Aldrin’s ingress a few minutes earlier had proven relatively easy, considering that the bulky PLSS necessitated that the astronaut arch his back so as to afford the least profile going in. Navigating solo, Aldrin first brought his knees inside the cockpit, then he moved from a kneeling to an upright position. Before turning around, he had to ensure adequate allowance for the switches and other equipment immediately behind him.
Neil’s ingress, which took one minute and twenty-six seconds from the time he climbed on the LM footpad, benefited from Aldrin’s guidance:
The time between the hatch opening and its closing was two hours, thirty-one minutes, and forty seconds. Earth time upon closure was 1:11 A.M. EDT. Humankind’s first direct sojourn onto the surface of the Moon was over in less time than it took to watch a football game or Broadway play.
On CBS, Eric Sevareid and Walter Cronkite tried to sum up the momentous events. “Man has landed and man has taken his first steps. What is there to add to that?” Cronkite asked. Sevareid answered: “At this hour one can only subtract. I don’t know what one can add now. We’ve seen some kind of ‘birth’ here. And I’m sure that to many, many people the first scene of Armstrong emerging must have seemed like a birth. One’s image of this clumsy creature, half-blind, maneuvering with great awkwardness at first, and slowly learning to use its legs, until, in a rather short time it’s running.
“And in this new world, this new reality. And the quickness of the adjustment of the human body, and the nervous system. The weight of gravity on Earth. Just the other day they were at the Cape; then weightlessness of several days; and then to the Moon’s one-sixth gravity. And somehow the body adjusts with that speed and in totally different elements. This is what overwhelms you.
“And Armstrong’s words. He sounded very laconic, unemotional. His mother said as she heard them on the air that he was thrilled. And I think we’d have to take a mother’s word for that. And then when they moved around, you sensed their feeling of joy up there. I never expected to see them bound, did you? Everything we’ve been told was that they would move with great care. Foot after foot with great deliberation. We were told they might fall. And here they were, like children playing hopscotch.”
“Like colts almost,” Cronkite interjected.
“Like colts finding their legs, exactly. I must say, as somebody who loves the English language, I have such a great gratitude that the first voices that came from another celestial body were in the English tongue, which I feel is the richest language of all. I think it is the greatest vocabulary. And maybe only one million people or so on the Earth speak and understand it. But I never expected to hear that word ‘pretty.’ He said it was ‘pretty.’ What we thought was cold and desolate and forbidding—somehow they found a strange beauty there that I suppose they can never really describe to us. So we’ll never know.”
Cronkite: “It may not be a beauty that one can pass on to future beholders, either. These first men on the Moon can see something that men who follow will miss.”
Sevareid: “We’re always going to feel, somehow, strangers to these men. They will, in effect, be a bit stranger, even to their own wives and children. Disappeared into another life that we can’t follow. I wonder what their life will be like, now. The Moon has treated them well, so far. How people on Earth will treat these men, the rest of their lives, that gives me more foreboding, I think, than anything else.”
One of the gaps in the record of Apollo 11 concerns the personal items and mementos Armstrong and his crewmates took with them to the Moon. All three men had a Personal Preference Kit stowed on board for them at launch. A PPK was a beta-cloth pouch about the size of a large brown lunch sack, with a pull-string opening at the top, coated with fireproof Teflon.
Exactly how many PPK pouches were taken by each Apollo 11 astronaut to the Moon is unknown. Apparently at least one belonging to each stayed for the entire flight in the left side lower equipment stowage compartment of the command module; these CM PPKs could weigh no more than five pounds per astronaut. At least two other PPKs, one for Neil and one for Buzz, were stowed inside the LM, in compartment cabinets located underneath the control and display panels to the right and left of Aldrin’s and Armstrong’s flight stations, respectively. These LM PPKs—it is likely there were only two of them, one for each of them—were limited to half a pound per astronaut. Anything in excess of those amounts would have required a special waiver from the manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, Dr. George Low. (The weights of Apollo 11’s PPKs are unknown.) Sometime before or after the flight, Neil, Mike, and Buzz agreed to authenticate all items on board Apollo 11 as “carried to the Moon,” whether they went to the lunar surface or stayed in the CSM, so as not to devalue the symbolic importance of the items carried by Collins only in lunar orbit.
