The Eagle Has Landed: The Story of Apollo 11

by Jeffrey Smith

  While brief and make-shift, the three-man Soviet mission marked another first in space flight. Even with Gemini on the immediate horizon, the United States still appeared to be playing catch-up with the Soviet Union.

  The assassination of President Kennedy on November 22, 1963 left NASA officials in a state of mourning; the man who dreamed of landing on the Moon had been suddenly and violently taken away. Wernher von Braun’s secretary remembered JFK’s assassination as the only time she ever saw her boss shed tears.

  Mobilizing its grief, NASA redoubled its efforts to achieve a lunar landing before the end of the decade—a living memorial to the martyred President. On Thanksgiving Day, just six days after as his predecessor’s death, Lyndon Johnson announced that the Defense Department’s Atlantic Missile Range and NASA’s Florida Launch Operations Center would be renamed the John F. Kennedy Space Center.

  Twenty-two months elapsed between the last Mercury flight and the first Gemini mission. After two successful unmanned flights, Gemini II, christened Molly Brown, manned by astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young, was launched on March 23, 1965. Grissom jokingly proposed naming the spacecraft Titanic, but NASA officials squelched this idea—the sinking of Liberty Bell 7 during Project Mercury remained too embarrassing of a memory.

  The Gemini spacecraft performed well, and the astronauts orbited the Earth 3 times, spending 4 hours and 53 minutes in space. While circling Earth, the crew of Gemini II chartered new waters, and also managed to court controversy. Utilizing the manual navigation system, they were able to maneuver the spacecraft into higher and lower orbits—a critical requirement for rendezvous and docking with another spacecraft. NASA engineers and flight technicians, however, found it less than amusing when they learned Young had smuggled a corn beef sandwich into the capsule. When Young offered the sandwich to Grissom while in orbit, pieces of meat floated about the cabin and stuck to various instruments, which earned the pair sharp reprimands from NASA leadership.

  Just five days before the inaugural Gemini mission, the Soviet Union achieved another space exploration milestone, when Alexi Leonov became the first man to walk in space. Tragedy was narrowly averted when Leonov experienced difficulty re-entering the Voskad 2 spacecraft due to the pressure differential between space and the capsule hatch’s air lock mechanism, causing his space suit to inflate (akin to the Michelin Man). In a risky move, Leonov released pressure from his suit, and then barely managed to crawl back in the spacecraft, before he was overcome by exhaustion.

  Further trouble plagued the Soviet crew, when the spacecraft’s automatic guidance system failed during re-entry, causing the capsule to land 2,000 miles beyond the recovery area. While parachute-landing in a snow-covered forest, the spacecraft’s radio antenna and beacon were sheared off by tree limbs, making it all the more difficult for rescuers to locate the cosmonauts. Leonov and his crewmate were forced to spend the night inside the frigid capsule, surrounded by hungry timber wolves, until they were rescued the next day.

  In early June of 1965, during his Gemini IV space flight, Edward H. White became the first American to walk in space. Tethered to the space capsule by life support umbilical lines, White used a nitrogen-powered zip gun to move about in zero gravity, while orbiting the Earth at 18,000 miles per hour. When it came time to end the space walk and re-enter the capsule, White expressed disappointment: “It was the saddest day of my life.” White and his crewmate, James McDivitt, attempted to rendezvous with a Titan second-stage rocket, but were unable to dock with their tumbling orbital companion.

  Aboard Gemini V, in August of 1965, Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad spent nearly 8 days in space, orbiting Earth 120 times, setting a new record for the world’s longest continuous space flight. While the astronauts conducted further testing of the spacecraft’s guidance and navigation system, they were forced to contend with a malfunction of the fuel cells, which had replaced batteries as the capsule’s electrical power source.

  In December of 1965, Gemini VI, with crewmembers Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford, and Gemini VII, manned by Frank Borman and James Lovell, orbited Earth at the same time (another first) and maneuvered within a few feet of one another. The two crews were close enough to see each other through their cockpit windows, proving that spacecraft could be properly aligned for docking. The Gemini VII crew orbited the Earth 206 times and spent an unprecedented 13 days in space.

