July 21, 1969 / Lunatics

stop and think about that for a second. Pretend you don't know how this mission ends. Put yourself in Sapphire's place. On July eighteenth, Apollo eleven's triumphant history hadn't even been written yet, and given this astronomical challenge, the president had to prepare for the worst. I will now read you the memo in its entirety, as President Nixon would have had tragedy befallen Apollo eleven. Fate has ordained that the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace

will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldren know that there is no hope for their recovery, but they also know that there is hope for mankind. In their sacrifice. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal, the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends. They will be mourned by their nation. They will be mourned by the

people of the world. They will be mourned by a mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown. In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one. In their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others will follow and surely find their way home. Man's search will

not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human being who looks up at the moon and the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind. That letter now rests in the National Archives in Washington, d C. Other than some manageable issues with the computer during lunar descent,

the Apollo elevin mission has gone off without a hitch. Then, last night, as buzz Aldrin lay on the floor of the lunar module trying to sleep, he noticed that the switch that supplies electrical power to their ascend engine had been snapped off, probably when he and Neil were taking off their bulky gear from the moonwalk. Without that switch, there is no way they're getting off the moon. Sapphire's letter now seems hauntingly prophetic. It's July, day six of

the Apollo eleven mission. Since the dawn of time, the Moon has captured the human imagination. It began as an object of spiritual influence and veneration. As science gradually replaced mysticism, the moon became an object of profound intellectual curiosity. We spent a lot of time discussing how we got to the Moon and what we did once we got there, but we spent hardly any time at all talking about

the moon itself. Today, we're going to dive into how the Moon has been viewed down through time, how it was created, and what it is still teaching US high in orbit around the Moon. Command Module pilot Michael Collins is woken by Ronald Evans and the capcom seat back in Mission Control. Morning Morning. In just a few hours, the Eagle, currently resting on a lunar surface as Tranquility Base, will leave the Moon and climb through space to reunite

with the Columbia. But before that happens, Michael has a lot of work to do. He has eight hundred and fifty individual key commands to work through in the coming hours, eight hundred and fifty chances for me to screw it up. Michael things. Now it's time to wake the occupants of Tranquility Base. Except they're already awake. Tranquility Base, Houston, Corny Houston, Transquility Base. Did you get a chance to curl up

on the engine camp? All right? Drew deals ate so really good at Hammock with weights, and he's been lying on the at an engine cover, and I curled up. The truth is neither Neil Armstrong nor Buzz altern got very much sleep last night, between the terrible accommodations, temperatures that never exceeded sixty one degrees fahrenheit all the blinking console lates in the darkness, and the knowledge that there only means off this rock was compromised. The two men

spent a miserable night shivering inside their space suits. Finally, Buzz gave up trying to sleep and turned attention to the broken switch. Without the ability to trip that switch, the Eagle isn't going anywhere. They go to Columbia. This is a backup crew or congratulations for yesterday's performance person with as Neil and Buzz prepare their moonship for departure. They take a couple of minutes to gaze out the windows at the magnificent desolation outside and snap a few photos.

They even turn the cameras on each other, capturing several iconic images. Both men looked positively exhausted, yet there's a sparkle in their eyes, the sign of having experienced something utterly transcendent. Okay, we're going for this top and we'll stave with THETFC rogers. That's correct, batteries. They're going e D stands for explosive devices. When they are ready to launch, small targeted explosions will separate the ascent stage from the

descent stage. That's like a board Okay, it's finally time to address that busted circuit breaker. As you can hear, clearly, both the crew and mission control think this launch is

going to happen. So how did they fix it? Given the fact that the lunar module is perhaps the most technologically advanced thing humans have ever created up to that point, and that an army of America's brightest minds are on the astronaut's proverbial speed dial, you might be expecting some complex, high tech solution, but no. Buzz saved the day with something he found in the pocket of his flight suit,

a chrome body felt tip pen. He sized it against the whole where the broken switch used to be and discovered that it was almost the exact same size. Buzz stabbed the pen into the cavity and discovered, to everyone's relief, that it fits perfectly. The ascent engine had its power going to and from the Moon was an unbroken daisy chain of dumbfounding successes, both sophisticated and simple, more than sixty miles above them. Michael feels like a nervous bride.

