Speaker 1: Nine Days in July is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and trade Craft Studios in association with High five Content.
Speaker 1: It's January twenty seventh, nineteen sixty seven, two and a
Speaker 1: half years before the launch of Apollo eleven. Ed White,
Speaker 1: Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffey. The crew of Apollo one
Speaker 1: sit high atop their Saturn five rocket, sealed tight inside
Speaker 1: their command module. This is a dress rehearsal for their
Speaker 1: launch three weeks from now. The mood inside the capsule
Speaker 1: matches the weather outside gray. Their calms with the outside
Speaker 1: world are spotty and garbled every day. They've already been
Speaker 1: in the capsule for hours and very likely have many
Speaker 1: more to go. Their countdown clock is frozen while repair
Speaker 1: teams work the radio issue. As they wait for the
Speaker 1: training simulation to resume, something catches one of the astronaut's eyes.
Speaker 1: He glances down and suddenly recoils in terror. A freight
Speaker 1: electrical wire has sparked, igniting the combustible nylon material of
Speaker 1: the seats in which the astronauts are strapped tight. Within seconds,
Speaker 1: the fire has surged up the walls of the capsule.
Speaker 1: Flames begin to lick the television camera recording the interior
Speaker 1: of the command module. The atmosphere inside the command module
Speaker 1: is pure oxygen. While oxygen itself is not flammable, high
Speaker 1: concentrations of it make the things it permeates ignite at
Speaker 1: far lower temperatures than the otherwise would They also burned
Speaker 1: Hotter and faster technicians fight to get the hatch open.
Speaker 1: Just seventeen seconds after the astronauts first report the fire,
Speaker 1: the building pressure inside the vessel ruptures. The command module's
Speaker 1: baultants are. One thing is hauntingly clear to everyone. The
Speaker 1: astronauts inside the Command module have fallen silent. There are
Speaker 1: times when achieving greatness requires the highest possible sacrifice. Apollo ones,
Speaker 1: Ed White, Gus Grissom, and Roger Chaffee were the first
Speaker 1: American astronauts to perish in the line of duty. They
Speaker 1: paid the ultimate price, but it was not in vain.
Speaker 1: During my flight training in the Navy, we were constantly
Speaker 1: told that our manuals and training procedures were written in blood.
Speaker 1: Some of those who came before us paid for the
Speaker 1: lessons we were learning with their lives, ensuring none of
Speaker 1: us would be lost in that way. Ever, again, the
Speaker 1: same was true after the Apollo one fire. Everything changed
Speaker 1: after that. The success of NASA and Apollo eleven would
Speaker 1: be on the backs of every man and woman who
Speaker 1: sacrifice to push the boundaries of human exploration. In this episode,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a look at the sacrifices made
Speaker 1: not only by Neil, Michael and Buzz, but also by
Speaker 1: everyone who supported them professionally and personally. It's July nineteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, day four of the Apollo eleven mission,
Speaker 1: the day we reached the moon. Cliff Charles Worth and
Speaker 1: the Green team of flight controllers as just relieve, Glenn
Speaker 1: Lenny's Black Team capcom now is Bruce McCandless. Paulo eleven
Speaker 1: is twelve thousand, four eighty six nautical miles from the Moon,
Speaker 1: approaching at a velocity of four thousand eighty seven ft
Speaker 1: per second. Follow eleven, the follow eleven Morning again eleven,
Speaker 1: Good morning. When you feel like God being, I've got
Speaker 1: a flight plan updates. Remember when I told you in
Speaker 1: the first episode that we were going to be following
Speaker 1: the events inside a Paulo eleven in real time, day
Speaker 1: by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute. Well
Speaker 1: that's not exactly true. At seventies three hours zero zero
Speaker 1: man stop CTC at approximately zero degrees role. But it
Speaker 1: is when you're coming up on zero degrees role angle
Speaker 1: around seventy three hours, you'd like you to stop what
Speaker 1: you're hearing right now. That's most of what this podcast
Speaker 1: would sound like if we really did it minute by minute.
Speaker 1: Often nothing much happens until it does. Yeah, you read eleven.
Speaker 1: It's right to find the mount but a very excite uh,
Speaker 1: the very market of these dimensional aspects of happens come on.
