Nine Days in July is a production of I Heart Radio and trade Craft Studios in association with High five Content. It's May sixth, nineteen sixty eight Ellington Air Force Base, Texas. Neil Armstrong is sitting behind the controls of the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle. This isn't a simulator like the building bound trainers I described last episode. This one actually flies.
The l l r V employs a massive, downward facing turbojet engine to counteract five six of the vehicle's weight and better simulate how the lunar module will behave on the mood. Two rockets and sixteen smaller thrusters provide vertical and horizontal motion and allow for fine movements. The l r V isn't pretty. It's basically a flat, square body, four legs in each corner and an open cockpit. The
astronauts call it the flying bedstead. According to those who've taken the stick, it is notoriously hard to fly, but profoundly easy to correct. On this day, several hundred feet in the air, Neil is struggling with the controls as he tries to bring the machine in for a landing. Suddenly, the rockets give out, and the l l RV begins to plummet. Neil increases power to the turbojet, but as he does, the vehicle makes an uncommanded pitch forward two
feet above the ground. Neil hits the jet button, his body is instantly accelerated to fourteen g's. He's so low that his parachute is open for only four seconds before he crashes back to the earth. Across the field from him, the ll RV dives into the ground and erupts in a giant fireball. If he'd waited even a second longer, he'd still have been strapped into the seat when it exploded.
More than any other piece of equipment NASA had, the l l RV was the best analog for what it would be like when Neil took the LEMBS controls and guided it to the lunar surface. As he rises shakily to his feet watching the l l RV burn, how could he not be wondering if this is the fate that awaits him and Buzz There are no ejection seats in the lamb. It's July, day five of the Apollo eleven mission. This is the day humans can make history
by stepping foot on another world. This is a follow control ninety three hours, nine minutes ground and laps time the follow eleven. Good morning from the black day. I look like you're really sawing away all right. After having breakfast, I'm getting all squared away. After the night's rest period, the crew will have a rather busy day to day, including the first man landing on the Moon. A busy day. Indeed, yesterday, four days after they left Earth, the conjoined Command Service
Module and the Lunar Module arrived in orbit around the Moon. Today, Mission commander Neil Armstrong and Lunar Module pilot Buzz Aldrin will attempt to make history by landing a spacecraft on the Moon and setting bootprints in its ash. Like service members of the White team of flight controllers ended up by Eugene krantz Or drifting into the control room now to relieve the night watch. One of those White team members is guidance Officer Steve Bales, who you might remember
from a previous episode. You could have cut the tension in that room that day with a knife. Some of the managers have been into business thirty years said they had never seen attention that they had felt in that room that day. But you also get this failing that this is a place something's going to happen at. I mean, this is a place started like the box where Columbus last thing you know, and he sailed offer to America
for Gene Krantz. It's only just now beginning to sink in that today is the day they've been working towards for the better part of a decade. He's wearing his wife's good luck charm, a silver and white vest. She makes a new one for each of her husband's, but today's is especially beautiful. Elsewhere in Houston, the astronauts families are just arriving home after a morning spent at church.
Each of their homes are surrounded by ravenous press. It isn't long before a small army of friends and family, most bearing pot like dishes begin showing up to offer moral support. Inside TVs and coffee pots are already hard at work. It's going to be a long day. In the corner of each living room is a squawk box, which NASA installed shortly before Apollo eleven launched into space. The devices allow the families to listen in on the
communications between mission control and the spacecraft. Basically what you've been hearing throughout this podcast. Joan Aldrin finds a spot on the couch and lights a cigarette. The nearby ashtray is already in desperate need of being emptied. Chain smoking is an unfortunate side effect of being an astronaut's wife. Back aboard Apollo eleven, the crew has donned their bulky pressure garments, and Neil and Buzz have powered up the lunar module. The time has come to separate the two spacecraft.
