July 17, 1969 / The Dream Team

Korean War. Our pilot is in one of five U. S. Navy Fighter jets flying over a narrow road known as Green six. The ground is blurring beneath him at three hundred and fifty miles per hour. The squadron's mission is to bomb some freight yards and a bridge the enemy is using to resupply their troops. Well, the men have been warned they're going into a hot zone. None are prepared for what they encounter at three o'clock's slip information.

According to one of the pilots, the anti aircraft fire was so thick it looked as if he could have climbed out of his jet and walked on top Beyond the pilot in the jet. Just in front of ours is Lieutenant Frank Sistruct. He's heading for the bridge. The lead panther is struck. Lieutenant Sistructs aircraft spirals into the ground, exploding on impact. Our pilot doesn't have time to mourn or panic. He inhales deeply and takes a His aircraft

is also hit. As he wrestles to maintain control, his panther plows into a metal cable strung across the valley as a booby trap for low flying aircraft. The cable slices through the panther's right wing, sharing off nearly six feet, narrowly missing the cockpit. Our pilot manages to stay locked just long enough to return to friendly territory, but there

is no away. He's landing this plane. Facing an impossible decision, He has no choice but to eject over a rice pat, cracking his helmet in half and breaking his tailbone in the process. This is a polo control at twenty two hours forty nine minutes ground the lapsed time spacecraft communicator here in mission control, Bruce McCandless is standing by to make a call to the crew. It's July sev nineteen

sixty nine, day two of the Apollo eleven mission. Apollo eleven has left planet Earth and is on its way to the Moon. As the crew begins their first full day in space, it's the perfect time to tell you how Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins became the Dream Team, as well as how a handful of kids built Mission Control. But first, let's check in with the capsule communicator, who's decided it's time to wake our crew

with some morning news from Earth eleven. When you're really to copy the eleven I've got in the morning nude. This will become a tradition. Each day the capcom and mission control will let the astronauts know what's going on on the planet they left behind. Okay, we're all immigration of facial and Louva. Laredo announced Wednesday that hippies will be refused third Guard banner Mexico and large. They take

a bath and get haircut. It's sometimes hard to remember given all of these clean cut NASA types running around that nineteen sixty nine was also the epicenter of the hippie movement. For historical context, the Woodstock Music Festival, perhaps the most famous expression of hippie culture is less than one month away. But the House of Lords was assured one day that I made the American submarine would not

quote damage or a full unquote. They locked as monker in one the British tabloid Daily Express said no one will ever understand Lockness. Its conquest will be a greater triumph than the conquest of the mood. Fitting then that the old Georgia man named Dan Taylor built a yellow submarine in his garage and shipped it to Scotland, where he planned to fire biopsy darts into the creature so

scientists could figure out exactly what it was. Luckily, the most famous sea monster in history was safe from the midget sub The Locknest Monster was nowhere to be found. That's Apollo control. Pollo eleven's distance from Earth is three eight nautical miles velocity five thousand, four hundred eleven feet per second. Uh, the Earth should be a lot more in your field of you today, and I'm sure you're a lot more qualified to tell us about that than

we are. It's true. Exactly one day after their Saturn five left the Earth, Michael thinks to himself that his home planet appears no larger than the watch face on his wrist. It's really a fantasticing we all end view. The view up there today is all about mission critical housekeeping, ensuring their metallic home, currently moving at nearly thirty seven hundred miles an hour, remains in tip top shape. This means purging fuel cells, stirring oxygen tanks, recharging batteries, dumping wastewater,

and chlorinating their drinking water. All of it is essential to getting them from here to where they need to go. Remember the story that opened our show, our pilot whose F nine panther was so badly damaged that he had to eject over a rice patty, breaking both his helmet and his tailbone. While that pilot was none other than Neil Armstrong. It's time to meet the astronauts of Apollo eleven. Neil Armstrong was born on August fifth, nineteen thirty, in Wapakanetta, Ohio,

a small town of barely five thousand people. James Hansen wrote Neil's definitive biography, First Man, from the time he was this very small boy who became passionate about the whole idea of airplanes, and as a boy, Neil just begged his mother for the model airplane, and as he got older, his model airplanes got more and more. Just before his sixth birthday, Neil and his father skipped Sunday