Speaker 1: It's how behind the boon glazes the guys live all
Speaker 1: the way around the molony and grandmothers. Where there's no
Speaker 1: Earth time are Sun time. Apollo eleven is being treated
Speaker 1: to their own personal solar eclipse. This isn't an eclipse
Speaker 1: that's visible from Earth, but rather one the astronauts inadvertently
Speaker 1: created for themselves. They are now close enough to the
Speaker 1: Moon that it appears larger than the Sun, and they
Speaker 1: have fallen into its shadow. You heard Buzz mentioned the
Speaker 1: Sun's corona. That's a diaphonous aura of plasma that surrounds
Speaker 1: all stars, extending out for millions of miles. It's invisible
Speaker 1: except during an eclipse, right now the astronauts are watching
Speaker 1: ribbons of light shimmer and dance around a massive black
Speaker 1: hole that is the Moon in complete silhouette has been
Speaker 1: a real change for us. Now we're able to see
Speaker 1: stars again, unrecognized constellations for the first time. All the
Speaker 1: way here, we've only been able to see stars occasionally.
Speaker 1: He goes, it's turned in the night up there, really
Speaker 1: isn't We imagine deep space would be a wash with stars,
Speaker 1: but with the Earth reflecting sunlight like a massive mirror,
Speaker 1: it has made that nearly impossible, except now with the
Speaker 1: Sun's light trapped behind the Moon. In mission control, everyone
Speaker 1: is living vicariously through the cruise off. We've been having
Speaker 1: raised somebody really spectacular and view worth the price of
Speaker 1: the drip all or a lot of us down there
Speaker 1: that would be willing to come along. As a Pauloa
Speaker 1: Levin continues to enjoy the show. Houston kicks off their
Speaker 1: day with the news. McCandless decides to tag team it
Speaker 1: with backup lunar module pilot Fred hayes, it looks like
Speaker 1: it's going to be impossible, and get away from the
Speaker 1: fact that you guys are dominating all the news. Mccaron
Speaker 1: an prop and Russia's headlining the Manja and calls Neil
Speaker 1: bar of the ship. Pravda was the official newspaper of
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. It still exists today, though it's no
Speaker 1: longer a mouthpiece of the state. Czar Of was the
Speaker 1: honorific title given to the leader of Russia before the
Speaker 1: revolution in nineteen seventeen. West Germany has declared Monday to
Speaker 1: be Apollo Day. School Children in Bavaria have been given
Speaker 1: the day off. Post office clerks have been encouraged to
Speaker 1: bring radios to work, and Frankfurt is installing TV sets
Speaker 1: in public places. BBC in London is considering a special
Speaker 1: radio loan system to call people or the TV sets
Speaker 1: in cases a change in the av a time on
Speaker 1: the moon. Clearly, Apollo eleven has captured the imagination of
Speaker 1: the entire world. This will be the most significant where
Speaker 1: were you when moment at all of human history? And
Speaker 1: everyone wants to bear witness, even the kids at camp
Speaker 1: down in the news when Mike Junior was quoted as
Speaker 1: replying yeah when somebody asked him if the Steady was
Speaker 1: going to be in history, then after a sharp pause,
Speaker 1: he asked, what is history? You might be interested in
Speaker 1: annoying that. A Houston astrologer, Ruby Rahm says that all
Speaker 1: the signs are right for your trip to the moon.
Speaker 1: She says that Mail is clever, Mike's good judgment as
Speaker 1: Buzz can work out into good problems. Thank you us there.
Speaker 1: We appreciate that Rogers and Soil Michael Jr. History or
Speaker 1: no dream better baby, So Roger will pass it along.
Speaker 1: Like Apollo eleven is nearly to the moon. But we
Speaker 1: have just long enough to talk about what life was
Speaker 1: like back on Earth for Neil, Buzz and Michael and
Speaker 1: their long suffering families. That these families, especially the astronauts
Speaker 1: were living sort of double lives. They were their home
Speaker 1: lives in Houston, and then the guys who are flying
Speaker 1: their hot p thirty eight down to Cape Canavera where
Speaker 1: they were training, and so they were absentee fathers for
Speaker 1: the most part and sort of celebrities down in Florida.
Speaker 1: And so the women had to deal with the very
Speaker 1: unique challenge of keeping a family grounded while also sort
Speaker 1: of promoting this space age dream that America was projecting
Speaker 1: out into the world. That was Lily Copel. I'm a
Speaker 1: writer and journalist and I wrote a book called The
Speaker 1: Astronaut Wives Club. While the astronauts lived in Houston, a
Speaker 1: large amount of their training took place in Florida, forcing
Speaker 1: them away from their families for most of the week.
