The Flight of Apollo 1. National Geographic Magazine.
Historic words and photographs by Neil A. Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr, and Michael Collins. NASA Television provides live coverage of launches, spacewalks and other mission events, as well as the latest news briefings, video files, and the This Week @NASA.
By Kenneth F. Weaver. This article was originally published in the December 1. Two thousand feet above the Sea of Tranquillity, the little silver, black, and gold space bug named Eagle braked itself with a tail of flame as it plunged toward the face of the moon. The two men inside standing like the motorman in a 1. Guided by numbers from their computer, they sighted through a grid on one triangular window.
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Suddenly they spotted the onrushing target. What they saw set the adrenalin pumping and the blood racing. Instead of the level, obstacle- free plain called for in the Apollo 1. For Astronaut Neil Armstrong, at the controls of the frail, spidery craft, a crisis in flight was nothing new.
In 1. 96. 6 he had subdued the wildly gyrating Gemini 8 when one of its thrusters stuck. More recently, he had ejected safely from the “flying bedstead,” a 7. Now he would need all the coolness and skill acquired during 5. X- 1. 5 and other experimental aircraft for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The problem was not completely unexpected. Shortly after Armstrong and his companion, Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin, had begun their powered dive for the lunar surface ten minutes earlier, they had checked against landmarks such as crater Maskelyne and discovered that they were going to land some distance beyond their intended target. And there were other complications.
Communications with earth had been blacking out at intervals. These failures had heightened an already palpable tension in the control room in Houston. Watch Till We Meet Again Online Free HD on this page.
This unprecedented landing was the trickiest, most dangerous part of the flight. Without information and help from the ground, Eagle might have to abandon its attempt. Moreover, the spacecraft’s all- important computer had repeatedly flashed the danger signals “1.
If continued, it would interfere with the computer’s job of calculating altitude and speed, and neither autopilot nor astronaut could guide Eagle to a safe landing. Eagle’s Descent Fuel Runs Low.
Armstrong revealed nothing to the ground controllers about the crater ahead. Indeed, he said nothing at all; he was much too busy. The men back on earth, a quarter of a million miles away, heard only the clipped, deadpan voice of Aldrin, reading off the instruments.“Hang tight; we’re go. Telemetry on the ground showed the altitude dropping .. Watch Arthur Newman Online Facebook. The beleaguered computer flashed another warning.
The two men far away said nothing. Not till Eagle reached 7. Aldrin speak again. And now it was a terse litany: “7. Eagle was braking its fall, as it should, and nosing slowly forward. But now the men in the control room in Houston realized that something was wrong.
Eagle had almost stopped dropping, but suddenly—between 3. This was strictly not according to plan.
At last forward speed slackened again and downward velocity picked up slightly.“Down at 2½ [feet per second], 1. And then, abruptly, a red light flashed on Eagle’s instrument panel, and a warning came on in Mission Control. To the worried flight controllers the meaning was clear.
Only 5 percent of Eagle’s descent fuel remained. By mission rules, Eagle must be on the surface within 9.
They would have to fire the descent engine full throttle and then ignite the ascent engine to get back into lunar orbit for a rendezvous with Columbia, the mother ship. When only 6. 0 seconds remained, the countdown began. The quivering second hands on stopwatches began the single sweep that would spell success or failure.“Sixty seconds,” called Astronaut Charles Duke, the capsule communicator (Cap. Com) in Houston. Sixty seconds to go. Every man in the control center held his breath.
Failure would be especially hard to take now. Some four days and six hours before, the world had watched a perfect, spectacularly beautiful launch at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Apollo 1. 1 had flown flawlessly, uneventfully, almost to the moon. Now it could all be lost for lack of a few seconds of fuel.“Light’s on.” Aldrin confirmed that the astronauts had seen the fuel warning light.“Down 2½ [feet per second],” Aldrin continued. Forward, forward.
Good. 4. 0 feet [altitude], down 2½. Picking up some dust. Faint shadow.”He had seen the shadow of one of the 6. Eagle’s footpads.“Four forward .. Thirty seconds,” announced Cap. Com. Thirty seconds to failure.
In the control center, George Hage, Mission Director for Apollo 1. Get it down, Neil! Get it down!”The seconds ticked away.“Forward, drifting right,” Aldrin said. And then, with less than 2. Contact light!”The spacecraft probes had touched the surface. A second or two later Aldrin announced, “O. K., engine stop.”Still later, the now- famous words from Neil Armstrong: “Tranquillity Base here.
The Eagle has landed.”And, with joy in his voice, Cap. Com replied: “Roger, Tranquillity, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again.
Thanks a lot.”It was 4: 1. Eastern Daylight Time, Sunday, July 2. Feat Watched by the World.
Man’s dream of going to the moon was fulfilled. The most exciting adventure in human memory now neared its climax as the two men prepared to step out on the lunar surface, while their fellow crew member, Mike Collins, kept vigil in his orbiting command module, Columbia, 7. To me, it is impossible to compare this exploit with the epic feats of the great 1. Lindbergh in 1. 92.
The differences are too profound, and one of the most important of those differences is that the whole world was watching. According to estimates, one out of every four persons on the face of the earth watched or heard the astronauts by television or radio as they ventured to the moon. Nearly 8. 50 foreign journalists, representing 5. Cape Kennedy and Houston. Americans abroad were thrilled by the impact of the flight on foreign peoples. Dr. Louis B. Wright, former Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library and a National Geographic Society Trustee, observed the effect firsthand in Italy.
With 2. 5,0. 00 other people he was attending a performance of Aida in the Roman Arena at Verona on that Sunday night.“At the first intermission,” Dr. Wright recalls, “an announcement was made in four languages: ‘The Americans have just landed on the moon at 1. My watch said 1. 0: 2. The crowd applauded wildly.
Here and there spectators pulled little United States flags from their pockets and waved them. And for days afterward, when Italians met me on the street, they all had one word for the flight—‘Fantastico!’”And so it was—with different inflections—in Buenos Aires and Sydney, Tokyo and Delhi, Dublin, and Madrid. The thrill of a race had added to the excitement. Since 1. 96. 1, when President John F.
Kennedy had announced the goal “before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth,” many people had firmly believed that the Soviet Union was racing to put a Russian on the moon first. In the past year or so, Soviet chances had seemed to dim, but as Apollo 1. Luna 1. 5 was already in lunar orbit lent color to the suspicion that the Soviets hoped to land an unmanned craft, scoop up some lunar soil, and rush back to earth before the American moon samples could get home. Only when Luna 1.
Mare Crisium—the Sea of Crises—some 5. Tranquillity Base, was the way clear for the U. S. triumph. That triumph was an especially heady one for those who argued the advantages of manned space flight. Without a man at the controls, they pointed out, Eagle would almost certainly have crashed into an unforgiving field of boulders. The full story became known only after the astronauts returned to earth.
When Neil Armstrong first spotted the landing site through the grid on his window, he did not really know where he was. Actually the crater toward which he was heading—later identified as "West Crater" (an unofficial name) was just within the southwest edge of the planned landing ellipse, a bull’s- eye 7.
But most of the landmarks the astronauts had memorized so carefully before the flight were several miles behind them, and were of no help now.