"Live From Cape Canaveral": Covering the Space Race, From Sputnik to Today (19 page)

The launch team armed the destruct system, and the access walkway leading to the astronauts and their ship
Columbia
swung back out of the way.

“This is Apollo/Saturn Launch Control. T-minus three minutes ten seconds.
Apollo 11
is now on its automatic sequencer…”

The long-awaited “initiate firing command” had just slipped the rest of the countdown into computers.

“This is Apollo/Saturn Launch Control. We’re GO. The target for the
Apollo 11
astronauts
,
the moon
,
will be 218,096 miles away at liftoff…
”

T-minus fifty seconds.
Saturn V
went to full internal power. The dragon was stirring. Butterflies swirled deep in Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin.

“This is Apollo/Saturn Launch Control,”
Jack King was now singing.
“Neil Armstrong just reported back. It’s been a real smooth countdown.

“Our transfer is completed on an internal power with the launch vehicle. All the second-stage tanks now pressurized.

“Thirty-five seconds and counting. Astronauts reported
,
feels good.

“T-minus twenty-five seconds.

“Twenty seconds and counting.

“T-minus fifteen seconds
,
guidance is internal
,
twelve, eleven, ten, nine
,
ignition sequence starts.”

Far below Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin, a torrent appeared instantly, exploding beneath the five mighty engines of the first stage. Twenty-eight thousand gallons of water smashing into curving flame buckets to absorb the mighty rocket’s fire.

Apollo 11
’s
Saturn V
roared to life, but it was anchored to its launch pad by huge hold-down arms, chaining it to Earth until computers judged it was howling with full energy.

“SIX
,
FIVE
,
FOUR…”

And chunks and sheets and flakes of ice fell steadily from the coatings formed by the super-cold oxidizers and propellants on the huge fuel tanks.
Apollo 11
was ready to leave,
Saturn V
’s mighty engines were screaming,
get the hell outta the way…

“THREE
,
TWO
,
ONE
,
ZERO
,
all engines running
,
LIFTOFF. We have a liftoff
,
thirty-two minutes past the hour. Liftoff of
Apollo 11.
Tower cleared.”

The astronauts felt a gentle sense of motion, but it wasn’t that way outside.

The earth shook. It shook for all to feel, and in a firestorm of flame and crackling thunder
Apollo 11
began its journey. Birds flew for safety, wildlife fled for shelter, and
Apollo 11
’s
Saturn V
slammed shock waves into the chests of the million-plus pressed against the moonport’s fences and gates. Suddenly their teeth were rattling and their skin and clothes were fluttering. They were forced to lean into the powering wave of thundering
air now splitting the launch center.
Saturn V
had in fact created its own earthquake. It generated seven-and-a-half million pounds of thundering energy and headed skyward on its hunt for the moon.

From atop its gantry,
Apollo 11
is seen beginning its journey to the moon.
(NASA)
.

Inside our NBC broadcast studio, Russ Ward and I thought the walls and ceiling would crash onto our shoulders, but the shaking building held and we kept shouting into our microphones and Gloria and Jimmy Stewart screamed and hollered along with all the people now crowding our wall-wide window for the best view.

Apollo 11
pushed through Max Q while below, the million-plus crowd was seeing a river of fire eight hundred feet long. The energy trail
Saturn V
left in the thin atmosphere created shock waves that danced in ghostly displays.

Inside
Columbia
, Armstrong and crew were standing by for the
“train wreck.” At this point, the forces of gravity had them weighing four times what they did at launch. The five big rocket engines that made up the first stage had compressed the Saturn’s three stages and Apollo’s two stages like an accordion. But those mighty engines were shutting down. The sudden cutoff threw the three astronauts forward in their seats. The accordion stretched out and then compressed again, and then the astronauts heard metallic bangs and a mixture of clunks and clangs as explosive bolts blew away the now empty stage. They were forty miles high and sixty miles down
range, climbing faster than six thousand miles an hour, and they heard more bangs and clangs from the second stage below as ullage rockets fired to settle the propellants in their tanks. Then, the second stage lit off and kicked the astronauts back in their seats with the new increase in acceleration.