Michael seals the hatches and begins depressurizing the airlock. He is now alone in the command module. Neil and Buzz prepared to deploy the lunar modules for landing legs, which until now have been tucked tight against the spacecraft's ungainly body. Okay, we're gonna put our gear down the landing here, and
by damn about ain't no doubt about that. Inside the limb, Neil and Buzz conduct a series of checks confirming their guidance system, thrusters, descent propulsion system, and rendezvous radar are all working properly. That last bit sounds innocuous, but it's not. Remember the rendezvous radar follow eleven. Then we'll go for
undocking over Roger understand. As Apollo eleven curls around the far side of the Moon, it once again loses radio contact with Houston, as will happen so often on this massive and critical maneuvers are conducted without the comforting tether of mission controls. Where are you at? Okay on a maneuver? Nap to unlocking at you when you know? An't even radarselves that is complete? Let me know and I'll check
out my fand finding there it is again. Rendezvous radar on Buzzes checklist is the command to make sure the radar is picking up a transponder on board the command module. This tells the LAMB where and how far away it is. Without the transponder, it will be almost impossible to find Michael in the command module once they leave the Moon. Thanks man, it checked out. Exagur Ago you guys. The two spacecraft separate, Michael has to ensure that he undocks
without damaging the seals on either module. If the docking ports are damnitched, Neil and buzz will have to perform a spacewalk tomorrow to get back in. But this is Michael we're talking about, and he makes it look easy. There is no more Apollo eleven. The Eagle and the
Columbia are now two separate spacecraft orbiting the Moon. Michael allows Columbia to drift a short distance away from the lunar module and takes the opportunity to inspect the eagles exterior and to ensure the landing gear is properly deployed. The MESA is a compartment on the belly of the Eagle's descent stage that holds the various equipment and tools the crew will need once they land. A moment later, the two spacecraft round the Moon and come back into
contact with mission control. Brock your hen and said, look, I can find like a blant upside down. Somebody's upside down in space. There is no upside to out. Michael fires Columbia's thrusters and moves himself away, ensuring the Eagle is free and clear to navigate. The lamb initiates its descent orbit insertion burn. This is not the big burn that's going to get the Eagle down to the Moon, but rather a short one to lower them down to
about fifty feet in preparation for their final descent. Every second of the burn removes nearly two miles from their health team from more of it. Michael watches the eagle getting smaller and smaller until it disappears from view altogether. Once again, the maneuver occurs out of radio contact with Houston. Back in mission control, Jean kranslights a new cigarette. He can't even count how many he's already had this morning. He's been writing furiously in his log book and notices
that the pages are wet and beginning to curl. He's sweating a lot. But at his console, Steve Baale suddenly has nothing to do, and we've had about fifteen minutes to acquisition, and Jeane says, I want you flight controllers to go to this special loop that was private. I had to tell these kids how proud I was of the work that they had done, and from this stay, from the time that they were born, they were destined to be here, and they're destined to do this job.
And it's the best team that has ever been assembled. And today, without a doubt, we are going to write in the history books and we're going to be the team that takes an American to the moon. And do you do not know how much that meant? For somebody like myself sitting there at with do knowing what we were going to have to do in the next few minutes. His pep talk concluded, Jean has the doors to mission control locked. No one can go in or out. It's go time. We should have cut off by this time,
that should have completed the decent orbit insertion maneuver. Spacecraft is now behind the Moon and the control team the adrenal one, I mean just really was, no matter how you tried to hide it. The fact is is that you are really starting to pump. Might demand complaint. This is a follow control of one hours fifty four minutes. I believe. Back in the viewing room, we probably have one of the largest assemblages of space officials that we've
ever seen in one place. Mission Control is bursting at the seams with dignitaries and v I p s. Basically anyone who's anyone in NASA is here. It's growing quite quiet here in mission control. A few moments ago, Flight Director Jane Kranz requested that everyone sit down, get prepared for events that are coming, and he closed with very remark good luck to all of you. We are now coming up on thirty seconds to acquisition of the command module. Well, we do get our acquisition, but it is a most
horrible sounding noise that you've ever heard. Here we're getting ready to go to the moon and we can't even talk to the crew directly. We have to call Mike Collins and the command module to relay data down in the lunar model. Don't get any hear right here ago for a five datement over com fun no and as you can hear, the calms are terrible, But that isn't stopping buzz from grinning ear to ear. Five seconds after the engine ignites, Steve Bales once again loses all data
from the moonship. When it comes back a minute or so later, he sees something's not right. We were going toward the moon per second fashion than we should have been. If we get to thirty five ft per second, I've got to stop the desa. I've got to call the board. Well, boy, when you haven't even started down to the moon and some guy comes to you and says, hey, we're halfway to our aboard women to share, gets your attention. So why was the lamb flying so much faster than anyone anticipated?