Despite nearly two decades of flying and thousands of hours in the cockpit, he has never been more anxious than today. If everything goes according to plan, he merely has to sit tight and wait for Neil and Buzz to come to him. But if there are any issues after they blast off, he may have to swoop down and retrieve them.

He needs to be prepared for anything. Michael has been harboring a secret dread for months now that something is going to go wrong on the Moon, stranding his teammates and forcing him to abandon them and return to Earth alone. Michael knows that if Neil and Buzz die on the Moon, the mission will forever be viewed as a tragedy rather than a success. And you're plays for take off rather understand one. On the one, he h the ascent engine

is their only way off the mood. There is no plan B. If the ascent engine fails to work, Tranquility Base will become a memorial. That's something eleven year old Andy Aldrin, Buzz's youngest son, who was glued to the TV beside his mother, understood all too well. That was the one time that I was, you know, a little bit freaked out because I had complete and total faith

and Nassa's ability to execute the mission. A complete and total faith in the technology, but I was very much aware that in order to get off of the Moon, one engine had to work. Lunar ascent engine, you know, it wasn't like the regular launch where you can do it do over. To minimize any potential complications, NASA designed the engine to be as simple as possible. It doesn't even need an ignition source. Twin pumps combine the fuel and the oxidizer, which combust on contact with each other,

and away they go. At least that's the plan. A split second before the engine is to fire, a horizontal guillotine severs power cables between the two stages, and explosive bolts disconnect them from each other. The engine fires, and in a cloud of moon dust and insulation, flings the ascent stage from the lunar surface. And look at that stuff all over the make up. Back on Earth. Glued to their living room television sets, Janet Armstrong and Joan

Aldren begin weeping with relief. As the eagle rises, Buzz allows himself a quick glance out the window. The bottom half of the lamp shrinks beneath him, surrounded by all the experiments and litter they left on the surface to lighten the vehicle. The flag they planted yesterday, which was so hard to drive into the compacted soil, is blown over by their exhaust, and everywhere are their bootprints, evidence

that humans trod and another world. Given the Moon's lack of atmosphere, wind, or water, those bootprints remain there still today, just as they left them, a silent witness to history, and they will remain that way for millions of years. Shortly before Neil and Buzz left for the lunar surface, mission control told them what they might expect to find on the Moon. Watch for a lovely girl with a

big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chango has been living there for four thousand years. It seems she was Spanish to the Moon because she's told the tale of immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit. And you're seeing the live feet from Changa Probe. This is the pictures taken on the camera of Changa three off the lunar surface. It should come as no surprise, then, that when the Chinese landed a rover on the Moon

in December, it was named Jade rabbit. It landed all the moon. Tom Lofree is all the man Chung and her rabbit are just one of countless myths associated with our celestial neighbor. The Moon has attracted our attention for not just millennia, not just tens of thousands of years,

but presumably even longer. Humans probably even pre humans, have been looking at the Moon since the beginning of time, because it's this object that's always there, and it's much larger than any of the other objects in the sky. Those two voices you just heard are Dr Ed Krupp, the director of the Griffith Observatory, my favorite spot in Los Angeles, and Dr Eddie Dove, a planetary scientist at

the University of Central Florida. You know what, You could look at almost any civilization in antiquity and you would find immediately that the moon was deified. There are countless legends about the moon spanning every culture on Earth, and this would apply for example, chancient Egypt, the moon was known as con su Uh, and it was in fact a personification of the moon and was a very important

part of Egyptian religion and and Mesopotamia. Uh the god was known as Sing You can go to ancient Greece, where the moon was a woman who drove a chariot across the sky. Selny was her name, and she followed the highway of the Moon and the Sun through the stars, just as the moon does. The Romans basically took that same image, modified it slightly, but the goddess Luna was the Roman goddess of the moon, and so it would go. You can work your way around the world from one

culture to the next. To the Hindus, the moon is Soma. To the Maya, she is so Chill, the goddess of fertility. For the Inuit, it's the god and Incoan who spends every day chasing the sun goddess. Mad with lust, his body waxes and wanes as he expands all of his energy towards the chase, disappearing a dozen times a year to hunt and gorge himself for the next leg of

