Of a Fire on the Moon

by Norman Mailer

  This is the transcript on that mighty event:

  CAPCOM: Apollo 11, this is Houston. We are slightly less than one minute to ignition and everything is GO.

  COLLINS: Roger.

  ARMSTRONG: Ignition. (The sound of rocket motors are faintly heard.)

  CAPCOM: We confirm ignition and the thrust is GO.

  CAPCOM: Apollo 11, this is Houston at 1 minute. Trajectory and guidance look good and the stage is good. Over.

  COLLINS: Apollo 11. Roger.

  CAPCOM: Apollo 11, this is Houston. Thrust is good. Everything is still looking good.…

  COLLINS: Roger.

  CAPCOM: Apollo 11, this is Houston. Around three and a half minutes. You’re still looking good. Your predicted cutoff is right on the nominal.

  ARMSTRONG: Roger. Apollo 11’s GO.

  CAPCOM: Apollo 11, this is Houston. You are GO at five minutes.

  ARMSTRONG: Roger, we’re GO.

  CAPCOM: Apollo 11, this is Houston. We show cutoff and we copy the numbers in Noun 62 …

  COLLINS: Roger, Houston. Apollo 11. We’re reading the VI 35579 and the EMS was plus 3.3. Over.

  CAPCOM: Roger. Plus 3.3 on the EMS. And we copy the VI.

  ARMSTRONG: Hey Houston, Apollo 11. This Saturn gave us a magnificent ride.

  CAPCOM: Roger, 11, we’ll pass that on, and it looks like you are well on your way now.

  V

  Conceive of a sinner who is a Catholic and devout. What complexity in his feeling for the Church, what pieties of observance live between his sins. He has to make such intricate shows of concealment to his damned habits. Yet how simple is the Church’s relation to him. Extreme Unction will deliver his soul from a journey through hell.

  So it is with physics and engineering. Physics is the church, and engineering the most devout sinner. Physics is the domain of beauty, law, order, awe, and mystery of the purest sort; engineering is partial observance of the laws, and puttering with machines which never work quite as they should work: engineering, like acts of sin, is the process of proceeding boldly into complex and often forbidden matters about which one does not know enough—the laws remain to be elucidated—but the experience of the past and hunger for the taste of the new experience attract one forward. So bridges were built long before men could perform the mathematics of the bending moment.

  Now, Apollo 11 has had a trip up from earth with bumps and blasts, clockwork and sharp explosions, communications and fires hot as five thousand degrees Fahrenheit in the furnace of the engines and it has been a trip which on the one hand amounted to no more than a passage through the simplest laws of acceleration in classical physics, but represented on the other a fair climax to the best and most complex engineering techniques of the century, yes, Apollo 11 after this voyage from earth to earth orbit, and from orbit (via its last burn) into Trans-Lunar Injection, yes, Apollo 11, much in debt to engineering, and still trailing the ghosts of the earth’s atmosphere, now pushed its nose toward the moon (or toward a rendezvous with the circling moon three days out) and the final burn of its third stage completed, passed over at a speed of 25,000 miles an hour from the sweat-yards, crooked contracts, closet Mafia and mud-lanes of engineering to the rare temples of physics where one law at a time was enshrined, and one could observe the pure effects of that law. Now, the spaceship, all motors off, coasted up to the moon, lifting on its own momentum against all the loosening bonds of earth’s powers of desire to pull all flying bodies back to it, Apollo 11, shining templar of alloy, ascended in all delight as pure exhibit of Newton’s Laws of Motion. How beautiful they were. The First Law interned the mystery of the ages for it stated that “every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a straight line, except when it is compelled by external force to change that state.” That was a way of saying bodies at rest and bodies in uniform motion were in the same state. Indeed they were, once one could recognize that bodies everywhere were in motion, all bodies, the earth, the sun and the stars. Rest did not exist, rest was relative, a special condition of uniform motion—no easier place to grasp that phenomenon than in the fastest travels of man, for the more rapid the vehicle, the less was the sensation of speed. One passed from a sense of rest sitting in a chair on the ground to a cognition that it was only the sense of rest one knows in balance with the movement of larger parts of the universe. Further and further away from the earth coasted Apollo 11 at an initial translunar velocity fifty times greater than the fastest auto ever to scream past five hundred miles an hour on the salt flats at Bonneville; and in the Command Module, freed of the sensation of weight, objects traveled as freely as the men, flash-lights switched on, then given a twist, spun like illumined beacons on a tower, free-floating as they revolved, crumbs from the bread of a sandwich hovered for hours like motes of dust the size of flies.