Gene explains the crew had not fully pressed the tunnel between the two space crafts, so when they blew the bolt, there was a little residual air in there at let start of like pop on a cark on a bottle. But of course no one knows this at the time. All they know is that for some reason, the spacecraft is traveling faster than it should be. Either that or something's wrong with the navigational computer. Either way, the tension
in mission control has now reached suffocating levels. Luckily, the calms seem to be back, but then to take down to dealt long. Neil has just recognized what Steve Bales and everyone in mission control already knows. The lamb is not where it's supposed to be. Neil is watching the terrain go by outside his window, and he realizes they are going to overshoot their landing zone. Neil rotates the lamb into a face up, feet forward position. This must be done so that when the Eagle is put upright,
they will be facing forward during the landing. Now he and Buzz are looking at nothing but the void of outer space, well not quite nothing. Back in mission control, Steve Bales continues to monitor the lemb's progress Thankfully the mooncraft has not gained any additional speed. That a word danger that everyone feared no longer seems to be an issue, and I think my big problem for the day is over.
Twenty seconds later, we'd get a program alarm, program alarm about two about and I was frantically scrambling, Oh my guys, it's one of those alarms who worked on. I have the cheat sheet over in my left side, but before I can even see it, Jack Garmin is yelling in my air Steve, Steve, Remember it's executive overflowed the program alarm. Neil and Buzz don't recognize the alarm, and they are too busy to go rummaging through their manuals looking for
an explanation. Communication dropouts were a nuisance more than a danger, but computer problem was a show stopper. I didn't really know the consequences of those alarm, but fortunately Stephen oas guys on g n N console new I say to the flight director, we're going that alarm right here. We
got you. We're going at alarm. Do you recall the story from our last episode that I told you to remember the final simulation that mission control went through the one that would never happen in real life, the one that made geene Krants so angry. Well, this is real life and the exact same thing is happening right now, except this time mission control knows exactly what's going on, and they all remember what they were told after the simulation.
You should not have aboorded some person, and we've never been able to identify with The voice loop comes up and says, this is just like a simulation. The Eagles computer is overloaded with tasks. It cannot process them all. The alarm is its way of saying, hey, everybody, I've got a lot more on my plate than I can handle, so I'm going to concentrate on the most critical items and leave the rest for later. For nine, the Lembs
computer is as cutting edge as it gets. It has two K of RAM and thirty six K of raw memory. If you're not a computer person like me, those numbers likely don't mean anything to you, so let me break it down for you. The last email you sent was likely twice as large as that. The lemb computer had less memory than a high school graphing calculator, and yet
it got us to the mood. NASA was the first in the world to use microchips, allowing them to power a computer the size of a briefcase rather than a machine the size of a room. The moon landing didn't usher in the space age. It ushered in the digital age. And just what is if it's causing the data overflow? You probably figured it out by now. The rendezvous radar buzz left it on just in case they needed to abort and make a quick ascent back to Michael in
the command module. It proved one item too many for the computer to handle. Okay, i'll flight controllers and should be throttling down. You're looking great. Neil pitches the Eagle up so that the vehicle is now traveling with its legs pointed down towards the Moon. They are over unfamiliar territory on the southwestern edge of the Sea of Tranquility, more than four miles beyond their target. Below them is a deep crater the size of a football field, and
it is strew with massive boulders. Realizing that the autopilot is going to try to land the spacecraft in the middle of that crater, Neil disengages the computer and takes control himself. He needs to find a new landing site. His heartbeat has skyrocketed from seventy seven beats a minute to fifty six. Okay, I'll flight comtrollers go, I'll go for landing retro. I don't know, sorry, good Go Capcom or Gopher landing, Go get the year, go for landing over.