the hunt. Two tribes in Western Africa the moon is ma Wu, one half of an epic love affair with the sun goddess Lisa Eclipse, as they claim, are the deities in the throes of love making. Ancient culture is quickly realized that the moon was more than a source of light and beauty, It was also a means by which they could chart time. Our word moon is actually derived from an archaic word that means to measure, and that alone tells you that from deepest antiquity, the moon

was in fact a vehicle for measurement. It would tick out these convenient bundles of days one month or month after another as it went through those changes of phases and those months. Those cycles of the moon seemed at least to a degree, coordinated with the seasons, and the seasons are what it's really all about. Changing seasons affected anyone's ability to serve vibe. Many Chinese festivals are rooted in the lunar calendar, and both Judaism and Islam are

guided by its celestial ebb and flow. The moon has long been fought to have the power over people's bodies and minds. The association of the moon with fertility is part of this idea of the birth and growth and death and rebirth of the moon. You have the parable of fertility built into this idea of cyclical renewal. Fertility in the moon have long been linked since the female menstrual cycle and the lunar cycle are of similar length.

People say that there are more babies born, for example, at the time of the full moon, but when you actually do the statistics, this just doesn't pan out. While such police don't hold water in our scientific era, Dr

Crupp thinks they made perfect sense to our ancestors. And you can easily imagine people looking at the world and trying to understand how it works, and the most iCal thing they see is that things essentially come and go, whether it's the plants seasonally, uh animals, other living things, and including ourselves. And this idea of birth, growth, death, and then rebirth is absolutely underscored in the changing phases

of the moon over the monthly cycle. Historically, the moon has been blamed for the darker elements of the human personality, from sleepwalking and suicide to criminal activity and violence. The moon, it has been claimed, can drive people mad. In fact, the words lunacy and lunatic are derived from the Latin

name for the moon, Luna. The strange case of Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde was inspired by the strange but true tale of a Lendoner who committed crimes during the full moon, and of course, the most obvious application of lunar madness that most people UH know about comes to us via holl He would from a European tradition, and this is the idea of the werewolf, where a human being is transformed at the time of full moon. There you go here one minute, here, look very good. Back

on the eagle. The moon is falling away. A very quiet ride, just a little bit of a slow walloway back and forth, Grand fine I d. Soon the Eagle reaches a vertical speed of eight ft per second. The lamb is now soaring over the same landmarks it descended over yesterday. Seven minutes later, the engine cuts offine engine or down. Now that the engine is shut down, and Neil and buzzer once again in micro gravity, the men

noticed a slight haze in the cabin. It's all that lunar dust now hovering in the air all around them. Here you go, the whole world in product. Now that the Eagle is in lunar orbit, it's safe to turn on their rendezvous radar again. In our minds, miseducated by too many sci fi movies, we think of a spacecraft merely lifting off and zooming straight to its rendezvous. But

that's not how orbital mechanics work. From the moment the ascent engine fired to the docking of the two craft, three and a half hours and two orbits pass before they can dock. Eagle has to match Columbia's orbital shape, height, and speed, and they don't have a lot of fuel to do it with. As Michael monitors their progress, he's relieved his greatest fear has not come to pass, But now he wonders if they have enough fuel to catch

each other. Luckily, as you may remember from episode two, Buzz literally wrote the book on rendezvous in outer space. Here in mission control, flight operations Director Chris Kraft commented that he felt, like some five hundred million people around the world. We're helping push Eagle off the Moon and back into orbit. Now it's time for a series of short burns to get the two craft back to each other. The Eagles about one nautical miles away from Columbia and

closing at roughly per second. Since the Eagles set down far outside its predicted landing zone yesterday, NASA had Michael training his instruments on the Sea of Tranquility with every pass, trying to locate the ship. He was never able to find his crewmates. This is Apollo Control range between Eagle and Columbiana, showing sixty seven point five nautical miles closure ratecond black team of flight controllers here in mission control or or less and an advisory capacity and hearing this

round the boos sequence. They're actively computing when over times, but in the final analysis, it's onboard confrontations by the crew of Columbia and the Eagle which really bring about the round the boom. Up to this point, Michael has just been waiting. Now he begins to prepare the Command and Service module to meet the limb. Okay, two burns down, only one to go. The fancy orbital mechanics are more