The second stage burned and burned and once eleven minutes had passed,
Apollo 11
’s astronauts were 115 miles high, moving faster and faster, when the second stage emptied its tanks and went silent. Again the moon-bound crew snapped forward in their harnesses, only to be pushed back again as the third stage lit.

Two minutes later, the third stage shut down and the mooncraft raced around Earth at 17,300 miles per hour. Mike Collins and Buzz Aldrin exchanged broad grins, and Neil Armstrong released his harness.

For the next two-and-a-half hours
Apollo 11
, still attached to its third stage, circled Earth with its crew taking the pulse and status of all its systems, the ones the astronauts would need to reach the lunar surface. Then, the words they wanted most to hear came up from Mission Control: “
Apollo 11
, you’re go for trans-lunar injection.”

That was it, boy. TLI. Trans-lunar injection, their tickets to the moon. Aldrin and Collins held up gloved thumbs in celebration. They ran through a final checklist and once again lit the fire. The third stage reignited, hurling back a magnificent plume of violet flame.

When they reached the speed needed to break free from Earth’s gravity, 24,200 miles per hour, they were on their way.

They were grinning like kids in a down-home swimming-hole. Even Armstrong.

N
eil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stared through their helmet visors in wonder, mesmerized by the lifeless face of the moon rushing toward them. They were in their landing craft
Eagle
, standing with booted feet spread slightly. Each astronaut was sealed within the protective layers of his personal, pressurized spacesuit and helmet.

Flying backward with their bodies tipped toward the silent lunar surface below, they would soon fire the rocket in the descent stage beneath their feet. They would be aiming for a touchdown on a waterless ocean named the Sea of Tranquility.

Back on Earth, near a city called Houston, a fellow astronaut named Charlie Duke listened to the astronauts’ chatter and the reports of those manning the consoles around him. As CapCom, he studied each bit of critical information coming into and going out of Mission Control while across the street, I was on my microphone in the NBC studio. We were putting every word between
Eagle
and Mission Control on the air—live. It wasn’t as if we didn’t know what to do. Hell, we had been getting ready for this for years. We weren’t about to muck around with the most historic event of the twenti
eth century by interrupting it with our own mouthings. We wanted every word, every event, every touch on the moon live on the sixteen NBC worldwide networks.

“Eagle
, Houston,” Charlie Duke’s voice shot across space at the speed of light, 186,300 miles per second. “If you read, you’re GO for powered descent.”

At that precise second,
Apollo 11
’s lunar module was coming around from the backside of the moon, where its receiving antennas had been blocked for twenty-two minutes.

Armstrong and Aldrin were not alone up there. Their crewmate, Michael Collins, was fifty miles out in front of them, orbiting the moon in their command ship,
Columbia.
Collins had heard the vital message clearly.

“Eagle
, this is
Columbia
.” His words flashed instantly into the spacesuit helmets worn by Armstrong and Aldrin. “They just gave you a GO for powered descent.”

“Roger,” Armstrong acknowledged.

The two men glanced at each other and instinctively tugged at the cinches of their body harness. They were ready to go land on the moon as green-bright digits changed constantly before them, numbers flashing on
Eagle
’s flight panel in a breathless blur.

This was PDI!

Powered descent initiate.

On Earth, billions prayed.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin braced themselves for the shock of ignition.

Flame gushed beneath their feet. Inside
Eagle
the two astronauts, who had been weightless for four days, were once again in a gravity field. Their arms sagged. Legs settled within their suits. Feet pressed downward in their boots.

Eagle
was in full power, blasting away weight and mass, slowing, slowing.

Headsets crackled. Mission Control was calling. “
Eagle
, Houston. You are GO. Take it all at four minutes. You are GO to continue powered descent.”

But all was not well.

Back on Earth, Mission Control was thick with tension.

Those manning the front row of consoles were in what was known as the “trench.” This was where final decisions were made.

Eyes were on a twenty-six-year-old computer master named Steve Bales. During a mission he was GUIDO, the acronym for guidance officer.

Today, Bales had come to work early. It could be the most important, demanding, and exciting day of his life. And he knew that twenty-four-year-old Jack Garman was in the back room. Both were experts on the lunar module’s onboard computers.