school to take a ride in a Ford trimotor. Do you remember the plane that Indiana Jones, Willie and Short Round jumped out of in the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. That's a Ford trimotor. It was there in those wicker seats that Neil realized he wanted to spend the rest of his life in the sky. At age fifteen, he began working in the stock room of a local pharmacy, earning forty cents an hour to

pay for flying lessons. It's a little grass airfield outside of his town of Waplicanetta, Ohio, where they were living. Uh He soloed and got his pilot's license on the dairy day of his birthday. Neil could pilot an aircraft, but he wasn't even old enough to drive a car. At seventeen, Neil graduated from high school and began studying

aeronautical engineering at nearby Purdue University. While he'd been accepted to m I T his family convinced him to take advantage of a new post war government program that paid for students tuition if they would commit to three years flight service with the U. S. Navy. You finished two years of schooling when the Korean War started, and so he was notified that at the end of his second year he would need to report to Pensacola, Florida, where

the naval aviation training took place. Then suddenly, in the pre dawned darkness of June nineteen fifty, South Korean's what jarred awake by living nightmare, unprovoked and unannounced, the Communist latest war of conquest had begun. Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr. Was born into a flying family on January nineteen thirty in New Jersey. His father was a World War One Army pilot and later served as the assistant commandant of the Army's Test Pilot School. Young Edwin was the youngest

of three children. His sister, fay Anne, who was just a year and a half older, struggled with the word brother. She consistently pronounced it as buzzer. Edwin enjoyed her mispronunciation so much that he shortened it to buzz and a opted it as his own. Buzz was a terrific student and a champion football player in high school. His father wanted him to attend the U. S. Naval Academy, but Buzz stood up to him. He wanted to fly, not sail.

There was no US Air Force yet, so if you wanted to fly in the military and you didn't like boats, you joined the Army Air Corps. Buzz did just as well at West Point as he did in high school, graduating third in his class. The Korean War had broken out during his junior year, and he now chose to transition out of the Army and into the brand new Air Force, even though he knew he'd be heading straight

for the front lines. Like Buzz, Michael Collins's father was in the Army, assigned to a base in Rome, Italy, when Michael entered the world on Halloween Day ninety Over the next seventeen years, Michael called eight different military bases home. One of those bases was in Puerto Rico, where a teenage Michael took his first plane ride aboard a Grumm and Widgeon, a small aircraft that could take off and land in the water. He even took controls for part

of the flight and was immediately hooked. Michael finished high school in Washington, d c. His mother was keen for him to work as a diplomat, but Michael wanted to follow his father into military service. He attended West Point and graduated in nineteen fifty two, two years after Buzz, with a bachelor's degree in military science. Buzz graduated third in his class. Michael, I went to West Point primarily

because it was a free and good education. When I graduated from the Military Academy, there was no Air Force academy, but we had a choice of either going into the Army or the Air Force. The Air Force seemed like a more interesting choice. Had he not transition to the Air Force, we wouldn't be talking about him today. This is control. The ignation time for this mid course correction will be twenty six hours, four four minutes fifty seven seconds.

Back in Apollo eleven, more than one hundred and eight thousand miles from the Earth and traveling at more than thirty four hundred miles, the crew is preparing to make a minor course correction. Yesterday, the third stage of the Saturn five launched Apollo eleven toward the Moon. Isaac Newton is currently piloting Apollo eleven. An object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by some other force, but the crew does need to make small course corrections

here and there. One minute to the burn, the duration will be three seconds burning shut down. There's the burn complete that you caught me in our residual term. What was a good burn. Apollo eleven will now begin a series of passive thermal control burns. The astronauts have dubbed this barbecue mode because the spacecraft spins like a rotisserie chicken to ensure one side of the spacecraft is not always exposed to the blistering heat of the sun. And now recovered an opulent rap out of the row of

car driving up down. That was Michael. Ever, the class clown chances are if someone on this mission is cracking a joke or horsing around, it's Michael. He and Buzz are chatting with astronaut Jim Level, who has temporarily taken over at Capcom out of the deal of the airborne again. Bud about Daddy, I've been having a ball floating around in air. Lovel and Buzz shared a far smaller capsule three years earlier on their Gemini mission. But that's jumping