or less done. The two spacecraft are less than forty miles apart, now close enough for a line of sight thrust. The Eagle is making a bee line straight for Columbia. It is now about fifteen miles below the Command Service Module and closing aboard Columbia. Michael feels like a hotel manager preparing to welcome guests in from the cold. He's

looking for the Eagle through the sextant. The Limb starts off as a tiny, indecipherable blinking light framed by the enormity of the Moon, but soon it's recognizable bug like shape comes into view. For millennia, humans look to the heavens and try to tease out their fate, messages from their gods and portends for their lives. Then Galileo Galilei changed everything. In sixteen o nine, he used a telescope to examine the sky, not for signs and wonders, but

to understand it scientifically doctor ed Krupp. When Galileo first points a telescope up to the sky a little over four hundred years ago and looks add among other things, the Moon, he winds up not just finding out something about the Moon, but transforming our perspective on the Earth, on the universe, and on ourselves. Since Aristotle, it was believed that space was part of nested heavenly orbs, and that all the celestial bodies, including the Moon, were perfect spheres.

But Galileo challenged accepted orthodoxy largely unchanged since the third century Dr Eddie Dove. When Galileo built his telescope, he was able to start doing even finer details of what he could see on the lunar surface. It was this completely different way of looking at the universe. Galileo saw shadows on the Moon's surface, indicating that it was not smooth.

It had lofty mountains and deep chasms. Once Galileo, U and then other astronomers were able to start looking and finder detail, we could see that there was this other planetary body that's actually shaped by the similar processes to what we have here on Earth. Telescopes didn't mean we got everything right. Prominent astronomers began predicting entire civilizations lived

on the Moon. Even William Herschel, the British astronomer who discovered Urnus, asserted that evidence of aliens could be clearly seen through his telescope. Still, later observers thought that the dark patches might be oceans of liquid water, while others swore they could make out vegetation, and where there is water and flora, they said there must be life. In fact, it wasn't until Neil and Buzz set down on the

Moon that it finally began giving up its secrets. Sure, we built ever better telescopes over the centuries, and then built spacecraft to photograph the Moon from orbit, but it wasn't until the twentieth century that astronomers applied the principles of geology to the study of the Moon and began forming hypotheses around how it came to be. Apollo eleven's up close inspection and the keepsakes they brought back transformed our understanding about what the Moon is. More on that.

In a moment right now in Columbia, Michael is preparing to welcome his shipmates home. Doctor it won't belong now. Buzz can see Michael orienting the capsule for their docking. Michael turns on the video camera to film the Eagle's approachak O. Michael is about to take one of the most famous pictures of the entire Apollo program. In one image, he gets the Earth, the Moon, and the Eagle. Every single human being alive is in that one picture, except

for one himself. Okay, by got it. Neil and Buzz bring the Eagle to a stop, and Mike swoops down to complete the docking. Jesus, he thinks to himself, we're really going to pull this off. There's a slight nudge as the spacecraft meet. I'll tell you right there. Both spacecraft have been on the far side of the Moon for this final maneuver. They now re emerge on the Earth facing side as a single spacecraft control Columbia Eagle

now reunited to become Apollo eleven again. I can. When Michael opens the hatch upgrading the two ships, he finds himself face to face with Buzz covered in moon dust. Michael is overwhelmed with a sudden urge to grab Buzz's balding head and give it a kiss, but imagines that act making it into the history books and decides to shake his hand instead. Buzz and Neil start passing Michael their moon samples of the lot. Michael quickly realizes he has to ensure he has a firm hold on the

rock boxes. As heavy as they are, they feel as if they could easily get away from him and sail right through the side of the ship. Hello, you go give it a beerad over. That's Charlie Duke in the capcom seat he took over from Evans while Apollo eleven was on the far side of the Moon. Since the Eagle is now docked tight, Michael lets him know it's the Columbia. He's reached. Clambi Radiol. We're all right back and back and now we're running a brand, your degerd

Decker and going well. Roger Egal correct and rode to Clambia. Weake copy you go, you lead it to the fine Now get friendly white tame on Beyon do we get be on the way home. And we'd like to congratulate everybody on a Corrindau and a beautiful b d A. It was a great deal for everybody. Or I don't. Now that everyone is united and the lunar samples have been stowed aboard Columbia, it's time to say goodbye to the eagle. Hello Columbia, and we'd like you to start down.

