The Eagle Has Landed: The Story of Apollo 11

by Jeffrey Smith

  After completing his formal education, Armstrong joined the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics—the forerunner of NASA. As a civilian test pilot, Armstrong flew nearly 900 missions, piloting a wide variety of different aircraft. A fellow test pilot remembered that Armstrong “had a mind that absorbed things like a sponge.”

  In 1962, Armstrong applied to become an astronaut and was accepted in the second group of nine men who would fly into space. While he was the first civilian to join the astronaut corps, Armstrong found the transition from test pilot to astronaut seamless: “There were some similarities between the two, in the sense that both were always planning and trying to solve problems and devise approaches.”

  In March of 1966, Armstrong made his maiden spaceflight aboard Gemini VIII. During that mission, Armstrong performed the first orbital docking of two spacecraft, and was able to reverse the unexpected, potentially catastrophic loss of control of the capsule and Agena docking craft. He was the back-up command pilot for Gemini XI, but did not actually return to space until the launch of Apollo 11.

  During his Apollo 11 training, Armstrong encountered another potential life or death situation while piloting the lunar landing research vehicle, nicknamed the “flying bedstead.” The test vehicle, designed to simulate flight in l/6th G Moon gravity, spiraled out of control at Ellington Air Force Base, when its thrusters malfunctioned. Armstrong ejected just 50 feet from the ground and was safely parachuted a short distance away—his only injury was the result of biting his tongue. The test vehicle had nearly tipped completely over during the crash, which would have ejected Armstrong, head first, into the runway. NASA Flight Director Chris Craft estimated that Armstrong avoided certain death by only 2/5th of a second.

  Such risks were a way of life for astronauts, and Neil Armstrong’s innate stoicism and ability to remain calm during crisis situations served him well. Introverted by nature, Armstrong was confident, but never overbearing. Flight Director, Gene Kranz, who described Armstrong as a “quiet observer” during strategy sessions, nonetheless realized that “when you looked at his eyes, you knew that he was the commander, and has all the pieces assembled in his mind.”

  Command module pilot, Michael Collins, a candid observer of human behavior, had the highest regard for his crewmate: “Neil makes decisions slowly and well. As Borman (another astronaut) gulps decisions, Armstrong savors them—rolling them around on his tongue like a fine wine, and swallowing at the very last moment. Neil is a classy guy, and I can’t, offhand, think of a better choice to be the first man on the Moon.”

  Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin was born on January 20, 1930 in Montclair, New Jersey. Aldrin’s father, a Colonel in the Army Air Corps, was also a record-setting cross-country flyer, who later founded the Air Force Institute of Technology. Ironically, Aldrin’s mother’s maiden name was Moon. The astronaut’s unique nick-name was the result of his older sister’s inability to pronounce the word brother—instead, she called him Buzzer.

  Like his crewmate, Neil Armstrong, Aldrin developed a passion for flying at an early age, taking his first plane ride when he was two years old. He also collected rocks—a hobby that served him well during the geology portion of his astronaut training.

  After high school, Aldrin received an appointment to West Point, where he graduated third in his class. After college, he joined the Air Force and served as a fighter pilot during the Korean War. Piloting F-86 Sabers, Aldrin flew 66 combat missions, and was credited with shooting down two Russian Mig-15 fighter jets. The June 18, 1953 edition of Life magazine featured pictures that Aldrin had taken of an enemy pilot ejecting from the aircraft he (Aldrin) had just shot down.

  After the Korean War, Aldrin served as an aerial gunnery instructor at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, before the Air Force eventually sent him to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he earned a Doctorate of Science in aeronautics. Aldrin’s particular area of expertise was orbital mechanics, and his 259-page doctoral thesis was entitled Line of Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous.

  By the time he earned his graduate degree, Buzz Aldrin was enamored with the space program and longed to join the astronaut corps—influenced by his close friend and fellow West Point alum, Ed White, who had been among the second group of astronauts. Aldrin dedicated a graduate school paper to the Mercury astronauts: “Oh, that I were one of them.”

  Aldrin applied to become an astronaut in 1962, but was not selected during the first go around. A year later, he was accepted among the third group of astronauts, who were slated to train for Project Gemini. In November of 1966, Aldrin flew on Gemini XII, where he took a 5.5-hour spacewalk—the longest in American history.