too far ahead in our story. When we last checked in with our cruise younger selves, becoming astronauts wasn't even on their radar screens. They had far larger things to worry about, like surviving one dred and forty collective combat missions in the skies over Korea. That's one hundred and forty different times when our boys could have suffered the same fate as the more than thirty six thousand American war fighters who perished in the Korean War. When Neil's

number got called, he just nineteen. A year or so later, he'd already made his first aircraft carrier landing. In late nineteen fifty, he became the youngest officer at VF fifty one, the Screaming Eagles, the Navy's first all jet fighter squadron. Here's Hanson again. Once that squadron was then its pilots were ready to go. They got aboard their carrier, the Essex, which headed over to the Sea of Japan, where they began operations to fly over North Korea during the Korean War.

Neil flew nearly eighty combat missions over Korea, including the one we profiled at the beginning of this podcast. His active duty commission ended when he was only twenty two, and he transferred back to the United States. As Neil was leaving Korea, Buzz was just getting there. After his initial flight training, Second Lieutenant Aldren had to decide what kind of aircraft he wanted to pilot. His father recommended bombers. Once again, Buzz stood up to his old man and

chose fighters. In late nineteen fifty two, Buzz began patrolling an area of Korea the serviceman dubbed MiG Alley, looking for enemy fighters heading south to terrorize American troops. On May fourteenth, nineteen fifty three, he was in his F eighty six Saber when he spotted an enemy aircraft below him. Luz locked his guns on his target and shot the plane down. Less than a month later, the tables were turned a MiG surprise Buzz and moved in behind him

for the kill. Buzz had only one chance, a high gi maneuver in which he kept crossing over the MiG's direction of travel while cutting his speed. Buzz hoped his adversary would miscalculate and overshoot him. His plan worked. The fifty caliber machine gun brought the enemy plane down Back on Apollo eleven. Michael Collins, of course, is joking around with Jim Level about all the housekeeping chores Houston has the crew doing. I've been very busy so far. I'm

working for it, tagging afternon. I've been cooking and sleeping and almost going and then well, you know the years, your little house, big thing. It was very convenient the way they put the food preparations. That's right next to the math days, everything right next to everything that was armstrong reminding level than in a spacecraft this small, everything's within arm's reach. While the crew takes a break for lunch, Bruce McCandless returns to the capcomposition. I gred that music

got here in the background thing. Okay, ye, Michael's having a joke at Bruce's expense. The crew is enjoying Angel of the Morning by Merrily Rush and the Turnabouts. Shortly after they conclude their lunch, the crew passes a significant milestone. A Polo eleven distance from the Moon is one five thousand, seven hundred nine nautical miles. At the present time. In terms of distance, Apollo eleven has just passed the halfway point on its trip to the Moon. In terms of time,

they still have more than a day's journey. Based on the present trajectory, a Polo eleb and will enter the lunar sphere of influence at an elapsed time of sixty one hours, thirty nine minutes fifty eight seconds. The lunar sphere of influence is that point at which the gravity of the Moon becomes stronger than the gravity of the Earth. Yeah, are you that way? How are you fine? Team? Today? The White teams bright at Bucky Dale, wherever learned down there.

It's time to meet Neil, Buzz and Michael's co pilots and mission control. These are the guys who keep a close watch over the spacecraft's trajectory, hardware, and software, as well as the crew's health. These unsung heroes are the backbone of every NASA mission. They operate out of a place they initiated, reverently referred to as the Cathedral. The high priest of the cathedral is the flight director, whose

call sign is simply flight. These men were responsible for overseeing every element of any given mission while a mission was in progress. Not even the NASA administrator or the President of the United States could countermand in order given by flight. If they wanted to overrule him, they had to fire him. Flight supervises a hive mind of brilliant kids. And I say kids because for most of the men helming these consoles, this was their first job out of college.