Speaker 1: In a very real sense, the astronaut's wives were single mothers.
Speaker 1: Barbara's Cernan, who was the wife of Jean Cernan, the
Speaker 1: last man to walk on the Moon, said quite poignantly,
Speaker 1: if you think going to the moon is hard, try
Speaker 1: staying at home. They ran the house, juggling the finances,
Speaker 1: mowing the lawn, fixing anything that broke, and helping the
Speaker 1: kids with their schoolwork. Andy Aldrin, buzz and Jones's youngest
Speaker 1: of three, was eleven the year his father left for
Speaker 1: the Moon. It wasn't at home all that all. That's
Speaker 1: just what my dad's job was. My mother was incredibly strong,
Speaker 1: incredibly diplomatic, incredibly compassionate. You know, I'll be honest with that.
Speaker 1: She emerges out of this whole thing as my biggest hero,
Speaker 1: because it was incredibly difficult for her to manage all
Speaker 1: the things that she had to manage without alarming the kids.
Speaker 1: You know, the fact that I can say all of
Speaker 1: this seemed normal is an absolute tribute to my mother.
Speaker 1: The wives soon realized that they were each other's greatest
Speaker 1: source of strength and supporting together's will was a name
Speaker 1: the journalists gave the community. So women were sort of
Speaker 1: living in this little tribal pack down in Houston, helping
Speaker 1: communally raise the kids back in Houston. Because the men
Speaker 1: were so busy training for their space flights. The wives
Speaker 1: had a little motto for their own role, and that
Speaker 1: was happy, proud, and thrilled because they next felt that
Speaker 1: they could reveal the enormous anxiety, the fears of what
Speaker 1: they were experiencing. This sisterhood of joint experiences, common pressures,
Speaker 1: mutual fears, and shared sacrifices was, by their own admission,
Speaker 1: a bit like living in a neighborhood run by the
Speaker 1: Stepford wives. They've always dreamed of the happiest investment they
Speaker 1: have ever made. There were five houses that were adjacent
Speaker 1: to the back of our house. Three of them were astronauts.
Speaker 1: You couldn't swing a dead cat at our elementary school
Speaker 1: without him an astronaut's kid, so it was normal. I
Speaker 1: thought my dad was cool because you get pole vauled,
Speaker 1: not because he was an astronaut. Having astronauts around was
Speaker 1: just normal for me. It was normal for everybody in
Speaker 1: our community. None of the astronaut wives knew what they
Speaker 1: were in for. When they got married. They expected the quiet,
Speaker 1: ordered life of military spouses, but now they had to
Speaker 1: attend ribbon cuttings and high society festivities. They had to
Speaker 1: plaster smiles on their faces during ticker tape parades and
Speaker 1: make small talk with first ladies. Their neighborhoods were invaded
Speaker 1: by press and tour buses, and it wasn't unusual to
Speaker 1: find tourists climbing trees or even jumping backyard fences just
Speaker 1: to get a look at them. The astro families had
Speaker 1: to be flawless. They had to project an image of
Speaker 1: the all American Christian family because the world was watching.
Speaker 1: The women of this family seemed to feel that they
Speaker 1: owe it to the men of the family to look relaxed, rested,
Speaker 1: and attractive at dinner time. And this was the height
Speaker 1: of the Cold War, and there was the feeling that
Speaker 1: America had to really sell and project to the world
Speaker 1: all the ideals of the country, of the American dreams.
Speaker 1: The choice lies between two opposing ideologies. On the one side,
Speaker 1: socialist communism on the other side, democratic capitalism. The astronauts
Speaker 1: and their families were on the forefront of this propaganda mission.
Speaker 1: They were almost like America's first reality stars. You know.
Speaker 1: There was such pressure um from NASA, from the US
Speaker 1: government to maintained this perfect nineteen fifties going into the
Speaker 1: sixties image, sort of the leave it to Beaver family.
