Moonshot: The Inside Story of Mankind's Greatest Adventure (23 page)

Aldrin: 'It's quite an eerie sight. There is a very marked three-dimensional aspect of having the Sun's corona coming from behind the Moon the way it is.'

Houston: 'Roger.'

Aldrin: 'And it looks as though – I guess what's giving it that three-dimensional effect is the Earthshine. I can see Tycho fairly clearly – at least if I'm right side up, I believe it's Tycho – in Earthshine. And, of course, I can see the sky is lit all the way around the Moon, even on the limb of it where there's no Earthshine or sunshine.'

Now that they had travelled so close to the Moon, spectacular features such as the crater Tycho were particularly impressive. The Moon too had come quite a way, travelling nearly 200,000 miles since the mission began. While orbiting its bigger partner, the Moon simultaneously rotates so that it permanently presents the same side to Earth. While the near side has been studied by astronomers over many centuries, the far side has barely been examined at all. (Although it's sometimes erroneously described as the dark side, the truth is the Moon does not have a permanent 'dark side' any more than the Earth does.) Flying through darkness, Apollo 11 was being pulled towards the unmapped regions of the far side that were awaiting them 'over the hill'.

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It remained an uncertain journey. Lunar gravity includes mysterious pockets of energy which are strong enough to affect the orbit of unmanned probes. It was known that these patches of super gravity were associated with the flat lunar 'seas', where the interior rock was more dense than surrounding areas.
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These concentrations of mass (known as 'mascons') posed risks that were hard to calculate. Apollo 8 had investigated their impact on an orbiting spacecraft, but without a lunar module the crew had been forced to leave many questions unanswered.
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Would the LM be pulled off course at a critical moment during the landing? What effect would the mascons have on the rendezvous with the command module? Apollo 9 had proved the LM worked well in the benign conditions above the Earth. But it was hoped that by flying the spacecraft above the Moon, Apollo 10 would discover how it would react to lunar gravity. Accurate information was essential to those planning a future landing, among them Armstrong – who wanted to know as much about mascons as possible.
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McDivitt had encountered minor problems with his LM, as was to be expected with any prototype spacecraft. Modifications, and not an inconsiderable amount of faith, were adopted before the lander was permitted to venture into the potential dangers of lunar gravity. By the time Apollo 10 was ready to fly, there were just seven months left before Kennedy's deadline. In taking the complete Apollo system to the Moon for the first time, commander Tom Stafford, command module pilot John Young and lunar module pilot Gene Cernan were to put the 'tissuepaper' vehicle through a demanding series of tests, nearly a quarter of a million miles away from Earth. 'What do you tell your six-year-old daughter?' Cernan later asked. 'I don't know, I just tried to find a way that wouldn't disappoint her if I didn't come home.'

After launching on 18 May 1969, the Apollo 10 crew became the first astronauts to broadcast live, colour TV pictures from space. Later, inspecting the pressurised cabin of the lightweight LM, Young couldn't believe how far the hatch bowed out into the vacuum.
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On 22 May, Young remained aboard the command module (named
Charlie Brown
) while his crew-mates sealed themselves into the lander. Stafford and Cernan – who together had come close to disaster during the Gemini 9 EVA – then separated ('undocked', as NASA described it) from the command module at the start of their exploratory flight towards the probable landing ground. Within two hours Stafford and Cernan had flown the LM, call-sign
Snoopy
, down to a height of just 47,000 feet, or eight miles, above the surface.

In a viewing gallery overlooking the Mission Operations Control Room, senior NASA officials listened in as the LM made two low-level passes over the Sea of Tranquility. Flying almost precisely the same track across the lunar surface that Apollo 11 would take, Stafford and Cernan studied the proposed touchdown site, tested the landing radar and photographed distinctive landmarks.
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Soaring above cliffs 4,000 feet high, Cernan excitedly called, 'We is go and we is down among 'em.'
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Later he added, 'I almost felt like I had to pick up my feet, to keep them from dragging on the top of those mountain tops ... we really came in low and fast.'
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Both he and Stafford were amazed by the towering highlands and the spectacular craters. 'I've got Censorinus right here, bigger 'n shit!' exclaimed Stafford. In Mission Control, Chris Kraft cast a nervous eye back towards the viewing gallery. 'Son of a bitch...son of a bitch,' said Cernan as craters sped beneath them, each bigger than the last.
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Stafford and Cernan had been advised to keep the rendezvous radar on all the time in case they should quickly need to find the command module. It sent a continuous stream of data to the spacecraft's computer, and after completing their objectives the crew prepared to follow its lead back to Young. Suddenly
Snoopy
started bucking around the sky, wildly throwing itself about before rolling hard to the left. For eight long seconds the LM was out of control. 'Son of a bitch,' blurted Cernan over his open microphone, 'what the hell happened?' Stafford quickly jettisoned the descent stage and by reducing the weight of the spacecraft he found it easier to control the thrusters. Calming
Snoopy
's erratic behaviour, the crew fired the ascent engine before beginning their search for the command module. After completing the rendezvous, Stafford, Cernan and Young then headed for home. The problem with the LM was later traced to a checklist error in switch settings.
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Apollo 10 served as more than a simple rehearsal for the landing. Flight controllers helped to produce the first accurate flightplan for a lunar mission, viable navigation and tracking techniques were developed, and the procedures necessary for each phase of a flight towards the surface were proven in practice. By tracking the rendezvous, Mission Control was able to refine the model of the Moon's uneven gravitational field, thereby easing some of the concerns about mascons. Glitches encountered during the flight exposed weaknesses in the crew's checklists and hardware. These represented the final obstacles that could potentially delay preparations for Apollo 11. It was soon established that none was serious, and two weeks after the Apollo 10 mission ended it was confirmed that the landing was still on track.