I heard a thank go for landing three thousands three alarm. Another alarm, this time twelve o one. It's in the same series as the one before, and Steve Bales doesn't even hesitate this time. Okay, we're going to go. Thank I We're go on board the LAMB. Neil is intent on landing alarms or no alarms. You're always concerned when any kind of alarm comes on. But uh my own heeling was that as long as everything was going well and looked right, I would be in favor of continuing,
no matter what the computers was complaining about it. There doesn't seem to be anywhere to set down and aboard. Suddenly seems very likely to have come this far only to abandon their prize. Now, Neil Armstrong. It was far and away the most complex part of them, the flight. The systems were very heavily loaded at that time. The unknowns were rampant. The systems in this mode had only been tested on Earth and never in the real environment. There were just a thousand things to worry about in
the final descent. Nine and ninety nine of those things are boulders the size of cars. It was a fairly steep slope and it was covered with very big rocks. There were some attractive areas half mile ahead or so, so that's where I went. But now there's another even more serious problem. They didn't plan for the descent to take this long, and they are running out of fuel fast level. While normally by the time he calls out low level we have landed in training. Then we're not
even close to landing here. Back at her home in Houston, Joan Aldrin rises to her feet, sways unsteadily for a moment, and collapses onto the floor. She lays there for a few moments, absolutely overwhelmed. When she rises, she braces herself against the wall for support. Break that a far feel okay, look area. You may not have been able to make that last bit out right before. Neil said he found
an area he likes. Buzz informed him that they are down to eight percent of their fuel it's now or never. A lot before it got about break, I got a good Neil just said he's got a good spot. I part five quantity light. That's how much fuel they have left. Hey, that's looking good. Down a half look forward sex day
saconds sixty seconds. Mission control is telling Neil that if he's not on the ground in one minute, he has to abort the landing or fade down at above the lunar surface, and buzzes noticing that their descent engine is starting to disturb the lunar dust. Far forward, Far Forward dripped into the right level half. Neil must put down
within thirty seconds or abort the mission. There's a lot of concern about coming close to running out a fuel, But I didn't know that if I could have my speed stabilized and attitude stabilized, I could fall from fairly good height Propps, maybe forty feet or more, and in the low lunar gravity, the gear would distorb that much fall. That was Neil armstrong. Given that the Moon's gravity is one six of that on Earth. Neil is planning on letting the landers simply dropped to the surface. Here's the
thing about the lemb's legs. They were designed to get crushed. Inside the struts is a honeycomb structure that will compress on landing. Neil is that if they run out of fuel and aren't too high when it happens, they can simply fall in the moon significantly lower gravity, and the legs will absorb the impact. There are only three options that day. Either going to land, You're going to a board. You're gonna crash. There's no more what happens. I'm not
gonna call a boar. The crew is close enough to the surface. I'm gonna let them give it their best shot. Carlton was just ready to say fifteen seconds and anyway here the crow say contact right. Three of the four lamb footpads are equipped with nearly six ft long probes to alert the crew in contact with the surfaces made. At least one of those probes has made contact with a jolt, not unlike a passenger jet touching down on a runaway, the lamb comes to a stop. The silence
is deafening. The two men glance at each other in relief. The eagle has only forty five seconds worth of fuel remaining because of avoiding hostile terrain, their descent has taken your thirteen minutes longer than planned and burned roughly five hundred and thirty unplanned pounds of fuel. Neil's heart rate is a thunderous one and fifty beats per minute, and they are approximately four miles from where they planned on landing, but they are on the Moon. Outside Neil sees something
that takes his breath away. Was absolutely dumbfounded when I shut the rocket engine off and the particles were going out radially from the bottom of the engine belt all the way all over the horizon and instantaneously disappeared. There is so little atmospheric resistance on the Moon that the lunar dust scattered by the lembs exhaust raced away from the spacecraft at the speed of a bullet and traveled
halfway around the Moon before it finally settled. Buzz grabs Neil's hand and whispers, we made it, and here the ankle has landed. Rocket crank quiality. We caty on the ground. You gotta fight the guys about the turn blue. We're breathing again. So long as the spacecraft is resting on the Moon, it will no longer be referred to as the Eagle. Now it is Tranquility Base. I was so excited I couldn't get out Tranquility Base. It came out. So I'm like Roger Houston, Tranquility Base, and I believe
that's true. It was a true statement, was spontaneous, but it was true. I mean we were I was holding my breath, you know, because we were close. I don't think any of us breathed for that last sixty seconds. All across the Earth, time has stopped. Six d and fifty million people are glued to their televisions, making the moon landing the most watched television event in history. It's
to seventeen PM in Houston, Texas. As her friends and family erupt into cheers, Joan Altering excuses herself and sneaks away into her husband's study, closing the door behind her. She wakes up several moments later, having passed out a few feet away from her As a fall and matchbook, the her limbs feel as if they are no longer in her control. She claus for the matchbook and curls her fingers around it, desperate for the feel of something
real and tangible. She remains in this position for several minutes, regaining her composure before rising, smoothing out her dress and rejoining the others in the living room. See all smiles. She tells them, no more tears. But on CBS News, Walter Krunkite is in tears. U S soldiers in Vietnam crowd around handheld radios even as mortars fall all around them. In New York City, the Yankees are playing the Washington Senators.