None of the three astronauts has ever shared an inventory of the souvenirs that were in those six bags. (In addition to the bags mentioned above, the astronauts also took another PPK for frequently used personal items, such as pens, razors, and sunglasses.) What is known about them has been based solely on what the astronauts over the years have said or written and on what they have released and identified from their private holdings for sale or display. In Armstrong’s case, this has amounted to almost nothing, since Neil has never spoken about what he took to the Moon—and, unlike Buzz and Mike, has never put any of his items up for auction.
All attempts to discover the contents of the PPKs have failed. Even before the launch of Apollo 11, rumors circulated, but NASA refused to shed any light upon the subject. “The astronauts don’t have to tell anyone around here what is in those kits because they are their own personal items,” one MSC official declared prior to the Apollo 11 launch. It was not quite the whole truth. As astronaut Alan Bean has explained, “You had to make a list, so that Deke Slayton and everybody could have it. But as long as it didn’t get too heavy, you could carry lots of stuff.”
Janet Armstrong, in reply to a persistent newsman on hand for her public greeting two hours after her husband landed on the Moon, admitted that Neil had taken something to the Moon for her, but she refused to reveal what it was. On air with CBS, Cronkite quickly commented on the news clip: “While we heard a minute ago from Janet Armstrong that Neil had taken a little packet of something memorable for her along with him, we know that the others have as well. And they’re also being secretive about what it is, as all of the astronauts have from the first flight of Alan Shepard in 1961.”
Indeed, it was NASA’s policy to keep the astronauts’ personal belongings strictly confidential. Souvenir items carried by Shepard and other Mercury astronauts did not even have to be manifested formally. When PPKs came into existence during Project Gemini (when they were known as APKs, or Astronaut Preference Kits), only the astronauts themselves and Deke Slayton as head of the Astronaut Office had access to their manifest. Aldrin remembers how loose the PPK procedure actually was: “NASA had requested that we furnish them with a list of everything we were taking, and we quickly obliged. It was of such small import that NASA’s official compilation of what I took was not even deemed worthy of being typed up. The confirming list they gave me back was handwritten and complete.”
Changes to the relaxed souvenir policy, as well as to the physical makeup of the PPKs, came only after two scandals broke in 1971. The first was a minor scandal involving a reported deal—never consummated—between the Apollo 14 astronauts and the Franklin Mint in Philadelphia. The story, which angered some members of Congress, involved the Franklin Mint’s plan to melt down pure silver medallions “carried to the Moon” by the Apollo 14 crew, then sell for profit a large quantity of medallions incorporating traces of the original silver.
The second scandal generated significant negative publicity, brought on by revelations of an unfortunate decision by the Apollo 15 astronauts. In exchange for transporting one hundred first-day postal covers, German stamp dealer Hermann Sieger paid each of the three astronauts $6,000, depositing the mone
y into individual Swiss bank accounts as trust funds for the astronauts’ children. Instead of withholding sale of the covers until after the Apollo program was over, which was the astronauts’ understanding of how the deal would be handled, Sieger immediately began selling them—for $1,500 each. When all one hundred were sold, the dealer would enjoy a total return equivalent in today’s dollars to some three-quarters of a million. Much more bothersome in the mind of the American public were reports that the Apollo 15 astronauts had carried three hundred additional covers for themselves. Critics assumed that the men were planning to sell theirs off as well. The story infuriated Congress and led NASA to conduct an internal investigation, one that turned into something of a witch hunt and resulted in a firm reprimand for the astronauts. It was a sad and complicated affair, with the three astronauts—Dave Scott, Al Worden, and Jim Irwin—unfairly bearing the brunt of the blame for a questionable practice involving personal mementos that had been going on ever since the early days of Mercury.*
So cautious was NASA about releasing what its astronauts carried as souvenirs that it is not known with certainty even today what Apollo 11 was carrying in its OFK, or Official Flight Kit. An OFK manifest for Apollo 11 was never released publicly, and none has ever been located. The only proof that one even existed is a 1974 memorandum from NASA Associate Administrator Rocco A. Petrone to NASA Administrator Dr. James C. Fletcher dealing with the proposed future distribution of American flags flown on U.S. space missions, stating that an OFK had flown on Apollo 11. (The memo informed Fletcher that the remaining U.S. flags that had been flown on Apollo 11 and not yet given away were being reserved for future U.S. presidents and vice presidents only.)