  It is a picture of great happiness, of harmony, of souls at rest, and evil matter released from the bondage of its weight, but the laws of motion like the laws of morality invoke every notion of balance. Newton’s Second Law was harsh and just, as severe as the Third, which has been already encountered and taught us—if we did not know—that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. So the Second Law stated that the rate of change in a motion must be proportional to the force applied. One could not cheat life. One did not accelerate for nothing, nor slow one’s speed without braking force and heat. As a body moved away from the earth, so, too, did its speed diminish, for the force of gravity weakening, it was still a force to be applied against the effort to escape. Therefore Apollo 11 moved at a half, a quarter, finally a tenth of its greatest speed as it ascended to escape the gravity of the earth and enter the new field of the gravity of the moon. It was like a ball being rolled up a hill—if it reached the crest it would go over and roll down the other side no matter how slowly it was traveling over the crest. In fact, it was easy to think of the earth as being at the center of a bowl, and objects seeking to escape the earth’s gravity would have to be fired out at an initial speed sufficient to travel up the wall of the bowl and roll over the lip—that initial speed was almost seven miles a second for all objects which would escape the earth, and at almost seven miles a second (and a little more) was Apollo 11 fired up—the rest of the trip was given over to the hours and the days of the long coast in space as the speed of the spacecraft diminished from thirty-five thousand feet a second to three thousand feet a second, yes, the ship of space was still moving at the respectable speed of half a mile a second when it passed finally out of the last lingering lulling attraction of the earth and moved over the lip into the bowl of the moon’s gravity somewhere at an unmarked point about one hundred and eighty seven thousand nautical miles from the earth. And the computers moved over in the calculations with it. Now the force of the moon’s gravity would draw the spacecraft with its three men nearer and nearer to it, now the descent to the moon had begun.

  VI

  Long before, almost two and a half days before, not a half hour after the third stage had completed its five and a half minute burn and pushed Apollo 11 up to its highest speed, the final separation took place between this last of the launch vehicle and the as-yet unfired spacecraft.

  The Command and Service Module, two objects which when isolated together looked like nothing so much as a tin can with a cone on its nose and a motor at its rear, these two objects in combination about thirty-five feet long and thirteen feet wide, now separated themselves from the SLA or Service Lunar-Module Adapter. The SLA was attached to the S-IVB or third stage and in turn these last two objects, S-IVB and SLA, also might have looked like a tin can with a tin funnel attached, for the S-IVB was a cylinder with a motor at its rear, and the SLA was composed of four closed curved aluminum panels, much like the petals of a bud, designed to be sprung free a fraction of a second after an explosive wire blew the joining between the CSM and the SLA just as the small rocket thrusters of the Service Module gave a small push away. On the instant, the four aluminum petals, each twenty-one
feet long, and each wide enough to encircle a quarter of the Lem, blew off in four separate directions to go scaling through space and reveal what the SLA had contained—the folded legs, the head, thorax, and sac of a complex mechanical craft or creature which had the look of a particularly nasty insect. It was the astronauts’ first glimpse in space of the Lunar Module or Lem. And the Command and Service Module containing them promptly backed away from this sight of the leg-folded Lunar Module mounted on the end of the spent third stage, and at a rate of less than a foot per second, such slow speed offered it by a judicious use of its thrusters, the CSM withdrew about seventy feet, and then did at the end a complete back somersault to point in the opposite direction. The turnaround had taken about two seconds. The nose or probe of the Command Module had now reversed to point toward a small cavern in the Lem called the drogue, named doubtless for its resemblance in shape to one of those conical canvas sea anchors which are set out on lines during storms at sea. Now the CSM chugged forward slowly on its thrusters, moving relative to the Lem (still attached to the S-IVB) about as fast as a tugboat at maneuvering speed, although absolutely through space at a velocity somewhere over twenty-seven thousand feet a second. As the CSM moved, it proceeded by the use of other thrusters to go through a sixty-degree roll in order to align certain catches on its probe with the drogue. Then, at about one foot per second it closed the gap between probe and drogue. At the edge of rendezvous the speed was reduced to some fractions of an inch per second. With not much more impact than the lips of thoughtful lovers coming together, the probe of the Command Module entered the drogue, passed through a hole where a set of metal tongues called captive latches might lock, and the rendezvous was completed. The CSM and the Lem were docked.