For Armstrong, Apollo 10 was critical in providing first-hand experience of the LM's performance in lunar gravity, and he talked in detail to Stafford and Cernan.
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Also invaluable were the crew's observations of the surface. Stafford, Cernan and Young had laid a path to the Moon that stopped just a few miles short of the proposed landing site. They had 'painted a white line' in the sky, Cernan told the Apollo 11 crew during a post-flight briefing on 3 June.
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Stafford warned them that while parts of the landing zone looked smooth, other areas, particularly at the western end, were more dangerous than expected.
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Stafford had seen a large field of boulders in this region, and suggested that if Armstrong's approach were 'long' he might need to abort.
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The warning was taken only as informal advice; Apollo 11's designated landing site remained unchanged.

NASA's last three missions had been a triumphant success, and now that the Moon was in sight there was none of the hesitancy that had marked the preparations for Apollo 8. Neil, Buzz and Michael were thrust towards the centre of an enormous government organisation whose prime concern was the next manned mission. Now that their flight had been pushed into the spotlight, they found themselves at the head of the queue for the limited training resources.

For Neil, the LLTV continued to be a priority. After his ejection at Ellington Air Force Base in May the previous year, the vehicle had plummeted to the ground before bursting into flames beneath him as he dangled from his parachute. Landing a short distance from the wreckage, he escaped injury, beyond biting his tongue.
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Word quickly reached the nearby Manned Spacecraft Center, where an hour later Alan Bean overheard a group of fellow astronauts discussing the accident. 'That's bullshit!' Bean exclaimed. 'I just came out of [the] office and Neil's there at his desk ... shuffling some papers.' Running back to the office, Bean checked the story with Armstrong who to Bean's amazement coolly said that, yes, he'd been forced to bail out. 'I did go back to the office,' Neil later confirmed. 'I mean, what are you going to do? It's one of those days when you lose a machine.'
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Dangerous as the LLTV was, in Armstrong's opinion it provided the best preparation for flying something as unusual as the LM in the unfamiliar gravity field of the Moon. Bob Gilruth and Chris Kraft were nervous about their astronauts using such an unstable vehicle, but Armstrong and others fought their corner, insisting that the LLTV was the best facility they had for learning to land on the Moon.
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Since the final phase of the descent would be flown manually, the astronauts felt such practical training was essential. Ground-based simulators were useful up to a point, but at the heart of Neil's mission lay the challenge of a pioneering flight, and only the LLTV could help him properly prepare, both physically and mentally.

For Michael Collins, Apollo 11 presented a different set of challenges. In listing what he considered to be the 11 most dangerous elements of the flight, he found that two (launch and TLI) would be tackled by the whole crew. Another four (descent, landing, EVA and lift-off) would be carried out by Neil and Buzz - but the remaining five were largely down to him. The first was the separation of the command module from the third stage, leading to the docking with the LM. For Michael, perhaps the most daunting aspect of the docking involved the removal of the complicated probe and drogue assembly from the tunnel. The bulky components were awkward to handle, and during training the process was always a tricky manoeuvre. In space he would have to complete the procedure more than once, and if the docking mechanism failed to detach as planned Collins would have to dig out a tool kit and take the whole thing apart. 'I hated that probe,' he later admitted, 'and was half convinced it hated me.'
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The second item on Michael's list was lunar orbit insertion, the two-part manoeuvre that would carry them into orbit around the Moon. If he got this wrong he ran the risk of either banishing the crew into deep space or sending them crashing into the surface. The third item was the rendezvous, on which the lives of Armstrong and Aldrin depended. Fourth was the critical burn that would free them from lunar orbit and put them on the journey home. Finally, Collins would have to guide the command module back into the atmosphere at speeds approaching 25,000mph, to plunge into the ocean within reach of the rescue agencies.

Given that there was a chance Neil and Buzz might not return from the Moon, Collins had to know how to accomplish the final tasks on his own. He never gave odds on the possibility of coming home alone, and the subject was barely discussed beyond estimates about how long he could wait in lunar orbit before running low on consumables. The command module could afford to remain in position for two days longer than scheduled, by which time no-one would be in any doubt about the fate of Armstrong and Aldrin since the LM's oxygen and power would last only 24 hours.
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Neil's personal opinion was that 'on a risk-gain ratio this project would look very favourable compared to those projects that I've been used to in the past 20 years'.
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Fretting over moral arguments, what-ifs or the implications for the future was not the 'right stuff'. Nevertheless, there was no escaping the reality of the situation. As far as Collins was concerned, 'they know and I know, and Mission Control knows, that there are certain categories of malfunction where I just simply light the motor and come home without them'.
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Journalist and speechwriter William Safire was asked to prepare a statement for Nixon that could be used in the event of a disaster. Calling him on behalf of the White House, Frank Borman told Safire, 'You want to be thinking of some alternative posture for the president in the event of mishaps ... like what to do for the widows.' Safire duly wrote a speech in which Nixon would say, 'Fate has ordained that the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace will stay to rest in peace.' Safire also drafted proposals on protocol that might be followed, including the thought that after Nixon had contacted the families, a clergyman should adopt the same procedure as a burial at sea.
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