Apollo 11’s OFK might not even have been an actual bag or pouch. It is possible that OFK items for the first Moon landing were simply stowed in one or more of the cabinets inside the command module. A NASA document from 1972 would later indicate that “the total weight of this kit shall not exceed 53.3 pounds per mission.” Clearly, the contents of the OFK comprised a much larger stash of souvenir items than what went into the astronauts’ PPKs. As official NASA souvenirs, OFK items were meant for distribution, either by the astronauts or by leading NASA officials, to VIPs and organizations. As none of these items were transferred over to the LM prior to its separation in lunar orbit, it seems clear that nothing from the OFK, whether one physically existed or not, was carried to the surface.
Thus, the only items taken to the surface of the Moon was whatever was in the PPKs that had been stowed in the LM—and we do not know what was in them. To wit:
Four hundred fifty silver medallions that had been minted by the Robbins Company of Massachusetts. These had been divided equally between the three astronauts and stowed in their PPKs. How many of the medallions were in the PPKs that were stowed aboard the Eagle and taken down to the surface, however, is unknown.
Three gold medallions, also minted by the Robbins Company, one for each astronaut. One can assume that these medals were in the LM PPKs.
An unknown number of miniature (4 x 6-inch) flags of the United States; of the fifty U.S. states, District of Columbia, and U.S. territories; of the nations of the world; and of the United Nations. According to a NASA press release of July 3, 1969, “These flags will be carried in the lunar module and brought back to Earth. They will not be deployed on the Moon. The small flags are to be carried in a plastic vacuum cloth and stowed in a beta cloth pouch with a Teflon outer wrap.” What this seems to mean is that all these miniature flags were stowed aboard the LM in a special, third PPK that did not belong to either Neil or Buzz. As part of the OFK kept inside the command module, there were a great many additional miniature American flags. There were also two full-size (5 x 8-foot) American flags, which were to be presented to the two houses of Congress upon return to Earth. These exact flags had been flown over the U.S. Capitol prior to the Apollo 11 mission and were to be flown again there after the mission. It is also known that Aldrin carried miniature U.S. flags in his PPK, some of which he later sold. As Buzz has only specified that these flags were “carried to the Moon,” it is not certain whether they went to Tranquility Base or just stayed in orbit.
A commemorative Apollo 11 envelope issued by the U.S. Post Department. On it was a newly issued ten-cent stamp also commemorating Apollo 11. It is not known whether these items were in Neil’s or in Buzz’s LM PPK. While on the lunar surface, they were supposed to cancel the cover, but they forgot to do so. (That was not done until July 24 when the crew was together in the quarantine facility. Nonetheless, the cancellation read July 20.) In the command module, in either Collins’s PPK or the OFK, the crew also brought along the die from which the commemorative stamp had been printed. In his CM PPK, Aldrin carried 101 philatelic covers on behalf of the Manned Spacecraft Center’s Stamp Club. Another 113 envelopes, perhaps more, were also carried onboard the command module, some in PPKs, but most of them in the OFK. Each member of the crew signed all of the covers carried. In later years, Aldrin and Collins initialed some of their covers, in the upper left corner, and some were put up for sale. No one has ever seen a cover initialed by Armstrong, because he has never initialed one.
An unknown number of Apollo 11 “beta cloth” patches, so named by their manufacturer, Owen-Corning Fiberglass of Ashton, Rhode Island, because they were made of tightly woven and fireproof glass fiber and worn only by the astronauts. Each astronaut may have had a small number of beta patches in his PPK, but how many of them went to the surface, if any, is unknown.