The gathered fans erupt in cheers as they're on The Moon flashes on the scoreboard, and the game is paused while the crowd spontaneously begins to seeing America the beautiful. Ten thousand people gathered in Central Park to watch the landing on giant screens erupt in ear splitting applause. Thousands of travelers and airports and train stations begin applotting, and then the air airplane passengers began running up and down
the aisles, shaking each other's hands. As a seven year old child watching Apollo eleven blast off at Cape Kennedy, I was dying to watch the landing on TV, but my dad wanted to drive back home to Michigan, and everybody on the interstate was pulling over to listen to the landing on the radio. Was in Vietnam that day in July, was airborne in an F one Super Saber when someone came up on the emergency perconcide and announced
that the eagle had landed. So the year, in the month I was born, butt Nick launched and I was nicknamed butt Nick for the first six years of my life. And then on my twelfth birthday, Apollo eleven launched to head to the Moon. Three days later, we were sitting in the living room watching Walter Cronkite and watching him walk on the Moon. During the week of the landing, I was at summer camp and the councilor in our
cabin was kind of a cool guy. And remember why changed that on his little black and white TV with rabbit ears. I was just a nineteen year old rookie protocol officer. My boss said, Werner von Braun needs an escort in the controls interviewing room, and as young and inexperience as I was at nineteen, I realized exactly what he was doing. I just stayed there until the end of the entire moonwalk. My father was an airman station
at Office Air Force Base in Omaha. The night of Lynn, He's getting right home from a fellow airman who was African American. They pulled up at the bar and my dad realized it was an African American bar. And they walked in and my dad kind of feel all eyes upon him, you know, being a six foot seven white man. He said, in that moment when they said the words, you know, the Eagle has landed, cheers erupted, and there
was no race in that bar. It was just this group of Americans excited and amazed at what had just been accomplished. Well, it was the summer of nineteen sixty nine and he had just graduated from high school and was headed to college. I was with my boyfriend who would later become my husband, and watch the landing together. As a young eighteen year old woman. It made me feel anything was possible and then I could do anything.
It created an atmosphere of excitement and promise. And I must say that all the negativity in our culture today is so hard. And I have six grandchildren and I want them to be full of hope. We could really use an Apollo eleven experience today. Remember an episode three when we talked about John Hubolt, the engineer who insisted that lunar orbit rendezvous was the only way to get us to the Moon. You may remember that one of the men who disagreed with him at the time was
Verna von Braun, the designer of the Saturn five rocket. Well, today, von Braun has invited Huboldt to mission control to witness Apollo Levin's touchdown. As the viewing area erupts and cheers and applause, von Braun turns to who Bolton says, thank you, John, it is a good idea and UH for the first time he had an opportunity within the control team to just take a deep breath and say, my God, today we just landed on the Moon with the UH be advised lots of smiling faces in its room and all
over the world. Or threw up my fare There was a beautiful job, you guys, and don't forget one. In the command model. That last voice was Michael Collins in orbit sixty miles above. You've almost forgotten about him, hadn't you. On the earthword side, he has the chatter of Mission Control and Tranquility Base to keep him company. But on the far side of the Moon. For forty eight minutes at a time he has utterly cut off. Michael is well aware of what everyone is saying about him back
on Earth. Michael Collins the loneliest man in the universe, but despite the fact that he's experiencing the most profound solitude of any human being in history, he doesn't feel lonely. That It's one of the questions I get asked him and God, and you got so close to the moning it didn't land. Don't not really bug it. It really does not. Uh. I honestly felt really privileged to be on Apollo eleven. Uh to have one of those three seats.
I mean, there are guys in the ast obviously put my throat here to hear to have one of those three seats. Okay, just keep that averybody days ready for us up there. Now. We'll do our recommendation at this point is planning it easy, starting at about eight o'clock the season years some time, stand mine, give us some time. Things about that quality basic Houston. We thought about it. We will support it. We're going at that time over.