Speaker 1: It was bad enough that the families had to meet
Speaker 1: NASA's impossible standards anytime they stepped out the front door,
Speaker 1: but thanks to an exclusive deal with Life magazine, they
Speaker 1: also had to maintain this illusion behind the closed doors
Speaker 1: of their own homes. Life reporters were literally embedded with
Speaker 1: the families before and during missions. Everything they did, said,
Speaker 1: or war was scrutinized. It was totally awesome. The Life
Speaker 1: guys were just great guys and they just wanted to
Speaker 1: be my buddy. I enjoyed it. I think it's terrified
Speaker 1: my mom. Well. The stories about the astronauts that appeared
Speaker 1: in Life magazine were accurate. The pictures were anything, but
Speaker 1: they frequently showed Neil, Buzz and Michael hanging out, laughing
Speaker 1: and cooking together. But these men didn't do any of that,
Speaker 1: not in real life. It was all made up, staged
Speaker 1: by the magazine to sell copy. Andrew Chacken is a
Speaker 1: space historian and science journalists and the author of A
Speaker 1: Man to the Moon, The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts,
Speaker 1: the basis of the HBO miniseries From the Earth to
Speaker 1: the Moon. The thing about a space mission is that
Speaker 1: you don't have to be best friends to carry it
Speaker 1: out successfully. What you do have to do is be
Speaker 1: consummate professionals. And Neil, Buzz and Mike were above all
Speaker 1: consummate professionals. They were superb astronauts. They completely respected each
Speaker 1: other on a professional level, whether or not they connected
Speaker 1: on a personal level at all. And I think Mike
Speaker 1: Collins said it best when he used the phrase amiable strangers. Uh.
Speaker 1: There was certainly no bad blood between them, but they
Speaker 1: weren't what you would call best buddies. They weren't the
Speaker 1: kind of guys who would all go out drinking together.
Speaker 1: But as a professional unit, they were superb and their
Speaker 1: skills complemented each other. Eleven, Hearston, You're gold. Roll over
Speaker 1: at the right go for l o I. Apollo eleven
Speaker 1: is coming up on the moon fast. Now they are
Speaker 1: just a few minutes away from l o I or
Speaker 1: the Lunar orbit insertion burn. The spacecraft is about to
Speaker 1: loop around the far side of the Moon, where they
Speaker 1: will ignite the engine to slow them down and allow
Speaker 1: them to enter lunar orbit. Follow eleven Anderson, all your
Speaker 1: systems are looking good. Going around the corner. We'll see
Speaker 1: on the other side over Radio signals can't penetrate the Moon,
Speaker 1: so each time that Apollo moves behind the Moon, they
Speaker 1: will be on their own. At seventy five hours, forty
Speaker 1: one minutes, and twenty three seconds, exactly as predicted, Earth
Speaker 1: loses radio contact with Apollo eleven. But just because Houston
Speaker 1: can't hear the astronauts, it doesn't mean weekend I have.
Speaker 1: The Moon is there in all of the splendor my
Speaker 1: grain im okay here we come up and okay about kay.
Speaker 1: Clearly Neil wants everyone's full attention. Don't worry, guys, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be plenty of mood to see. Shortly. Name TIG
Speaker 1: is time of ignition. The Command Service Module's primary rocket
Speaker 1: and more than twenty pound thrust engine ignites. This is
Speaker 1: Apollo control as minutes follow eleven should have started this
Speaker 1: long burn duration six minutes to seconds. There's a reason
Speaker 1: Armstrong needs his crew's complete attention. For every second of
Speaker 1: this three hundred and sixty two second burn, Apollo eleven
Speaker 1: is dropping more than eleven naut ago miles towards the Moon.
Speaker 1: If they are off by even ten seconds, they will
Speaker 1: slam into the Moon's surface, rinding off moment and connected
Speaker 1: daron I cam name and Pregner Nick. If something goes wrong,
Speaker 1: it will be nearly half an hour until anyone in
Speaker 1: mission control even knows there's a problem. Okay, y or okay,
Speaker 1: one off and take bad any bad things I ever
Speaker 1: said about as a beautiful birds good I get. Luckily,
Speaker 1: there is no problem. Apollo elevin's engine has slowed the
Speaker 1: vehicle to a sufficient degree that it's been captured by
Speaker 1: lunar gravity. It is now only sixty nautical miles above
Speaker 1: the surface. Michael makes a joke about m I. T,
Speaker 1: whose Draper Computer Laboratory built the spacecraft's computers, and on
Speaker 1: whose computations they were relying to get them into orbit safely.