Deep within the bowels of
Eagle
, these essential computers measured all the electronic and mechanical forces needed to reach the lunar surface safely. And every flight controller in Mission Control knew these computers contained sensitive watchdogs—alarm systems to detect anything wrong.

Bales and Garman were familiar with each of those alarms and what they meant, and at the moment, everything they monitored aboard
Eagle
was green and go.

Then, within a flash,
Eagle
’s computers shrilled madly.

Alarm!

“Program alarm!” Buzz Aldrin shouted the warning. “It’s a twelve-oh-two.”

Twelve-oh-two. A warning that the lunar module’s main computer was overloaded. So much was happening and so quickly, so many performance signals were being generated, that the computer could not absorb them all.

In Mission Control everyone sensed an abort.

All eyes were on Steve Bales.

He stared at his console. Coded numbers told him instantly what was going wrong. He needed confirmation that his identification of the problem was correct and safe for Armstrong and Aldrin.

Bales called Garman in the back room. “It’s executive overflow,” Garman assured him. “If it does not occur again, we’re fine.”

Bales agreed, and he judged
Eagle
’s main computer was doing its job.

He keyed his mike. “GO!” he shouted.

Charlie Duke showed surprise. “We’ve got, uh, we’re GO on that alarm,
Eagle.”

The beat speeded up.

Armstrong and Aldrin were four thousand feet above the moon. Flight director Gene Kranz opened his mike. “All right, you guys. It’s coming up on GO, or NO GO for landing. What’s it going to be?”

Every flight controller in the trenches responded with “GO.”

Charlie Duke called the American craft descending on the moon. “
Eagle
, you’re GO for landing.”

Three thousand feet up, another alarm rang in
Eagle
’s cabin. Steve Bales made an immediate judgment. Another “executive overflow.”

“You’re GO,” Charlie Duke told them.

Two thousand feet high, craters growing larger and larger below, and Neil called it out again: “Twelve-oh-one alarm.”

“What about it, GUIDO?” flight director Kranz shouted.

Director of crew operations Deke Slayton locked eyes with Steve Bales. The computer master read confidence in that look.

“GO!” Bales snapped. “Just GO!”

Charlie Duke looked at Slayton. Deke grinned and turned his right thumb upward with a quick, firm, stabbing motion.

Duke keyed his mike and swallowed hard. “We’re GO,
Eagle
. Hang tight, we’re GO…”

Inside our NBC broadcast studio, Russ Ward and I were hanging onto every word. No sooner than
Apollo 11
had headed for the moon, we left the Cape on a National Airlines charter for Houston.

Now,
Eagle
was thirteen hundred feet above the lunar surface, beginning its final descent. Flames gushed downward as the craft slowed. Neil Armstrong had flown his mission right along the edge of the razor. He and Buzz were now so close that Neil had to
fly
this ship. He punched PROCEED into his keyboard. The computer would handle the immediate descent tasks. Buzz would back up both man and electronic brain so Neil could switch his eyes and senses to flying in vacuum.

Both men looked through triangular windows to study the surface of
the moon. They’d made simulated runs so many times, they knew their intended landing site as well as familiar airfields back home. Almost immediately they noticed that they weren’t where they were supposed to be.

Damn!

Eagle
had overshot the landing zone and Neil scowled at the surface rising toward them. Boulders surrounded a yawning crater wider than a football field, and
Eagle
was running out of fuel and headed straight for it. There was no time to waste.

In the lunar void there was no gliding to conserve fuel.
Eagle
was only dead weight in a vacuum. There also was no opportunity to orbit again for another try at landing.

Eagle
was sailing down at twenty feet per second. Neil nudged the power, slowing to nine feet per second. He attuned his senses to the rocking motions, the nudges and skidding motions of the sixteen small positioning thrusters that kept
Eagle
aligned through its descent.

Mission Control listened, mesmerized and awed, to the voices closing in on lunar soil. Neil guided his bird without wings. Buzz watched the landing radar and called out numbers that bespoke volumes of split-second judgment and maneuvering.