  The terminology of rocket engineers was no stranger to the act of coupling—the stages of a rocket when brought together were mated—the astronauts, aware of the risibilities of passive and active collaboration between probe and drogue, would play with the humor. During a television transmission two days later, when Armstrong and Aldrin had to remove probe and drogue in order to enter the Lem, this following dialogue took place.

  CAPCOM: It looks like you almost got the probe out.

  ALDRIN: Yeah, it’s loose now …

  CAPCOM: Looks like it’s a little bit easier than doing that in the chamber.

  ARMSTRONG: You bet.

  ALDRIN: It’s pretty massive, but it goes where you direct it.

  ARMSTRONG: Mike must have done a smooth job in the docking. There isn’t a dent or a mark on the probe.

  On the flight of Apollo 12, there was heard, much to the quickly concealed shock of the commentator, the remark at the end of rendezvous—“Move over so I can stick it in your giggie.”* A docking was a docking, mechanical or no, a sweet feat in fact, equal in difficulty to two humans in a weightless environment trying to make love (with no hands) while they floated about, nothing more to direct them forward or away from each other than the wind they could expel at either end—or from their ears! What suggestion of future activities for tourists to the moon.

  Actually this particular docking had a few complications. “When I started to pitch up,” said Collins, “for some reason it—it stopped its pitch rate and I had to go back … and hit … an extra proceed on the DSKY. And during the course of that, we drifted slightly further away from the S-IVB than I expected. I expected to be out about sixty-six feet. My guess … I was around one hundred or so, and therefore I expect I used a bit more [gas] coming back in.”

  Pilots were notorious for being stingy. Folklore concerning them was filled with tales of waitresses who had been stiffed by a thin dime, or the woes of any airline stewardess who shared a cab with the pilot and paid the extra nickel in a bill of $5.75. So Collins now apologized for wasting gas—stinginess was a virtue in the air—birds are not the most conspicuous of the romantic figures. No, one does not waste gas. A useless move in the air burns fuel or loses momentum which may not be available later: so pilots keep clean charts and apologize for the expenditure of consumables they might have been able to save. What gives the flavor here is Collins’ generosity of manner. Whether superficial or straight from the heart, Collins had his implicit way of presenting himself as the most generous of the astronauts. Ergo, his apologies and copious remarks on the shade of this faint inefficiency have their hint of comic excess.

  It was not serious, no, indeed, and after docking, work went on. The hatch back of the probe on the Command Module was removed, the twelve locking latches on the ring which sealed the Command Module to the Lem were checked, the umbilicals for oxygen and electricity were connected, and the hatch was replaced. All this was accomplished with the astronauts feeling no sensation of motion even if they were coasting through space between four and five miles a second. And from what they could see through their windows the spaceship now looked bizarre. The realignment and docking had left the third stage at one end, the Command and Service Module at the other, and the Lem installed between. In this curious position, broadside to the direction of their flight, they traveled for a period.