Why are they so young? Simple? NASA needed flight controllers fluent in the latest emergent technologies, meeting computers. Bill Barry is NASA's chief historian who's an expert on going into space. Nobody that that capability didn't really exist in MR Control. Their average ages about six uh and so it's a really young group of folks who really set the stage for getting to the Moon and really create our space program. I'm Steven Bales. I was the guidance officer on Apollo

level the time to follow eleven mission flew. I was the people that led us were older than example Jean Kransmas Ticks, I believe, and then we call them the older folks older. If you picture Mission Control in your mind, it looks like something straight out of a movie. A high tech control center dominated by massive display screens flanked by four long rows of twenty consoles. The first of our four rows is known as the trench. These guys job was monitoring what the ship was doing and where

it was going. Let's take a look at our mission control roster. The Flight Dynamics Officer or FIDO, supervises the spacecraft's trajectory over the course of the entire mission. Guido is the guidance officer. He monitors Apollos onboard systems, making sure where the spacecraft is and where it thinks it is are aligned. When we get to the moon landing, you're going to get to know Steve Bales and this console very well. Retro is the Retro fire officer. His

job is getting the crew back home again. Taken together, Fido, Guido, and Retro are Apollo eleven's ground pilots. Behind the trench is a second row of consoles, which includes the surgeon. That position is occupied by a medical doctor responsible for monitoring the health of the crew. To avoid chaos and confusion, the astronauts only ever communicate with a single person in mission control, the capsule communicator or capcom. You should already

know this position pretty well. The person in this seat is always an astronaut. The flight director oversees everything from the third row. The final top row is reserved for various agency management and the public affairs officer giving play by play commentary for the public. Obviously, these guys can't stay at their console. Apollo eleven had four rotating shifts, divided into the black, White, Green, and Maroon teams. And

that's not even everybody. There were also hundreds of other mission control technicians working in various back rooms throughout the building, directly supporting each of the consoles we just ran through, plus nearly two dozen more. Oh and one last thing. This was a man's world, if ever there was one. But that didn't mean there weren't women already taking pick

axes to that glass ceiling. I was tired, is what was called a computerst It occurred to me that I was as smart as those guys, that we're earning a lot more million than I was. That's Poppy north Cut. She had a degree in mathematics and was hired by TRW, a NASA contractor, to check the work of the male engineers in mission control. Unlike her male colleagues who were salaried, Poppy, because she was a woman, was hourly and not paid

beyond nine hours a day. My supervisor would come around and tell me, you know, at six o'clock, state law says we can't pay you. And I would just say, I understand that. I just keep on working. Poppy would not only come in early and stay late, she would bring her work home with her, going over everything until she knew it backwards and forwards. I think that was the real key to want I got promoted and other people didn't. I really became a member of the team.

Poppy was assigned to the retro flight controller. Her job was to help compute the trajectories that ensured the Apollo spacecraft traveled to and from the Moon safely. She was

the first woman to ever work in mission control. I didn't know I was going to be the first three knowledge and during mission control when I walked in there, and you're certainly aware that you stand out and that you're an object of attention, and it's it's always a little uncomfortable, especially if your whole idea is that you want to be a member of the team. I mean, you want to blend into the team. You don't want to be standing out. Poppy was tall, blond, and beautiful.

She did stand out. ABC's Jules Bergman once interviewed her, asking how much attention do men in mission control pay to a pretty girl wearing miniskirts? Yeah, she was swimming in a sea of sexism. My feeling was that it was important for women and men for that matter, to know that women could do these jobs. So you had to put up with a certain amoun out of that stuff.

And with that, let's return to Apollo eleven, where Michael is running an experiment to mess with mission control, because that's what astronauts with a bit of spare time in their hands. Do you got any maddict right, I'm trying to do some running in light down here, and I'm wondering curiosity where they break my heart rate up? Uh? Well they will spring in acting here momentarily said Michael

is running in place in zero gravity. He's curious if the exertion, without actually impacting any surfaces, will increase his heart rate and show up on the flight surgeon's monitors. Soon, Neil and Buzz decided to join him very inflat I'd like to see that night. Why don't you give us a TV picture of that one? Everybody's running from levon Houston Mike, we say about a ninety so hardly now right, there's a reasonable Michael decides to haul to his experiment.