  Unlike the reticent Neal Armstrong, Aldrin was outspoken and opinionated. He was the most talkative among the Apollo 11 crew, and readily shared his expertise about orbital docking maneuvers with NASA engineers and fellow astronauts. Consequently, Aldrin was not well liked by some of his peers, who derisively nicknamed him Doctor Rendezvous.

  Apollo 11 crewmate Michael Collins respected Aldrin’s intellect: “Heavy, man, heavy. Would make a champion chess player— always thinks several moves ahead. If you don’t know what Buzz is talking about today, you will tomorrow, or the next day.” Collins also remembered marathon conversations with his fellow astronaut: “Generally quiet and incapable of small talk, Buzz could get wound up on any of a number of technical pet projects of his, and when he did, he could talk the handle off a piss pot…”

  Aldrin courted controversy, when others believed that he was angling to become the first man to walk on the Moon, ahead of mission commander, Neil Armstrong. Aldrin attempted to explain his rational: “Throughout the short history of the space program, beginning with Ed White’s space walk, and continuing on all subsequent flights, the commander of the flight remained in the spacecraft, while his partner did the moving around. I had never given it much thought, and had presumed that I would leave the lunar module and step onto the Moon ahead of Neil.” Aldrin’s misconceptions were given additional weight, when the Chicago Daily News and New Orleans’ Times-Picayune headlined stories in late February of 1969: ALDRIN TO BE THE FIRST MAN ON THE MOON.

  In March of that same year, Aldrin became aware that NASA’s higher-ups were clearly in favor of Neil Armstrong taking the historic first steps on the lunar surface. A dismayed Aldrin immediately discussed his concerns with the Apollo 11 commander. As might have been expected, Armstrong was reticent to discuss the situation in detail, but told Aldrin, as Commander, he reserved the right to be the first one to step on the Moon. When Aldrin attempted to present his case to Michael Collins, the command module pilot steered clear of the controversy, refusing to offer an opinion. Aldrin later disavowed accusations of self-promotion: “In truth, I really didn’t want to be the first person on the Moon.”

  NASA’s leadership team soon clarified matters, announcing that Armstrong would be the first man to walk on the Moon. The politically correct explanations were twofold—Armstrong was a civilian pilot and NASA was a non-military government agency; and, Armstrong’s position in the lunar module, nearer the hatch, made it easier for him to exit the spacecraft first. In reality, the personalities of the two astronauts played a significant role in the final decision—Neil Armstrong was better liked, and many NASA officials believed Buzz Aldrin had forcefully lobbied for the honor. The final decision was made by Deke Slayton, Director of Flight Crew Operations, Bob Gilruth, Director of the Manned Space Center, George Low, Apollo Program Manager, and Chris Craft, Director of Flight Operations, during a March 1969 meeting in Houston.

  “Look, we just knew damn well that the first guy on the Moon was going to be a Lindbergh…And, who do we want that to be?” Craft asked, before answering his own question, “It should be Neil Armstrong. Neil was Neil—calm, quiet, and absolute confidence. He had no ego.”

  Aldrin’s apparent eagerness ultimately backfired, as reflected in Craft’s candid assessment: “On the other hand, A
ldrin desperately wanted the honor and wasn’t quiet in letting it be known. Neil had said nothing.”

  On April 14, 1969, the New York Times ended all speculation, reporting that Neil Armstrong would be the first man to walk on the Moon.

  “Buzz Aldrin was crushed, but seemed to take it stoically,” Craft later opined.

  Michael Collins, the command module pilot and third member of the Apollo 11 crew, was born on October 31, 1930 in Rome, Italy. Collins’ father, an Army General, was frequently transferred to different duty stations, preventing young Michael from establishing firm roots.

  Graduating 185th out of his class of 527 at West Point, Collins never took himself too seriously, as evidenced by his yearbook motto: “Stay casual.” After graduation, Collins became an Air Force test pilot, where he learned to fly a variety of aircraft, including long-range nuclear bombers. Like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Collins survived a close call, when he was forced to eject from a burning F-86 fighter jet.