  The Lem was pressurized. Other adjustments were made. Then the Command and Service Module with Lem attached separated from the third stage. Four knee bolts holding the Lem’s legs to the S-IVB were exploded with enough force to push away the CSM-with-Lem-now-attached at a rate of 1.2 feet a second. Separation completed, the spacecraft was pitched around once more, and its main motor was started. The burning time was but three seconds, just enough to give a speed of twenty feet a second. At that rate, the now liberated mooncraft, consisting of the CSM and Lem, pulled away from the third stage about as fast as a modest powerboat. Then, as a result of radio commands issued from the ground, the unburned fuel still in the third stage was vented. For every action, there was an equal and opposite reaction. From the simple discharge of the fuel there was a shift in the direction and speed of the abandoned third stage. It was a small shift, and a small change in speed, but it would be enough to divert the trajectory of the S-IVB away from the translunar coast of the Command Module. Now the S-IVB would pass far enough away to go past the moon and on to the sun. It would never be seen again. As time elapsed, the S-IVB drifted two miles away, four miles away, was finally lost from sight. The Command and Service Module with the Lem attached in front now sailed toward its rendezvous with the lunar sphere. But for a brief midcourse correction or two, its motor would not have to be fired again until the moment came to brake speed and ease into orbit around the moon. So on went this self-contained universe, born in high motion on the airless silences of space, born with the term of its human life dependent on the continued function of its oxygen and provisions, its human and propellant consumables, on through space it went, a bullet fired up from earth and now free of gravity and no readiness to stop.

  VII

  To speak of a self-contained universe when one is only dealing with a vehicle which is self-sustaining for a short period is to trespass on the meaning. A man is a universe by that measure, indeed he is more self-contained in his ability to adapt and survive than the ship of Apollo 11. In fact the Command Module is more like the sort of universe complete in itself one glimpses in a flower cut for a vase. Such an ornament receives food, breathes, exudes, molts, can even preside over a fresh development like the opening of a bud, and presumably this cut flower is capable of sending and receiving messages from other flowers and plants (if such communication is one of the functions of a flower) but still! we know the flower will live only a few days. It is a self-contained universe whose continuation is sealed off from itself.

  The same was true of the Command Module. The men in it could live no longer than there were supplies of oxygen for them to breathe, and that was for two weeks. Nonetheless, Apollo 11 was more a cosmic expression than an ornament. Its vase was space, and through space it traveled, a ship, a species of man-made comet, a minuscule planet with an ability to steer. We will inhabit this ship for the rest of the journey, we will be taken up with the
activities of the men in it, we will learn—if we will not learn precisely how to fly it—still we will pick up a little of what it might be like to endure, even at times to enjoy, the near to two hundred hours of the complete round trip. So it may be best to fix these living quarters in our mind.

  The spaceship, now free of the third stage, and five and a half hours out, was a most peculiar-looking object, about sixty-seven feet long, and in a variety of widths, for the top of the Lem (that mechanical spider!) was attached to the nose of the Command Module and in turn the base of the Command Module, we can remember, was faired into the Service Module. What then could be your honest width? The Service Module all complete was close to twenty-five feet long and twelve feet ten inches in diameter, a perfect tin can in appearance but for the bell of its motor at the base which took up perhaps ten feet of that length, a large bell for a modest motor. The Command Module was ten and a half feet high and at its base identical in diameter to the Service Module, but it tapered to the top, where it was no more than three feet across. There its probe locked into the drogue of the Lem, and the Lem had a width which was most confusing. Its body was fourteen feet in diameter, but its four legs were thirty-one feet across their diagonal when extended (somewhat less when closed) and the ship, while ready to coast in every attitude, either Lem first, or bell of the Service Module first, whether with its structure broadside to the line of its flight, or canted at an angle, cocked for example to the left, cocked to the right, upside down and all but inside out (any position was possible in a vacuum), still usually coasted with the Lem forward. The spaceship was therefore a most peculiar construction, not unreminiscent now of a bullet fixed to the knotted body of a bug. Indeed it had to be an object unlike anything seen in any machine on earth for its different components were designed to function in separate compartments of the universe. The Command Module and Service Module were obliged to withstand the friction of the atmosphere at high speeds—so their skin was streamlined to help minimize heat and drag, but the Lem had been designed to function only in a vacuum, and therefore needed streamlining no more than an earth borer would need eyes, indeed its form was the perfect expression of the sum of its curious functions, just as an office skyscraper which looks like a Kleenex box on end is the perfect expression of the innate architecture contained in a one hundred million dollar bill. The Lem looked about the way the organs, arteries and veins of the human body might appear within the human skeleton if the body lived in an environment which required no epidermis or sheath of outer muscles.