Remember there are no showers on Apollo eleven. After the war, Neil went back to school. Korea had hijacked his degree, and now it was time to jump back in. That wasny too, It was really old man. We have this image of Neil as a stick in the mud, but he joined a fraternity, wrote and co directed to student musicals, and played in the Purdue All American Marching Band, and of course he continued flying. At a party one night, he met Janet Elizabeth Sharon, a home economics major NASA

historian James Hanson. Janet grew up in suburban Chicago, a very different kind of upbringing than Neil. She went to Purdue and she was very popular there. She's a very attractive and vivasious young woman. Neil told his roommates later that night that he just met his future wife, but it still took him three years to find the askar out of a date. He was not the sort of person to rush into anything. In January of nineteen fifty five,

Neil graduated Perdue with a degree in aeronautical engineering. The following year, he married Janet. Soon the happy couple moved to a small off the grid cabin in southern California, where Neil began work as an experimental research test pilot at Edwards Air Force Base. Edwards is the flight test center of the United States Air Force Air Research and Development Command. Here, men in search of truth fly into

the world of the future. Edwards is the place where all the really hot and new experimental airplanes were being tested. It was here, nearly a decade earlier that Chuck Yeager first broke the sound barrier in the Bell X one Glamorous Glennis, and he does it the first human to attract the sound barrier. Decades later, the facility would become a NASA campus and be renamed the Neil A Strong Flight Research Center. But we're clearly getting ahead of ourselves.

Neil's fellow pilots were astonished at his flying prowess, as well as his ability to master dozens of different aircraft. He was regarded as intense and enigmatic in a field of swagger and bluster. He rarely opened his mouth. He let his superb flying do all the talking. But that didn't mean he didn't have a close call or two.

There was the time in the spring of nineteen fifty six when Neil was co piloting a B twenty nine super Fortress when one of the propellers shadowed it, shredded the engine beside it, and launched trapnel through the fuselage, destroying one of the engines on the opposite wing. Armstrong and his copilot landed the massive bomber using only one of its floor engines. Neil's next brush with death was in something a bit more high tech. The X fifteen was more rocket than plane and flew at the boundary

of space. Before the X fifteen, the question had been what is to be man's role in space travel? Kenny pilot on air craft out of the Earth's atmosphere, fly it in space, then re entered the atmosphere, and bring it back to a safe landing on Earth. During one particular descent, the X fifteen's nose refused to pitch downward, meaning that the plane kept bouncing off from the atmosphere. Over the course of his life, Neil would have more than a half dozen brushes with death. So for six years,

basically he's flying almost every day. You know, Without that experience, he really would not have been ready for the astronaut experience. Neil might have had the perfect experience, but he was ineligible to become an astronaut. He was no longer in the military, and an active duty status was a NASA requirement. After the Korean War ended, Buzz returned home and married Joan Archer, a young woman his parents had set him

up with shortly before he went overseas. She was a stage actress with a masters in theater from Columbia University. Their wedding day was only the fifth time they'd ever gone out together. Joan called marriage her greatest role. One of Buzz's fellow officers at his new squadron was Ed White. Ed was getting a master's degree in aeronautical engineering because he wanted to be an astronaut and encouraged Buzz to do the same. Buzz enrolled at m I T and

went all in getting a doctorate instead. Doctor Buzz Aldrin graduated in early nineteen sixty three with a degree in astronautics. His doctoral thesis was titled Line of Sight Guidance Techniques for Manned Orbital Rendezvous. He dedicated the thesis to those working in America's space program. If only I could join them in their exciting endeavors, Buzz admitted in the dedication. Buzz had applied for NASA's Gemini program, but his application

was rejected. Another NASA requirement was that all astronaut candidates had to be test pilots. Neil and Buzz were out of the running. That left Michael Collins. Michael never went to war. By the time he graduated from flight training, the Korean War was over. In nineteen fifty six, Michael met his wife, Patricia Finnegan, at the base officers club. She was a social worker taking some time off to see the world. They were married the following year and

were soon joined by two daughters and a son. Pat gushed about how wonderful a husband and father Michael was. Unlike many of his colleagues, Michael was able to leave work at the office at home. He was happy, relaxed, and devoted to his family. Maybe that's because he hated his job commanding an aircraft mechanics school. He still managed to get in more than fift undred flight hours, the minimum requirement for the Air Force's Experimental Test Pilot school.