The plan was for Kneel and Buzz to begin a sleep period once they landed on the Moon, but the astronauts are excited they want to get out onto the Moon's surface. Now they can sleep later, and Houston concurs. But first Buzz wants to acknowledge the enormity of the moment. I hear that in tran quiality over tranquility used to
go ahead, Roger, this is the lamp pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to every person listening in, whoever wherever they may may, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past you are and to give thanks in his or her own way. Over Buzz switches off the radio and takes a moment in the midst of the maelstrom of history to quiet himself. He opens two small plastic containers. One contains bread, the other contains wine. The last supper is the first meal on
the moon. We are beginning our eav a prip. Neil and Buzz struggle into their portable life support systems. These are the backpacks containing their breathable oxygen, water, coolant, and communication systems. Tranquility based, Houston, you are go for a cabin deep. As the men equalize the pressure inside their cabin to match the lunar environment outside, Neil ponders what he's going to say when he first steps on the moon.
He's had too much to concentrate on in the weeks and days leading up to the mission to come up with anything. He suddenly realizes that whatever he says is going to be recorded in every history book for time immemorial. No pressure. As the mission commander, Neil will be the first one out of the vehicle. The Buzz actually petitioned NASA to be the first. The decision came down to fun hui. The Lamb's hatch swings into the cabin and to the right, blocking Buzz behind it until Neil climbs
out of the way. Now comatic open slowly, Neil begins making his way down the ten foot ladder. His suit is so cumbersome that he can't even see his own feet. On the second rung, he yanks ad ring, deploying the MASA equipment and tool bay, as well as a television camera, which automatically begins broadcasting a signal back to Earth. Well, I look at pictures. We can see you're coming down the ladder. Now there's that foot there down the steps.
If you've ever looked at pictures of Neil on the lamb, ladder. You've noticed that the rung stop about three and a half feet before the footbeds, forcing him to jump the rest of the disc it's down. This is because everyone anticipated that the legs would compress upon landing. Instead, Neil set the eagle down so gently that the legs never even budged. He's a victim of his own masterful flying.
At the foot of the ladder, the lamp foot beds are only impressed in the surface about one or two inches brought the lamb mount Neil steps off with his left foot, places it on the surface, and bounces slightly to test it. So there's a foot on the moon, stepping down on the moon. If he's testing that first step, he must be stepping down on the Moon at this point. And just like that, for the first time in history, a human has stepped foot on another world. Armstrong is
on the Moon. Neil Armstrong, thirty eight year old American, standing on the surface of the Moon on this July nineteen and sixty nine. And now the man known for his silences must find the perfect words. In Neil's living room back in Houston, his wife Janet tightly clutches their two small sons be descriptive now, Neil, she says aloud, at just shy of ten pm Houston time. Neil Armstrong says, that's one man. Neil later admitted to what he'd meant
to say was the more consistent and grammatically correct. That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. But in all of the excitement he misspoke. Thankfully the world understood his meaning. Just fine, purpose is fine and powdery. I can end it up loosely with my toe at here, and the fine layers like potter and charcoal to the side of my fruit. Regular, the fancy word for moon dust, is as fine as talcum powder, but as abrasive as
sand paper. It is electrically charged by solar radiation, so that it sticks to every surface it comes in contact with. Seems to be no difficulty and moving around the simulations of one and we performed and various simulations on the ground on Earth during training. Neil, combined with his suit and backpack, weighed three hundred and fifty pounds. Here, in lunar gravity, he weighs less than sixty. Neil is inside a wearable spacecraft that cost one thousand dollars to design
and manufacture. It was made by Platex. Yeah, the bra manufacturer. They know a thing or two about making strong, flexible, form fitting clothing. The astronauts were protected from the Moon's extremes of heat and cold, ultra violet radiation, and micro meteorites by twenty one layers fitted to knee preme bellows and steel aircraft wires, which allowed the men to bend in all the right places. Such joints are critical given that each suit is inflated to about three point seven
five pounds per square inch of pure oxygen. Think about how firm of football is when it's fully inflated. And here's the coolest bit of all. Each suit was sown by hand buzz lowers a hassle blab camera down to Neil via a cable and pulley system rigged to the inside of the capsule. The astronauts have dubbed it the Brooklyn clothesline. Neil is astonished by the view all around him and feels compelled to capture some images of the
surrounding topography. If you've seen any of the pictures from the Moon, you know that Neil took some extraordinary images. All the more impressive since Neil doesn't have a viewfinder to look through. The camera is mounted to his chest and at its own it's like much as the United States Good, but it's very pretty unious. With some pictures out of the way, Neil begins collecting some of the soil at his feet and scooping it into a bag.