  In March of 1966, aboard Gemini VIII, Neil Armstrong and David Scott completed the first successful orbital docking with another spacecraft; an unmanned Air Force Agena upper stage rocket, 180 miles above the Earth’s surface. The actual docking procedure went smoothly until the combined spacecraft began to uncontrollably spin and roll. Armstrong alertly jettisoned the Agena rocket, but the Gemini capsule continued to gyrate, escalating to a rate of one revolution per second.

  “We have a serious problem here,” Armstrong radioed Mission Control.

  Dizzy and disoriented by the spinning spacecraft, the astronauts were on the verge of losing consciousness, when Armstrong elected to fire the re-entry engine system.

  “We both knew that if this didn’t work, we were dead,” Scott recalled.

  The last second maneuver worked, and the spacecraft recovered from its death spiral. It was later determined that the neartragedy was caused by one of the spacecraft’s thrusters that was stuck in the on position.

  Gemini IX was supposed to have been flown by Elliot See and Charles Bassett, but both men were killed in a plane crash en route to the McDonnell Aircraft plant in St. Louis on February 28, 1966— the first astronauts to die in the line of duty. Gene Cernan and Tom Stafford ultimately piloted the mission, which launched on June 23rd of that same year. The spacecraft was unable to rendezvous with an Agena rocket, after its docking mechanism failed to fully deploy. The space flight was partially salvaged, when Cernan took a lengthy spacewalk.

  Michael Collins became the first astronaut to execute a successful docking maneuver with an Agena rocket during the Gemini X mission. The rendezvous and docking procedures were replicated during the Gemini XI and XII flights.

  While overshadowed by its Mercury predecessors and Apollo successors, the 10 manned Gemini flights, conducted over a 20-month period, were an essential bridge in American space exploration. Mission Control Flight Director Gene Kranz summed up the legacy of the intermediate program: “ Gemini developed the tools and technologies we needed to go to the Moon, but even more, Gemini was an essential step for the crews and (flight) controllers.” Neil Armstrong, who piloted Gemini VIII, echoed Kranz’s observations: “I believe that Gemini was timely and synergistic. It provided millions of hours of real experience in the preparation of space vehicles.”

  When Project Gemini concluded, there were only four full years remaining in the decade. If the United States planned to reach the Moon before 1970, it was sink or swim time for Project Apollo.

  CHAPTER 5

  Luck has no business in space flight

  During the Mercury and Gemini years, the United States and the Soviet Union launched unmanned lunar probes to learn more about the Moon’s orbit and topography. Between 1961 and 1965, NASA’s Project Ranger launched nine such probes—after a series of malfunctions, the final three made it to the Moon, and ultimately transmitted an estimated 17,000 detailed photographs of the lunar surface back to Earth. Utilizing these images, NASA was able to identify prospective manned lunar landing sites.

  Project Surveyor followed Ranger, with five of its seven probes reaching the Moon, between May of 1966 and July of 1968. On June 2, 1966, the three-legged Surveyor 1 spacecraft landed on the Moon, transmitting 80,000 photographs, which provided NASA scientists and engineers with crucial data concerning the process of lunar descent. After Surveyor 2 unexpectedly crashed on the Moon, Surveyor 3 successfully landed on April 19, 1967, and successfully transmitted 6,300 photographs, as well as temperature and seismological data, back to Earth. The probe’s robotic arm also trenched the lunar surface to gauge the composition of th
e soil.

  In 1966, the Soviet Union launched two unmanned probes (Luna 9 and Luna 10). Luna 9 was the first spacecraft to execute a “soft landing” on the lunar surface, while Luna 10 became the first spacecraft to orbit the Moon.

  Throughout the 1960s, the Cold War remained a virtual stalemate. The threat of mutual nuclear annihilation restricted the United States and Soviet Union to aggressive posturing, while preventing eruption of World War III.

  At the height of the Space Race, the two super powers managed to achieve a measure of détente. The 1967 Treaty on Exploration and Use of Outer Space waived any country’s claim to the Moon, which would be treated like international waters, as the “property of all humankind.”