At where else Edwards Air Force Space, and in nineteen sixty he began flying the most technically challenging and futuristic aircraft rolling off the line. But after John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth on February nineteen sixty two, Michael instantly knew what he wanted to do, and it was simple logical thing to go on to the next increment, which was higher and faster, and become

an astronaut rather than a test pilot. The Air Force was behind him all the way, going so far as to send him to specialized training and even charm school to increase his chances. But despite it all, Michael, like Neil and Buzz, was rejected. I didn't make that I didn't have sufficient experience, They said. None of these men

were ever going to see space. Now that their housekeeping duties have been accomplished, it's time for the crew of Apollo eleven to begin their first scheduled color telecast, transmitting their incredible views back to their home planet. Neil begins by describing the view of Earth out of Polo eleven's windows. Our left hand window, we're looking at the eastern Pacific of the North America. We got doing a good job

at the real estate picture here. Clarity is an excellent Today, we're so used to images of our beautiful spherical planet that it's necessary to be reminded that just fifty years ago, seeing Earth from space was still a unique and aw spy thing. The person holding the camera so steadily is Michael, but always the jokester. He can't pass up an opportunity to give millions of people back on Earth vertigo. Hey world, hold on your head, I'm gonna turn you upside down.

He begins spinning the camera eleven. That's a pretty good roll there, that's very flappy. Let me out hein, You'll never be at the Thunderberg. Charlie Duke is mocking Michael's camera work, claiming he'll never be better than the Air Force's aerobatic Demonstration Squadron. Magay that good and put you back right inside up bray Blon Roger could comply, we'd like to see smiling faces up there if you could give us some intery re views. I'm sure everybody likes

to see you over. Mission control has seen enough of the Earth. Charlie wants to see the astronauts themselves. Quite my gout, who they had big Mike Colin there. Yeah, hello there, you got up in a may but Mail the center couch and Buzzy doing the camera work good time, right, put on a okay, but I don't about them. Add that Roger looked like Neil was coming in five by their eleven and nail Dannon on his head again. He

trying to make me nervous. Buzz must have enjoyed his exercise earlier, because he decides to demonstrate how the crew stays physically fit in zero gravity. We can get some of the wire and untangled. Here. We'll give you a demonstration of how easy push ups are up here. Buzz begins doing some pushups on what is according to the orientation of the camera the command modules floor. And it's pretty hard doing it that way. Why we just rolling over and do it the other way. He begins doing

more pushups off the ceiling. All right, we copy. I didn't figure out whether that was a pin up or put up joints. I guess clearly the guys are enjoying weightlessness. When we last checked in with Neil, Buzz, and Michael, they had each been rejected by the Astronaut program. Buzz had no test pilot experience, Michael didn't have enough, and Neil was no longer in the military, all required as to be an astronaut. But as time went on, NASA began changing its rules. It no longer required active duty

military service. Civilians could now apply, but Neil didn't even know if he wanted to. In those days, space flight was not generally regarded as a realistic objective. That was a bit buying this guy. I was plying the X fifteen, and I had the understanding or belief that if I continued, I would be the chief pilot of that project. Ironically, it was all those hours in the X fifteen that made him a shoe in to be selected, or at least he would have been had he sent his application

in on time. NASA's James Hansen, Neil's daughter Karen two an a half years old, dies in late January nineteen two. She had a glioma of the ponds, which is very malignant brain tumor that had been diagnosed a few months earlier. So the call for a new class of astronauts came right during that spring, when he was still very significantly affect by the daughters. That luckily someone at NASA knew of Neil's incredible skills and snuck his tardy application into

the pile. He got the job. He thought maybe it was time for a fresh start, and I think Janet felt that way about it too well. Initially depressed after his NASA rejection, Michael Collins threw himself into his work with even greater abandoned. He began flying the F one oh four Starfighter, which was capable of flying at ninety thousand feet. Any higher and you'd have to call it a spacecraft. In nineteen sixty three, when NASA again began