Eagle
was now in a directed hovering mode. There was no place to land. Rocks, huge boulders, and deadly craters were strewn everywhere.

Mission Control was dead silent.

Neil fired
Eagle
’s right bank of maneuvering thrusters, and the lunar module scooted across rubble billions of years old.

There!

There beyond a field of boulders, slightly to the left, the rocks were fewer, revealing a smooth, flat area. That’s it, Neil assured himself. That’s our new Home Plate.

The numbers ghosted back to Earth.

“Five-and-a-half down…five percent…seventy-five down…six forward…ninety seconds,” Buzz chanted. “Ninety seconds.”

Aldrin had been carefully watching the fuel gage, as had Mission
Control. Ninety seconds of fuel left in their tanks for the descent.
Eagle
needed to land in ninety seconds, or—

No one wanted to think about it. If their engine gulped its last surge of fuel before they touched down, this close to the moon, they would crash, but Neil didn’t bother with if’s and could-be’s. He could
feel
what fuel they had left. His eyes and mind and hands worked beautifully in orchestrated skill. He would bring
Eagle
down and bring her down level.

It would not be easy.
Eagle
was now top heavy, the ascent stage still crammed with fuel, the tanks of the descent stage perilously close to empty.

Charlie Duke sounded the warning. “Sixty seconds.”

In sixty short seconds, the rocket power flaming beneath
Eagle
would burn out. The tanks would be empty. An abort would need to be initiated seconds before that happened if
Eagle
was not to crash.

Balancing on slashing flames and banging thrusters, Neil Armstrong calmly aimed for his new landing site.

The flight controllers were almost frantic with their inability to do anything more to aid Neil and Buzz.

“Light’s on.”

This time the announcement was from Buzz as he watched an amber light blink balefully at him from the master caution-and-warning panel. It was the low-fuel signal. Buzz eyed another button, half afraid he might have to punch it. It read ABORT STAGE.

Neil didn’t respond. There was no time. All his senses were brought to needlepoint sharpness.

Buzz intoned the numbers like a priest, steady and clear, voicing the final moments flashing away. He had confidence in Neil’s ability. But his hand did not stray far from the ABORT STAGE button.

“Seventy-five feet,” he called out.

“Six forward…

“Light’s on…down two-and-a-half…forty feet, down two-and-a-half…”

Time was the enemy.

“Thirty feet…

“Two-and-a-half down…”

Then the magic words!

“Kicking up some dust…

“Faint shadow…”

So close now! So close!

There was no turning back! The door behind Armstrong and Aldrin had closed.

“Four forward…

“Drifting to the right a little…”

I
n our NBC studio all was silent. Russ Ward and I did not dare interrupt the voices coming from the moon. The landing was live on NBC’s sixteen networks spread around the planet. If it were possible for hearts to stop beating and for humans to still live, we would have done it.

Then these words from Buzz Aldrin…“Contact light!”

“Okay, engine stop…descent engine command override off…”

On Earth, billions of hearts pounded madly.

In Mission Control, Charlie Duke was choking…He still needed voice confirmation. He wanted to hear the words.

“We copy you down,
Eagle
,” he radioed, and began waiting all over again.

Three seconds for the voices to rush back and forth, Earth to moon and moon back to Earth.

“Houston…”

Neil Armstrong had landed so smoothly that Buzz wasn’t taking any chances. Were they really down? Stopped? Buzz studied the lights on the landing panel to be certain.

Four lights gleamed brightly. Four marvelous lights were welcoming them to another world where no human being had ever been.

Neil allowed himself the luxury of a long, deep breath as he stared through his helmet visor at the alien world before him. He was surprised at how quickly the dust was hurled away by the final thrust of the
engine and had settled back on the surface. Within seconds, the moon looked as if it had never been disturbed. He keyed his mike. “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The
Eagle
has landed.”

Charlie Duke spoke above the bedlam of cheering and applause in Mission Control.

“Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You’ve got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.”

It was 4:17:42
P.M
. EDT, Sunday, July 20, 1969, eight years after President John F. Kennedy had promised to send astronauts to the moon before the end of the 1960s.

Silently, Buzz and Neil saluted him.