After filling it out, Neil tosses away a ring that had been keeping the bag open in the one six gravity. It sails far from him. Now it's Aldrin's turn. Are you ready? Buzz pauses on the ladder to make sure that the hatch doesn't close behind him. Even the slightest pressure difference between the inside and the outside would make the hatch profoundly difficult, if not impossible, to open again. Thought, that's our home for the next couple of hours. And
two Americans on the Moon. Back in Houston, Joan Aldrin's body shutters as she vacillates between laughter and sobs. As her husband takes his first steps on the moon, she begins throwing kisses towards his flickering black and white image. And magnificent desolation is well a perfectly sublime way of describing the surface of the Moon. But it's about as close as we're going to get to either of these guys getting emotional during their experience. They have a job
to do, and philosophical musings aren't on their checklists. The first thing that is on Buzzes checklist is to get used to walking around in the lunar environment, which terrifies his son Andy. I was convinced that Dad was going to trip in, you know, end up flat on his back like a dead bug, in front of six million people and most importantly my two hundred classmates. Those are the kind of things that we're going through my head
because I'm an eleven year old kid. As Buzz continues to get used to his new environment, Neil opens the masa storage bay housing their tools and equipment. Beside it is a metal plaque bolted to one of the eagles legs airmen from the planet Earth for except for it, upon the Moon ninety became in baseball mankind, it's time
to run some experiments. First off is the solar wind collector, basically a small sheet of aluminum foil attached to a telescoping pole and planted to face the Sun. It will spend the duration of the mission soaking up solar wind particles, which will in turn provide clues for how our solar system was formed. Per his checklist, Neil takes a number of photos of Buzz at work. This is a Paulo Levin's only scandal. Well, Buzz was in possession of the camera,
which admittedly was much less time than Neil. He didn't take a single picture of his mission commander. We have no images of Neil Armstrong on the Moon. That famous bootprint. That's Buzz too. Some conspiracy theorists believe that Buzz did this in retaliation for not being allowed to be the first one down the ladder, though it's far more likely just in oversight in the excitement of the moment. Next up, the men withdraw an American flag and erected a short
distance from the spacecraft say that end up. The top edge of the flag is braced by a crossbar, ensuring the stars and stripes are always visible on the Moon. Without it, the flag would hang limp, as Earth flags do on windless days. Once the flag is up, Neil snaps one of the most famous images of the mission, Buzz saluting the flag and the camera, just as the guys are getting ready to move on to their next item,
they get a surprise call. Neil and Buzz. The President of the United States is in his office now and would like to say, over honor, go ahead, Mr President. Hello, Neil and Buzz. For every American this has to be the proudest day of our lives. And for people all over the world. I am sure they too joined with eizing. What an immense speed this is because of what you have done, the heavens have become a part of man Borough.
Thanking about the President. It's a great honor and privates for Earth to be here presented, not all in the United States, but and base of all nations, and with interest, profectualiosity, and with the vision for the feature. Time for some more experiments. As Neil gathers rocks, Buzz sets up two devices. The first is a seismic detector designed to allow scientists on Earth to monitor for moonquakes, volcanic eruptions, or meteorite impacts. The fatim had been bed floored manually. Next up is
the laser ranging retro refractor. Scientists on Earth can bounce lasers off of it, gathering precise measurements of the distance from the Earth to the Moon. LA factor is installed, and the global level and alignment appears to be good. Well Buzz collects some regular Neil ventures a few hundred feet over to a raader, taking some time to marvel
at his surroundings and snap a couple of pictures. This is the furthest that either of the astronauts will travel during the entire e v A. In our imaginations, we picture the Apollo eleven astronauts bounding euphorically across the lunar landscape, far from their spacecraft. However, the total area within which Neil and Buzz trade would fit roughly within a Major League Baseball field. The suston you have approximately three minutes
and to you, let's comment a termination activity whatever? Okay, hey, anything more before I head and I get a head on up the ladder heads on him. Well Buzz makes his way up the ladder. Neil uses the regular around his feet to fill in the empty spaces in several cases of moon rocks. Each case is vacuum sealed, ensuring that when the boxes are later opened in special clean rooms back on Earth, the atmosphere inside the case is uncontaminated.