calling for astronauts, Michael resubmitted his application. He now logged more thans of flight time. The second time was the charm. This time Project Gemini came calling, went their pockets started the first Mercury astronauts were more or less along for the ride. They had little to do. The rocket went up, their capsule came back down. But Buzz knew that the Moon was the goal, meaning the complexity was about to

increase exponentially. NASA would soon need people for the Gemini and Apollo programs who were fluent in navigating space and finding and doalking with other spacecraft in short, NASA would need more than just hotshot test pilots. They would need brilliant engineers who understood complex orbital mechanics. In nineteen sixty three, doctor Buzz again applied to become an astronaut. This time NASA was requiring either test pilot experience or a thousand

hours of flight time in a jet aircraft. Buzz and more than two thousand he was in. Finally, the stars were calling. Neil, Buzz and Michael traded their military green flight suits for NASA blue. Buzz was the first astronaut with an advanced degree, and based his studies, was assigned to help NASA develop docking scenarios. Soon he earned the name Doctor Rendezvous. His fellow astronauts did not always intend that as a compliment, it was said he could out

compute a computer. A loner among his fellow astronauts, Buzz was regarded as an easy man to admire but a hard man to like. But he was, also, according to one of his trainers, the best scientific mind to ever go into space. Neil's first trip into space where Gemini eight, was almost his last. After docking with an unmanned a Gina target vehicle, he and crewmate Dave Scott suddenly realized that their capsule was rotating. Neil used the capsule's thrusters

to stop their rotation, except that it didn't work. Nothing Neil did seemed to stop the joint spacecraft from tumbling end over end. Something must be wrong with the aegina. Scott separated the two spacecraft and Neil backed their capsule away. However, instead of finding themselves stabilized, the capsules spin began accelerating. The capsule was spinning at revolution a second. Neil and Dave's vision was beginning to blur. When the rates became

quite violent. I concluded that we just we couldn't continue. I was afraid we might lose consciousness. If Neil didn't stop this, they would soon pass out and die. He noticed that his thruster propellant reserve indicated less than There was no way it should be that low. Even with all the maneuvers he had been attempting. One of his

thrusters must be locked in the on position. Neither of us thought the Germany might be the culprit, because it could easily hear the gemany thrusters were whenever they fired crack crack, crack, crack, and we weren't hearing anything. The reason we didn't hear it as you don't hear it when it's running steadily. Neil shut the entire system off and engaged the thrusters designed to orient the spacecraft for

atmospheric reentry. It was a dangerous choice. They'd need those thrusters to get home, but if they didn't get this issue fixed, they wouldn't be going home. By the time Neill regain control of the spacecraft, he'd used up seventy of the re entry thrust or fuel. That meant they'd have to cancel the rest of the mission and return to Earth immediately. It was a great disappointment to us to have to cut that flight short. We had so many things we wanted to do it well. The mission

was more or less considered a bust. One thing stood out Neil Armstrong. Not only did he not break under pressure, his quick thinking and skilled piloting saved the mission. Michael's first mission was Gemini ten, during which he conducted a number of spacewalks. His orders were to exit the capsule and traverse the length of the a Genus spacecraft they docked with, but there weren't nearly enough handholds built onto either spacecraft, and Michael couldn't wrap his bloated pressurized gloves

around the ones that were there. And then I went car whiling ass over cake cattle, up and around and about until I came to the end of my tether and then it swung me in a great, big arc. I mean, it was more acrobatics and on a trap pays as terrifying an experience as that was. Michael later said he felt like a Roman god writing the skies in his chariot. Buzz flew on Gemini twelve, the final

Gemini mission, alongside Jim Lovell in nineteen sixty six. When Gemini twelves radar failed in orbit, Buzz had to use an old fashioned sextant and rendezvous charts that he helped create to successfully locate their Genus spacecraft. Before Buzz left, his wife Jones, said that she was convinced that once Buzz got back, their relationship would be much more magical and meaningful because of this experience. But after Buzz returned home,

he instead fell into a deep depression. This dark period coming right on the heels of such an astonishing personal accomplishment would not be Buzzes last. It would happen again. So how did Neil, Buzz and Michael make it on too Apollo eleven? Sure they had the resume and they had the skills, but how exactly did these three men