You get up and pickle or they can't take the eagle home with him. It's done its jobs spectacularly, but it's no longer needed. You can get a pendicure convenience. Okay, under gone. Have you ever tiered up getting rid of an old car? Sure you know it's just a machine, an assemblage of metal and wires and rubber, but it also literally drove you through so much of your history. Though they'd spent only a couple of days of border

Neil and Buzz take the loss of the eagle. Heard they can't bring themselves to flip the switch and ask Michael to do it instead. It you're good doing a good one. R. We got eagle looking good holding cabin pressure and it picked up about two feet per second from that Jedison. The eagles carcass will remain in orbit around the Moon for several years before smashing into the surface, rejoining its other half. Afterwards, Charlie, Duke and Michael spend some time catching up. How it feel a bed? Have

some company? Damn, I'll beat you always be talking to yourself up where after Ben rev is though it's a happy home. My parent be nice to have company. Being married back nine. Have a couple of hundred million Americans up here right They were with you in spirit anyway, at least that many. We heard on the news today eleven that plays New York Times came out with a uh headlines, the largest headlines they've ever used in the history of the newspaper. They had a copy, but I print.

The motto of the New York Times is, of course all the news that's fit to print. Speaking of news, congratulate story. Messages on the Apollo eleven mission have been pouring into the White House from world leaders in a study stream all day. Even the Soviet Union said congratulations, though the only mentioned about the moon landing in the main Moscow newspaper was a small story at the bottom of the page, buried inside the middle of the newspaper.

Some newsman's estimate that more than six of the news houston papers across the country today concern your mission. The New York Times has had a such a demand for its edition of the paper to day, even though it ran nine hundred and fifty thousand copies, that it would reprint the whole thing on Thursday as a souvenir edition. It turns out that NASA weren't the only ones delighted

with the follow eleven success. The Italian police reported their Sunday night was the most crime free night of the year, and in London, a boy who had the faith to bet five dollars with a bookie that a man would reach the moon before nineteen collected twenty four thousand dollars. It's pretty good on Neil's wife jan was asked by the press if she considered the moon landing the greatest

moment of her life. She said, no, that was the day we were married, and and about covers the news uh this day in Apollo eleven, Man's first landing on the Moon, there was no objective more important to science than the collection and return of samples of the lunar surface.

Within five days after the samples were picked up on the lunar surface, where they had lain for millions of years, they were delivered to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the Man Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, inside special vacuum chambers and nitrogen filled cabinets. Decontamination measures were taken and the containers were opened. Samples were examined, described, photographed, and wade. They were then prepared for preliminary physical and chemical analysis. Amazingly,

of the Moon Hall has yet to be analyzed. As Dr Dobb explains, a lot of the samples we have from the lunar surface are still kept in the through baggies they came back in and they haven't been opened, just because we want to keep them as christine as possible, so that when someone has a new idea or a new technique, they can study an actual pristine sample and not one that's already been exposed to for instance, our atmosphere that's going to interact chemically with the rock is

our ideas mature and we get new ideas on what to look for and we get new technology with which to look for them. That was a Paulo seventeens Harrison Schmidt, geologist and moonwalker. Analytical chemistry has advanced in the last fifty years, where now we can tease out of these rocks things that we never imagined we could do fifty years ago. And the FOLLOW program hasn't ended for lunar

scientists and probably never will. From their studies and discoveries, basic new knowledge and understanding will emerge, and basic new questions, the beginning of what one investigator has called a new science. Of The rocks that have been studied have completely transformed the Moon's origin story. We really didn't know much about the Moon. Most of our ideas before Follow eleven more

were wrong. In the scientists preliminary studies of the lunar samples in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory, there were several significant findings. For instance, all the rocks are similar chemically, which points toward a family relationship. Firstly, the rocks from the Moon are very similar to the rocks found right here on Earth.

We were able to do chemical analyzes and age dating and look at isotopes and say, actually, the chemical makeup of the lunar rocks and their ages are very similar to what we have here on Earth, and it's really hard to have those be so identical unless they basically

came from the same starting pool. Perhaps the most interesting discovery was that the volcanic rocks are at least three billion years of age, dating back as far, perhaps further than the oldest rocks ever discovered on Earth, and that gout scientists thinking did the Earth and the Moon share a common ancestor. Our current understanding of how the Moon was formed is that it was through a giant impact. Impacts are very very very common in the early Solar System.