  In 1963, after applying for a second time, Collins was accepted into the astronaut corps. In July of 1966, Collins piloted the Gemini X spacecraft, and was the first astronaut to execute an uncomplicated rendezvous and docking maneuver with the unmanned Agena.

  Unlike many pilots turned astronauts, Collins was introspective and blunt in his self-assessment: “Okay, if you’re looking for a handball game, but otherwise nothing special. Lazy, in this group of overachievers, at least—frequently ineffectual, detached, waits for happenings instead of causing them; balances this with generally good judgment and a broader point of view than most.”

  Collins was the backup command module pilot for the ill-fated Apollo 1 mission, which ended with the fiery launch pad deaths of the primary crew. Many of the astronauts’ families had grown close, and Collins volunteered for the unpleasant task of informing Ed White’s wife that her husband had been killed.

  Scheduled to be the command module pilot on Apollo 8, Collins was grounded after undergoing surgery for a ruptured cervical disk. While recovering from the delicate operation, Collins faced the very real possibility of missing out on subsequent Apollo missions, but managed to maintain an upbeat attitude: “I’m not always convinced that everything is going to work out well. On the other hand, there’s nothing wrong in acting as if things will work out.”

  After making a full recovery, Collins was inserted into the flight rotation, culminating in his selection as the command module pilot for Apollo 11. He also played an active role in helping design the flight suit patch for the historic mission—a bald eagle with an olive branch in its claws, symbolizing peace, which was depicted approaching the lunar surface, with Earth in the horizon. Unlike past manned spaceflights, only Apollo 11 was written across the top of the patch—the names of the individual crew members were omitted to symbolize the group effort that went into planning and executing the first lunar landing mission.

  On July 5th, 11 days before lift-off, the Apollo 11 crew greeted the press at Cape Canaveral. Sitting inside a 10 x 12-feet, 3-sided plastic box, with a fan blowing behind them, ostensibly to keep the reporter’s germs away, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins discussed their forthcoming flight to the Moon. Responding to a reporter’s question, Neil Armstrong explained the true meaning of the Apollo 11 mission: “I think we’re going to the Moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his inner soul. We’re required to do these things, just as salmon swim upstream.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Good luck and Godspeed

  On the morning of July 16, 1969, nearly 1,000 NASA engineers and technicians crowded inside the launch control center at Cape Canaveral, prepared to send Apollo 11 to the Moon. The Saturn V rocket was their “baby,” having been pieced together in the eight-acre Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB). Unlike the Soviets, who transported their rockets in stages via rail cars, and then erected them on the launch pad, the entire Saturn V, nearly four-stories tall, was driven to the launch pad aboard a giant crawler transporter. The gargantuan vehicle, a diesel-powered adaptation of a strip mining shovel, traveled the 3.5 miles between the VAB and the launch pad over a 110-feet-wide gravel road, at the glacial pace of one mile per hour.

  Launch pad 39A featured twin octagonal-shaped concrete pads with steel deflectors, designed to divert the first stage engine flames into trenches lined with a ceramic surface that could withstand temperatures up to 2,000 degrees (F). As a safety precaution, the launch pad was located at Cape Canaveral’s isolated Merritt Island, which was surrounded by uninhabited beaches and swampland; experts calculated that a fully-fueled Saturn V rocket, exploding on the launch pad, would generate a 3,000-feet-wide fireball and an explosive force equivalent to 500 tons of TNT.

  Mission Control in Houston was poised to take responsibility for flight monitoring immediately after lift-off. In a large, windowless room known as the Trench (or Bat Room), four teams of flight controllers would work around the clock to monitor Apollo 11 every step of the way to the Moon and back. The room was filled with rows of desks, each containing flight monitors, and the walls were covered with large screens that continuously displayed the location of the spacecraft.

  At the center of the activity, Flight Director, Gene Kranz, anxiously awaited the Apollo 11 launch, wearing one of his wife’s distinctive hand sewn vests. The Capsule Commander (Cap Com), a role always filled by a fellow astronaut, was set to establish radio contact with the Apollo 11 crew immediately after lift-off.

  The morning sun reflected sharply off the massive Saturn V rocket, generating shimmering heat waves. Those who witnessed Apollo launches were invariably awed by the rocket’s raw power. Shock waves generated by the Saturn V engines literally made the Earth move.

