Fifty years ago, mankind took ‘one giant leap’

The first four days of Apollo 11’s journey to the moon had gone according to plan, but just 20 minutes before landing, the atmosphere grew tense as the crew encountered a series of problems.

It was July 20, 1969, and as the world followed the spacecraft’s progress, it briefly lost radio contact with mission control in Houston.

Then, as the lunar module Eagle was in the middle of its descent, piloted by Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and mission commander Neil Armstrong, an alarm bell began ringing.

Eagle had detached two hours earlier from the main part of the vessel, the command module, Columbia, where the third crew member Michael Collins remained in orbit.

This photo obtained from NASA, shows the official crew portrait of the Apollo 11 astronauts taken at the Kennedy Space center on March 30, 1969. Pictured from left to right are: Neil A. Armstrong, Commander; Michael Collins, Module Pilot; Edwin E. “Buzz” Aldrin, Lunar Module Pilot. Picture: NASA / AFP

It was an anxious moment for Armstrong, a brilliant test pilot and aeronautical engineer, but a man of famously few words.

“Give us a reading on the 1202 programme alarm,” he radios to mission control.

They are told to keep going.

Houston realises the onboard computer is experiencing an overflow, but all systems are functional.

Below them, the moon’s craters are zipping by fast.

Too fast, realises Armstrong: at this rate, they will overshoot the landing site by several miles.

An earthrise, viewed from lunar orbit prior to landing on July 20, 1969. Picture: AFP

He switches to manual control and starts to scope out a new landing site from his porthole. But there’s trouble finding the perfect spot, and it’s going to be tight.

“Pretty rocky area,” he tells Aldrin.

Aldrin continues to tell him speed and altitude readings from the computer.

“Coming down nicely,” he says.

“Gonna be right over that crater,” Armstrong replies.

Meanwhile, the fuel is rapidly depleting. Houston continues to announce the number of seconds left to the “Bingo fuel call” – the point at which Eagle will have 20 seconds left to land, or abort the mission. It is now 30 sec left to Bingo.

Armstrong, summoning all his experience, is silent as he concentrates. The module comes to a rest on the ground.

“Contact Light,” says Aldrin, meaning one of the leg’s foot sensors has touched down. The engines are switched off.

“Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed,” announces Armstrong.

“We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot,” replies Charlie Duke, the CapCom or capsule communicator on the ground.

History records that the number of people who worked on the Apollo programme was 400,000. But two figures tower above the rest for their contributions.

In 1961, President John F Kennedy called upon his vice-president Lyndon Johnson to beat the Soviets in space.

Kennedy would address Congress later that year, famously committing “to landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” by the decade’s end.

Eight years later, Richard Nixon was president when the goal was realised.

In case of a tragedy, he had prepared the following remarks: “Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.”

But the extraordinary national efforts paid off. It all happened fast, thanks to a blank cheque from Congress.

Between October 1968 and May 1969, four preparatory Apollo missions were launched. Armstrong was chosen in December 1968 to command the 11th.

Months from launch, Armstrong told Aldrin he was pulling rank and would be the first to set foot on the lunar surface.

“I kept my silence several more days, all the time struggling not to be angry with Neil,” Aldrin later recalled in his memoirs. “After all, he was the commander and, as such, the boss.”

This photo obtained from NASA and taken by Neil Armstrong (reflected on helmet) shows Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin walking on the Moon on July 20, 1969. Picture: AFP PHOTO / NASA

When the monstrous rocket launched with the Apollo 11 capsule at its summit on Wednesday, July 16, 1969, one million people flocked to the beach across from Cape Canaveral to watch.

But many had doubts that they’d succeed in landing on the moon on the first attempt.

Armstrong confided in 1999: “My gut feeling was that we had a 90% chance – or better – of getting back safely and a 50% chance of making a successful landing.”

Armstrong’s grandmother had advised him not to do it if he felt danger; he had agreed, according to the book Rocket Men, by Craig Nelson.

As he climbed down to the foot of the ladder, he observed that Eagle’s footpads had sunk into the ground by only an inch or two, and the surface appeared very fine grained.

“It’s almost like a powder,” he recalled.

Then, over the radio: “Okay. I’m going to step off the LM now.”

A pause, and then the immortal words: “That’s one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind.”

According to Armstrong, the line wasn’t scripted.

“I thought about it after landing,” he would say in an oral history recorded by Nasa in 2001.

One problem: without the indefinite article (“a man”), it wasn’t grammatically correct. Armstrong said he meant to say it, but agreed it was inaudible.

– AFP

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