get chosen for the Moon? Each part of a Paula was tested in stages, two uncrewed missions for crude missions to test the various spacecraft, and finally the seventh mission,

the landing itself. Most people assume the astronauts were assigned to their missions ahead of time, with Neil, Buzz and Michael knowing they were going to the Moon from the very beginning, But that wasn't the case because NASA knew that any hiccup, either a sick astronaut or a malfunctioning spacecraft would throw the entire rotation into chaos, and there were a lot of traumatic hurdles on the weight of

the Moon. One astronaut was repeatedly injured in training, three others were killed in a series of plane crashes, and of course, on January nine, the Apollo programs stopped cold when Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffey, the crew of Apollo one were burned to death in a training exercise. Apollo astronauts Roger Chaffey, Edward White, and Gus Grissom lose their lives and a tragic flash fire aboard a grounded space capsule. The tragedy occurred during a simulated countdown for

the first flight of the Apollo program. If ed White's name sounds familiar, that's because he was Buzz's friend who encouraged him to get an advanced degree and apply to become an astronaut. Meanwhile, Michael Collins began losing sensation in his legs. Sometimes they would buckle beneath him while he was walking and he'd end up sprawled on the ground. He developed a bone spur in his neck pressing on his spinal cord, and he had to be yanked for surgery.

For all the people back on Earth eight having that made that we would like then a beginning. On Christmas Eve night, as Apollo eight orbited the Moon, Deeck Slayton, the director of Flight Crue Operations, pulled Neil Armstrong aside. He told Neil he was being given command of Apollo eleven unless something throw a monkey wrench into Nassa's plans. This was going to be the mission that would land

on the Moon. Michael call And had just returned to duty after a successful surgery, and Slayton wanted to put him on Apollo eleven, and by this time Neil had been teamed with Buzz, but Slayton gave Neil the option of replacing him. A lot of people didn't like Buzz. He was a bossy, know it all and rubbed many people in the program the wrong way. Slayton offered Jim Lovell in his place, but Neil said that he wanted

to keep Buzz. He'd never had any issues with him, and besides, Buzzes arrogance was equal to his skills, the perfect companion to accompany him to the surface of the Moon. And just like that, the crew of Apollo eleven was cemented. There would be no further reshuffling. Less than a year later, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldron, and Michael Collins would leave for the Moon. It was more than anything else, pure dumb luck. Before we get back to the Apollo spacecraft. I'd be

remiss if I didn't say that. While Neil, Buzz and Michael were obviously thrilled to be going to the moon. Their wives greeted the news somewhat differently. When Joe Aldron found out that Buzz had been selected, she didn't know whether to cheer year or weep. She suddenly found herself wishing she'd married a carpenter or a truck driver, anything but an astronaut. Neil's wife, Janet, was angry with her husband because the closer the launch date came, the more

withdrawn and uncommunicative Neil became. She had to force him to sit down with their children and explain that if something went wrong, Daddy would not be coming home. Polo eleon hethan as it doesn't think slowly, and it went the white thing they do. Good night, Hey Aaron, you play today night? Day two is over. On day three, a million things need to go right to ensure Apollo eleven makes it to the Moon in one piece. The Apollo program is the result of hundreds of companies, tens

of thousands of people, and billions of dollars. On our next episode, we'll look at how we built Apollo and why I believe it or not. Most Americans did not want to see us go to the moon. This podcast is a production of I Heart Radio and trade Craft Studios, Executive producers Ash Serohia and Scott Bernstein in association with High five Content, and executive producer Andrew Jacobs. Amazing research and production assistants by associate producers Brian Showsau and Natalie Robomed.

Our incredible editor is Bill Lance. Original music by Henry ben Wah. The experts who contributed to this episode were NASA historian Bill Berry, Neil Armstrong, biographer James Hansen, and mission controls Steve Bales and Poppy Northcutt. Thanks to this episode's voice actor Chris Germain. Licensing rights and clearances by Deborah Correa. This is a brand new podcast and we're so excited to be sharing it with you. Help us spread it far and wide, tell your friends, leave ratings

and reviews, and chat about it on social media. Our hashtag is nine D I J. We would love to hear what you think. New episodes come out every week, so be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Brandon Phibbs. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next episode.