Something probably a little bit smaller than the Earth was hit by a Mars sized body u When that collided, there was a lot of material that was thrown out into orbit around the Earth and it's sort of coalesced together to form the Moon. This is known as the giant impact hypothesis. For millions of years, both the Earth and the Moon were molten spheres. After about one million years, rocks floated up and created the lunar crust of the

Moon and a planetoid crystallized and hardened. Then came millions of asteroids, meteoroids, and commets. The Moon doesn't have an atmosphere to protect its surface, so all of these impacts get all the ways to the surface and then they're recorded over the history of time. All of these impacts pulverized the moon surface, creating several inches of a powdery surface. We call regulars. The best word I love saying regulars.

Typically on the Moon, the regulars is actually pretty fine, so it gets to particle sizes that are smaller than the width of the human hair, for instance. But while it may look as soft as fine ash, it is anything but sand on the Earth gets rounded because it gets rolled around with each other and with the ocean and with wind, and so it gets really rounded. On the Moon, the broken up bits of rock stay super jagged.

While Neil and Buzz didn't have any issues, later apolymsians, particularly those in which the astronauts were more active and as a result Fell more often reported that the lunar soil was so abrasive it began to cut into their space suits, releasing precious and critical oxygen. Have you ever noticed that your view of the Moon never changes. The orbit of the Moon around the Earth is interesting because it's actually what we call synchronously orbiting or tidally locked.

Because of this, many people assume that the Moon does not rotate, but it does. So it goes around the Earth one time, and it also spins on its axis one time, and the result of that is that if they're perfectly in sync, but we always see the same side. So from our perspective observing from down here on Terra Firma, the Moon appears as if it's frozen still. Other than pictures taken by the spacecraft and the astronauts who visited it, no human eyes have ever seen the so called dark

side of the Moon. In addition to all those craters, you've no doubt noticed that the Moon is covered in both light and dark patches. These dark regions that are called mara and they're actually lower topography, and then lighter regions that are called the highlands. Typically, the dark regions are from lava flows that's sort of seeped out from under the surface when those craters happened um and sort

of filled in in those regions. So how large is the Moon, Well, it's about that of the Earth, roughly two of the planet's overall volume. If the Earth were hollow, we could fit fifty moons inside. That's a lot more than you thought, I bet. In fact, the United States is roughly half the circumference of the Moon. If you were to lay a scale outline of America over top one of the Moon, it would almost perfectly fit on

the observable surface. We're in a pretty special time in the history of the Earth and the Moon, and that the Moon right now is the size it is, and it's just far en us away that in the sky it appears to be the same size as the Sun. Lunar and solar eclipses remain a thrilling site for Earthlings. So there, um, the Sun is much much further away, it's much bigger, so in our sky right now they look like they're the same size. So this is how

we get eclipses. But sometime in the distant future there will be no more total solar eclipses because, believe it or not, the Moon is drifting away from us at the rate of a few centimeters per year. Actually, the Moon has been moving away from the Earth. That turns out for most of its history. So as the Moon moves further away, it's actually going to get a little bit smaller to our view, and we won't get these

total solar clipses like we see today. While the Moon is two hundred and thirty eight thousand miles away from the Earth now, it was roughly four hundred miles away when it was first formed. Imagine how much larger it would have appeared in the sky then. And how do we know the Moon is moving away from us? The crew of Apollo eleven, of course, do you remember that

laser reflector. We can measure the amount of time it takes to get there and then come back, and that tells us how far away the Moon is, because we know how fast light moved in a couple of billion years. Earth's tides will also act very differently, because despite what Bill O'Reilly thinks, we know exactly why the Earth's oceans, which cover roughly seventy the planet's surface, behave the way they do. The Moon has gravity and the Earth has gravity,

and they tug on each other. If the Earth was just a solid body like the Moon, we wouldn't even observe this very much. But because the Earth's covered with all this water. Um these forces and these tugs actually pull at the water at different times of day and at different amounts, and it ends up causing tides. The Earth's gravitational poll also affects the Moon. It causes moonquakes that occur deep beneath the lunar surface. And just how do we know that? Yeah, the seizedmometer that Neil and