  Heading into Project Apollo, the Soviet Union was already on the verge of losing the Space Race, a fact largely unbeknownst to the American public. When Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev was deposed in 1965, his successors did not share the space exploration fervor of the Sputnik years. In 1966, the sudden death of Sergei Korolev, the Soviet Union’s lead rocket engineer and spacecraft designer, during a routine but botched surgical procedure, was a major blow to the country’s lunar exploration program.

  The N-1 rocket, the Soviets’ designated lunar launch vehicle, proved temperamental. Requiring a volatile mixture of liquid oxygen and kerosene to fuel each stage, the N-1 was subject to over-heating. On four separate occasions, N-1 test rockets exploded either on the launch pad or shortly after lift-off. In contrast, the American Apollo Saturn V performed flawlessly.

  Bureaucratic infighting between Soviet scientists and their military supervisors led to frequent project delays. The political philosophy of Communism demanded conformity and did not adequately reward innovation. Failure was often followed by punishment, including imprisonment, physical abuse, and/or execution, while accomplishments were rewarded with propaganda-laden commendations or token medals. In such a dysfunctional system, paranoia was epidemic and corruption was rampant, while the temptation to undermine colleagues to save face (and perhaps one’s own life), further undermined progress.

  Unlike NASA, which was a non-military agency, the Soviets placed civilian scientists and engineers under military supervision. Many Russian military leaders were far more interested in weaponry than space exploration, and viewed the prospect of a lunar landing as a waste of time and money.

  America’s manned lunar landing program was named by NASA engineer and project manager, Abe Silverstein: “I thought the image of the god Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun gave the best representation of the grand scale of the proposed program.” NASA Director James Webb articulated the far-reaching goals of the project: “The Apollo requirement was to take off from a point on the surface of the Earth that was traveling at 1,000 miles per hour as the Earth rotated, to go into orbit at 18,000 miles per hour, to travel to a body in space some 240,000 miles distant, which itself traveling 2,000 miles per hour relative to Earth, to go into orbit around the body, and to drop a specialized landing vehicle to its surface. The men were to make observations and measurements, collect specimens…and then repeat much of the outward-bound process to get back home…One such expedition would not do the job. NASA had to develop a reliable system capable of doing this time after time.” As straightforward as the objective appeared, the planning and execution of a lunar mission was painstaking and exact, with little margin for error.

  The Apollo mission to the Moon involved sequential steps— launch, orbiting Earth, docking the space capsule with the lunar exploration vehicle, trans-lunar injection (escaping Earth’s orbit and traveling to the Moon), lunar orbit, lunar descent, Moon walk, lunar ascent, another docking of the lunar module and space capsule, trans-Earth injection (escaping the Moon’s orbit and returning to Earth), re-entry in Earth’s atmosphere, and splashdown/recovery in the Pacific Ocean. Mechanical failure or pilot error in any of these critical phases could easily result in the death of all three astronauts.

  The design and development of the components needed to execute an Apollo lunar mission was a team effort, involving hundreds of thousands of designers, engineers, and technicians, both at NASA and in the private-sector. The powerful, three-stage Saturn V rocket, which cost 350 million dollars, was responsible for launching the spacecraft into orbit. Conceptualized by Werner von Braun, the Saturn V was constructed in a joint effort between North American Aviation, Boeing, McDonnell Aircraft, and IBM.

  Under pressure to reach the Moon by the end of the decade, NASA made the decision to embark upon an “all up approach” with the Saturn V rocket. In other words, all three stages of the complex rocket would be tested together “live,” on the first flight, rather than individually.

  The Saturn V was the first American space rocket that was designed and constructed as a civilian-only project, without military supervision. Because of its enormous power, the rocket’s monstrous first stage could not be fired at full throttle at the Marshall Center in Huntsville, for fear of shattering windows in nearby residences. Instead, the first stage rocket was transported by barge across the Gulf of Mexico and up the Pearl River to the Mississippi Test Facility (later renamed the Stennis Test Center, in honor of Senator John Stennis). At this isolated, swampy south Mississippi location, the Saturn V’s most powerful engines were repeatedly test fired.

