his moonwalking partner inside Eagle to welcome the loud noise of oxygen filling their lander’s cabin—the liva
ble atmosphere they would need to take their helmets off. When they did they were met with a pungent odor—wet ashes and gunpowder. They were bringing the smell of the moon with them.
Overhead, Mike Collins and Columbia were streaking by and CapCom told him “The crew of Tranquility Base is back inside Eagle, repressurized. Everything went beautifully, over.”
“Hallelujah,” Mike yelled, and Mission Control reminded Neil and Buzz they needed to sleep for five hours before starting their countdown to rejoin Mike in lunar orbit.
The sleeping business was easier said than done. They were cold in Eagle. Whatever had been set up to keep them warm on this airless world wasn’t doing the job, not forgetting they were wound up tighter than an alarm clock with accomplishment and excitement.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had landed on the moon Sunday, July 20, 1969, at 4:17:42 P.M. EDT.
Six hours and thirty-eight-minutes later Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the lunar surface at 10:56 P.M. EDT. Aldrin followed him 18 minutes later to become the second. Apollo’s lunar landings would end after 12 Americans walked and rode in lunar cars across the moon’s landscape. The last Apollo returned from the lunar surface December 17, 1972.
No human has visited the moon since.
Buzz says farewell to the moon and flag. (NASA)
TWENTY-ONE
THE RETURN
He was absolutely still, his weight next to nothing—almost floating, and he resisted awakening from such comfort, but he was cold—too cold to sleep. He thought about it—resting there in that wonderful consciousness of half-sleep and half-awake. He refused to open his eyes. He would just shiver and listen to the sounds that were trickling, whispering, humming along soft but persistent—an endless mechanical and electronic brook.