Buzz deployed. There's still so much more to learn about the Moon. Nearly everything we know came from six Apollo moon missions, eighty and one half hours on the surface and eight dred and forty two pounds of moon rocks. Now that the gear is stowed, it's finally time for Apollo eleven to head home. This is Apollo Control. At this time, the crew should be involved in their pre

trans Earth injection status check. The trans Earth injection burn is, as Michael Collins refers to it in his biography, the get us home burn, the save our as burn, the we don't want to be a permanent Moon satellite burn. As they strap into their couches, Buzz realizes he is at the end of his physical limits. He has barely slept in three days and is running on pure adrenaline. All he wants to do is sleep the rest of the way back to Earth Houston year ago for one minute,

yellows go sick, thank you well, good once again. You will not be surprised to learn that this burn will take place while the spacecraft is behind the moon and we have lots of signal. Now, so let's say that the waters this way and then staffs escave that. Right. Therefore, I'm parting like that. Normally a joke like that would be all Michael, but that was actually buzz. Perhaps his sleep deprivation is relaxing him in more ways than one night.

The burn is powerful enough to pin them to their seats, and it feels like presures are good. Tanter conjectures should be completed in about the town seconds any racer and shut down. Now, okay, start down. When the engine cuts off,

the astronauts find themselves witless again. We should have shot down at the time at this point of follow eleven land of feet of a box eight six hundred sixty feet per second, or about five sols nine hundred mile to be honest, way back to work, not hated forth flashed out in the Pacific ocean at one hundred tiny five hours eighteen. I love you. You are eight zero. Back on Earth, Charlie Duke and everyone in mission control are eager for news. Finally, Columbia emerges for a final

time from behind the Moon. I've ever seen in my life. I'll day, but you guys today Paula levin Houston had to go over and I'll open up the r L door. L L r L stands for the Lunar Receiving Laboratory, the facility at nassa's Man Spacecraft Center in Houston, now known as the Johnson Space Center. Here's where the astronauts and their lunar booty will be quarantined upon arrival back on Earth. There are some very expectant lunar rock scientists waiting. Roger,

we got you coming home. It's well stocked. Secretly, Michael hopes that stock means loaded with vermouth and gin. He is craping a martini. As they fly from the Moon, they become tourists, once again, gazing out the windows to look longingly at the world shrinking behind them, And just like that, the hardest phase of the mission is over. They successfully landed and walked on the Moon. There's only one harrowing element of the mission left, atmospheric cree entry,

but it's still several days away. For now. D Slayton, the director of flight crew Operations, has a more immediate concern. Congratulations on an outstanding job. You guys are looping on a great show up there. I think it's a fun time to power down. I've got a little rest of eason and playing along later. Hope girl is going to get a good sleep on the way by, given how long they were up on the Moon and how little sleep they got in the cold and cramped lemb dealon

buzz can't agree more. We're looking forward to a little wrap and wrastle trip back, and as you've heard it. Slayton passes the mic back to Duke, who lets the crew know that they have ceased receiving data from the Eagle. Okay, very good. Without its life support systems and heaters running, the vessel has succumbed to the cult of space two point seven kelvin a fancy space way of saying negative

four d and fifty five degrees fahrenheit. As Apollo Levan races back to Earth, it is simultaneously moving further away from it, because after millennia of humans gazeing up at the Moon in both worship and scientific marvel, we have finally visited another world, and in so doing we have demonstrated to ourselves and anyone else who might be watching from the stars, that humanity is now a space faring civilization.

Day six is over. Day seven July begins with our next episode, in which we describe an epic showdown between two titans, the United States and the Soviet Union, as they used the space race to wage the Cold War, and one thing will become abundantly clear, America would have never reached the Moon before the Russians without a whole lot of help from the Nazis. 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 producer is Brian show Saw and Natalie Robomed. Our incredible editor is Bill Lance. Original music by Henry ben Wah. Special thanks to Andy Aldred, Dr Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory and UCF planetary

scientist Dr Eddie Dove. 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 you're hearing selections from in this podcast. Special thanks also to consultant Gina Delvac. 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. M