An unknown number of embroidered Apollo 11 patches. Most of these were likely part of the OFK, but a few might have been taken in PPKs, though few if any of them traveled to the lunar surface.
Three gold olive-branch pins, exact replicas of the gold olive branch in the packet that Aldrin tossed down at the last minute to the lunar surface during the EVA. After the flight, the crew presented the pins to their wives as gifts. Presumably, each LM astronaut carried his own wife’s pin in his respective PPK, with either Neil or Buzz carrying the pin that Collins was to give his wife Patricia.
A vial filled with wine and a miniature chalice, in Aldrin’s LM PPK.
Pieces of jewelry for his wife and family, in Aldrin’s LM PPK.
As for Armstrong specifically, he has never released any information about the contents of his PPK. He agreed to do so for publication in this book, but reported that he was unable to find the manifest among his many papers. All he had to say about what he took with him to the Moon was, “In my PPK I had some Apollo 11 medallions, some jewelry for my wife and mother [simply the gold olive branch pin for each], and some things for other people.” He is most clear about, and most proud of, the pieces of the historic Wright Flyer that he took to the Moon. Under a special arrangement with the U.S. Air Force Museum in Dayton, he took in his LM PPK a piece of wood from the Wright brothers’ 1903 airplane’s left propeller and a piece of muslin fabric (8 x 13 inches) from its upper left wing.
Armstrong also took along his college fraternity pin from Purdue, which he later donated for display at Phi Delta Theta’s headquarters in Oxford, Ohio. Contrary to published stories, he did not take Janet’s Alpha Chi Omega sorority pin.
“I didn’t bring anything else for myself,” Neil states today. “At least not that I can remember.” As for Janet, the only thing taken to the Moon for her was the olive branch pin. “He didn’t ask me if I wanted to send anything.”
Perhaps surprisingly, Armstrong took nothing else for family members—not even for his two boys, a fact that still distresses Janet. “I assumed he had taken things to give to the boys later, but I don’t believe he has ever given them anything.
“Neil can be thoughtful, but he does not give much time to being thoughtful, or at least to expressing it.”
Another loved one that Neil apparently did not remember by taking anything of hers to the Moon was his daughter Karen. What could have made the first Moon landing more meaningful “for all mankind” than a father honoring the che
rished memory of his beloved little girl, by taking a picture of the child, dead now over seven years (she would have been a ten-year-old), one of her toys, an article of her clothing, a lock of hair? Astronaut Gene Cernan, just before he left the lunar surface on Apollo 17, had done something touching for his healthy nine-year-old daughter Tracy: at the end of his final EVA, Gene had signed her name in the dust.
What if Neil had done something like that but had never told anyone about it, not even Janet, because it was of such an intensely personal nature? How much more would posterity—fathers and mothers, sons and daughters—value and esteem the character and actions of the First Man? It would have elevated the Moon landing to an even higher level of significance. Among those who feel so are Neil’s sister June, who knows her brother as well as anyone. “Did he take something of Karen with him to the Moon?” ran June’s rhetorical question. “Oh, I dearly hope so.”
CHAPTER 30
Return to Earth
Neil had always worried most about the final descent to the Moon landing. “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. It was hardest for the systems, and it was hardest for the crew…. It was the thing I most worried about, because it was so difficult.
“Walking around on the surface, on a ten-point scale, I deemed a one. The lunar descent on that scale was probably a thirteen.”
Somewhere in between was what it took to pilot the ascent stage of the LM back to a reunion with Mike Collins. That little tender piece of flying, though perhaps only a five or six on the scale of difficulty, was a ten-plus on the scale of the mission’s ultimate success. If that ascent to docking, for whatever reason, did not work out, nothing about Apollo 11’s remarkable performance up to this point, or about the dedicated efforts of four hundred thousand talented people who had endeavored to get Apollo 11 to the Moon, could be regarded as anything but a tragedy. The first Moon landing would have happened, but the astronauts who accomplished it would never return home. Nor would their bodies.
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