  On January 29, 1964, the first Saturn rocket, an abbreviated two-stage missile, blasted off from Cape Canaveral. The rocket successfully launched into orbit the largest payload in history—an empty 37,000-pound rocket stage.

  The command service module (CSM), which would transport Apollo crews to the Moon and back, was built by North American Aviation. The lunar excursion module (LM), brain child of Langley Center aeronautical engineer, John C. Houbolt, was constructed by Grumman. General Electric designed the fuel cells that powered the spacecraft. Philco Aerospace Company equipped Mission Control with flight communication consoles, while IBM designed the Apollo computer systems.

  Economics and politics, the parents and nursemaids of the American space program, eventually came to regard their progeny as a needy step-child. By the latter half of the 1960s, the U.S. Treasury was finding it impossible to fund the Vietnam War, Lyndon Johnson’s beloved and all-encompassing Great Society social programs, and NASA’s enormous budget. The space program soon learned that the government cash cow was not an endless reservoir. By decade’s end, expenditures for space exploration would be dramatically reduced.

  A small, but vocal segment of the American public condemned the Space Race as a misguided venture. An expanding counterculture of disaffected, mostly young Americans viewed war-making and technology as twin behemoths, which were threatening peace and harmony, while occupying minds and consuming monies that could be better utilized to combat social plaques, like hunger, poverty, and disease. At the same time, African Americans, the most rapidly growing segment of the electorate (a direct result of the Voting Rights Act of 1965), believed that social ills, which disproportionately affected minorities, were being woefully neglected by white men who were more interested in walking on the Moon than helping their fellow man. Civil Rights leader Whitney Young echoed the anti-Apollo sentiments of his brethren: “A circus act—a marvelous trick that leaves poverty untouched. It will cost 35 billion dollars to put two men on the Moon. It would take 10 billion dollars to lift every poor person in this country above the poverty standard this year. Something is wrong somewhere.”

  By early 1967, training for the first Apollo mission was well underway. Many assumed the successes of the Mercury and Gemini programs had paved the way for a smooth transition, while others cautioned against overconfidence. NASA Flight Director, Chris Craft, reminded his colleagues: “We’re making it look too easy. I hope we don’t end up paying a price, someday, for leaving a false impression.”

  NASA had miraculously skirted potentially deadly mishaps during the 16 manned spaceflights leading up to Project Apollo, and none of the astronauts had been seriously injured. Good fortune had smiled on the Amer
ican space program, but Apollo Flight Director, Gene Kranz, offered a terse warning: “Luck has no business in space flight.”

  A sense of foreboding haunted Apollo during its early days. When the first command service module was delivered to Cape Canaveral, NASA engineers complained about the spacecraft’s “shoddy workmanship.” Inside the space capsule, bundles of exposed wires were a source of concern to launch pad technicians. Unlike McDonnell Aircraft, manufacturers of the Gemini spacecraft, North American Aviation and Grumman Aviation, builders of the command service module and lunar module, refused to share their systems information and schematic drawings with NASA flight controllers, cavalierly bypassing an important step in the safety monitoring process. Astronaut, Jim Lovell, summed up the frustrations of many of his colleagues: “The Apollo spacecraft, by even the most charitable estimates, was turning out to be an Edsel.” Prior to the first scheduled Apollo flight, a total of 20,000 system failures were recorded. A disgusted Gus Grissom, who was slated to command Apollo 1, left a lemon inside the flight simulator after completing a training exercise. In spite of these concerns, NASA moved headlong toward the first Apollo launch.

  On Friday night, January 27, 1967, Grissom and his crewmates, Edward White and Roger Chafee, were strapped in the cockpit of their Apollo 1 command service module, high above the Cape Canaveral launch pad. The astronauts were busily engaged in a full “dress rehearsal” for the scheduled launch in three weeks. Because of several delays related to malfunctions, the crew had already spent five consecutive hours inside the cramped spacecraft. Grissom, a veteran of Mercury and Gemini, was fully aware of the many hazards of space flight: “We flew with the knowledge that if something really went wrong up there, there wasn’t the slightest hope of rescue.” At the same time, no one was prepared for a catastrophe during a routine training exercise.