Neil sends two cases up to Buzz via the Brooklyn clothesline. There's one last thing the men want to do. The comments you just heard are all that was said about their final task. They didn't inform the viewing public, nor do many admission control know what's going on. From the open hatch, Buzz throws Neil a pouch, which he places
on the lunar soil. Inside is an Apollo one patch honoring the three astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee, who perished in the fire two years earlier, a disc containing goodwill messages from seventy three nations, and a small gold olive branch representing their peaceful intent. These items are not controversial, but the pouch also contains two Soviet medals.
The first commemorates Uriga Garn, the first man in space, who died in a plane crash in n The second is a medal for Vladimir camarav, a cosmonaut who was killed when the parachutes on his Soyu spacecraft failed to open after a re entry. While these men were on the other side of the space race, as well as on the other side of America's Cold War with Soviet Russia, This was Apaul Elevin's way of honoring fallen comrades who didn't live long enough to see history made on the Moon.
There's also one other item the public wasn't aware of inside the Eagle. Beside the astronauts during their flight to and from the Moon were wooden and cloth fragments from the original Right Flyer, the first successful airplane flown by Wilbur and Orval Wright just sixty years earlier. His job on the Moon done and his air supply running low, Neil re enters the lunar module. Once inside, he and Buzz take one last look at the lunar surface where they spent the better part of three hours, and then
seal the hat closed and lang. Inside the spacecraft is a new smell from all the moon dust covering their gear. It smells like a spent firecracker. It reminds Buzz of wet ashes as they struggle out of their bulky backpacks. Houston. Let's Michael in on the news, Columbia, Columbia, that is Houston. The crew of Tranquiality bases back inside their base, repressurized. They're in a process of adopting the u plusses. Everything
went beaut to play cover. Oh yeah, with all of those rocks and soil samples, the eagle is now too heavy to lift off the lunar surface. To lighten the vessel, they must now open the hatch and toss out everything they no longer need, from their life support backpacks and boots to empty food packages, another trash, even a spare hassle blood camera. Remember that seismometer that Buzz set up
Roger's tranquility. We observe your equipment Jedison on the TV and the pactive site and get experiment recorded docs when each float hit the surface. Over ants get away with anything anymore. No, indeed, they'd like to say from all of us down here in Arson and early, from all of us and all that countries and in the entire world, we think that you've done a magnificent job up there today. Thank you very much. It's been a long day. Yes, indeed, get some rest there and have at it tomorrow. Neil
and Buzz have now been up for twenty one hours. Famished, they eat some cocktail sausages and try to find a place to sleep. The eagle doesn't have beds. Neil curls up on the cover of the ascent tension while Buzz chooses the floor, so they pull blinds down over the windows. A lot of light still streams into the capsule, enough to allow Buzz to see that one of the circuit breaker switches on the control panel was broken off while
they struggled out of their backpacks. The switch sends electrical power to the ascent engine that they're gonna need to get off the Moon in the morning. Without that switch, they're not going anywhere. That, combined with a far more frigid spacecraft than either of anticipated, guarantees they will get next to no sleep tonight. The race for the Moon has been one. The exploration of space has just begun. Day five is over. Day six, July one begins with
our next episode. The day Apollo eleven is to leave the Moon, but because the lunar module is crippled, the return home is now in doubt. Only one half of President Kennedy's pledge has been fulfilled. Yes, the United States has landed men on the Moon before the end of the decade, but returning them safely back to Earth maybe impossible. This podcast is a production of I Heart Radio and
trade Craft Studios. Executive producers Ashe Seroia and Scott Bernstein in association with High five Content and executive producer Andrew Jacobs. Amazing research and production assistance by associate producers Brian show Saw and Natalie Robomed. Our incredible editor is Bill Lance. Original music by Henry ben Wah. Special thanks to Andy
Aldrin and Mission controls Steve Bales. Thanks to Mike Dawson, Jeff McCarthy, Terry Guvara, Greg Simpson, Adam Howard, John Rantle, Paul Olmstead, and Margaret Roland for sharing their moon landing memories. Special thanks to everyone at NASA who made this podcast possible, especially the incredible technological wizardry of consulting producer Ben Feist, who's responsible for organizing and cleaning the eleven thousand hours of mission audio your hearing selections from in this podcast.
Special thanks also to consultant Gina Dellback 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 each week, so be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Brandon Phipps. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next episode.