  The rocket, 364-feet tall and weighing 5.8 million pounds (as much as a Navy destroyer) consisted of three stages, and housed 91 separate engines and 8,000,000 moving parts. Thirty-five feet in diameter, the gigantic first stage was powered by five F-1 engines that burned 4.5 million pounds of kerosene and liquid oxygen. The second stage, 30 feet in diameter, housed five smaller rocket engines that consumed one million pounds of liquid hydrogen and oxygen. The third stage (S IV B), 22 feet in diameter, contained a single J-2 engine fueled by 192,495 pounds of liquid oxygen and 39,735 pounds of liquid hydrogen. The three-stage rocket’s 11 engines were capable of generating a combined 8.7 million pounds of thrust.

  High atop the Saturn V, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were buckled into the cockpit of the command service module, Columbia. The lunar module, Eagle, was safely tucked away in a compartment just below the CSM. A separate rocket, 33-feet-tall, jutted from the capsule’s nose cone—the launch escape systems (LES) would be used to separate the CSM from the Saturn V, in the event of a launch pad explosion. A protective shield made of fiberglass and cork separated the CSM from the LES, completely covering the cockpit windows, and leaving the astronauts in semi-darkness, while they awaited the final countdown.

  Just to the left of Neil Armstrong’s knee was a handle labeled abort. Michael Collins could not help but think what would happen if the mechanism was accidently triggered: “Jesus, I can see the headline now—‘Moonshot falls in ocean. Mistake by crew, program officials intimate. Last transmission from Armstrong prior to leaving launch pad was oops!’”

  With a captive worldwide television audience, including President Richard Nixon, glued to their seats, the melodic voice of NASA Public Affairs Officer Jack King heightened the suspense: “12, 11, 10, 9, Ignition sequence start, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0…”

  At 9:32 a.m. the first stage engines of the Saturn V lifted Apollo 11 skyward.

  “All engines running…We have liftoff! We have liftoff—32 minutes past the hour—liftoff on Apollo 11,” King announced.

  “Good luck and Godspeed,” Cap Com radioed to the crew.

  “Thank you very much. We know this will be a good flight,” Neil Armstrong replied, as the rocket soared into the crystal clear Florida sky.

  Co
nsuming three tons (3,500 gallons) of liquid propellant per second, the first stage rocket generated 7.6 million pounds of thrust, and within a quarter of a second, the astronauts were accelerated from zero gravity to G-4. The launch was the roughest part of the entire mission, as reflected in Michael Collins’ radio message, 17 seconds after blast-off: “The beast is 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 10 seconds, we were perilously close to the umbilical tower.”

  The first stage of the Saturn V rocket burned for 2 minutes and 40 seconds, launching the spacecraft to an altitude of 200,000 feet. At 9:34:40 a.m., the first stage was discarded and fell 45 miles into the Atlantic Ocean. At the same time, the escape tower and boost protection cover were jettisoned, allowing the astronauts to see outside the cockpit window.

  “Yeah, they finally gave me a window to look out,” Armstrong announced to Mission Control.

  The second stage booster burned for six minutes, lifting Apollo 11 to an altitude of 606,000 feet, before it was discarded at 9:41:12 a.m. Three minutes later, the third stage rocket fired for the first time, and launched the spacecraft into orbit. Just 11 minutes and 42 seconds after lift-off, Apollo 11 was in an elliptical, 103.6 by 101.4-nautical mile-orbit, zipping around Earth at 17,400 miles per hour.

  “We’re showing an orbital weight of the combined vehicles of 297,914 pounds. Based on orbital figures, the orbital period is 1 hour, 28 minutes, 16 seconds,” Mission Control notified the astronauts.

  Cap Com reported further details: “We have a report on the launch heart rates, now, from the flight surgeon; Commander Neil Armstrong’s heart rate 110, command module pilot, Mike Collins’ 99, lunar module pilot, Buzz Aldrin’s 88. These compare with their first Gemini flights—their first lift-off back in the Gemini Program—Armstrong’s heart rate was 146 at that time, Collins’ was 125, and Aldrin’s was 110.”