Speaker 1: Today we take for granted the computers run so much
Speaker 1: of our lives, But the idea of trusting your life
Speaker 1: to a machine was still a foreign concept in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine. Clearly Michael and the others had some occasional doubts.
Speaker 1: They don't anymore. With the engines off, they finally get
Speaker 1: a chance to cock at the mood. Well, I have
Speaker 1: to vote with it. Can through that day brown and amazing, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yet a fogel about. I'll get all back. Then. Back
Speaker 1: in mission control, the public affairs officer makes an important announcement.
Speaker 1: Where past the no burn acquisition time now? And we
Speaker 1: have received no signal. If Apollo eleven had not slowed
Speaker 1: itself and settled into orbit, Houston would have expected to
Speaker 1: reacquire their signal right about now. The fact that they
Speaker 1: haven't indicates that the burn was successful. It's very quiet
Speaker 1: here in the control room. Most of the controllers seated
Speaker 1: at their consoles, a few standing up, but very quiet.
Speaker 1: There's one other reason Apolo eleven may not have re
Speaker 1: established contact. It could have crashed on the dark side
Speaker 1: of the moon. Everyone in mission control waits silently. The
Speaker 1: guys in the capsule don't realize the apprehension building on Earth.
Speaker 1: They are too spell dound by their view. Look the
Speaker 1: great None of those meteors come by right there, get
Speaker 1: the mountains going around? I guess clear, monsters, we think
Speaker 1: of the Moon as a flat thing. From our vantage
Speaker 1: point on Earth, we can't make out any definition. But
Speaker 1: there are mountains on the Moon more than twenty one
Speaker 1: thousand feet tall. That's a thousand feet taller than Denali,
Speaker 1: the tallest mountain in North America. The largest note impact
Speaker 1: crater on the Moon is roughly six hundred miles wide
Speaker 1: and eight miles deep. To Apollo eleven, soaring just sixty
Speaker 1: miles above this astonishing topography, the view is like nothing
Speaker 1: they have ever seen. Oh well, I need to spend
Speaker 1: a lifetime just geologizing that one crater alone. You know,
Speaker 1: that not how I'd like to spend my life, turns,
Speaker 1: but that big over here coup. Come on, now, the
Speaker 1: big mounts. Very name a geologist that there? I go crazy.
Speaker 1: We talked before about what life was like for the
Speaker 1: astronauts families while they are away, But exactly where the
Speaker 1: astronauts up to that whole time? What were they doing
Speaker 1: that was so important that they missed months and even
Speaker 1: years of time with their loving families. It has more
Speaker 1: to do with Michael's geology comment than you might think
Speaker 1: practice makes perfect. It's one of those things that's drilled
Speaker 1: into every American school child. But it works for more
Speaker 1: than just reading, writing, and arithmetic. It also works for
Speaker 1: space exploration. Everyone working on Apollo eleven, from the crew
Speaker 1: and the spacecraft to the flight controllers and mission control
Speaker 1: undertook a rigorous training regiment to prepare them for the
Speaker 1: first mission to the mood, which makes you wonder, how
Speaker 1: do you train for something no one has ever done before,
Speaker 1: and what kind of toll does it take on the
Speaker 1: families left behind Apollo, their teens Jim love them, and
Speaker 1: any kind of an occupation that you're going to be
Speaker 1: involved in, it's imperative that you have good training before
Speaker 1: you do the actual things. Tratty was the one thing
Speaker 1: that made everything successful. I mean, if we were sort
Speaker 1: elects of days ago and trading, I don't think we
Speaker 1: had ever done it. Amy share Title is a spacecraft historian, author,
Speaker 1: and YouTuber extraordinaire. Nothing was left up to chance. No
Speaker 1: one really knew it was going to happen for the
Speaker 1: first time people walked on the Moon. So NASA's approaches
Speaker 1: basically take every question out of the equation and run
Speaker 1: through absolutely everything and make sure we know how everything's
Speaker 1: gonna work. Neil, Buzz and Michael trained intensely for six
Speaker 1: months for their nine day mission. It was, according to Michael,
Speaker 1: the busiest six months of their entire lives. From January
Speaker 1: to July of nineteen sixty nine, the crew of APAUL
Speaker 1: eleven log more than three thousand, five hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: one training hours were roughly forty two hours a week
Speaker 1: per man. They also did an additional twenty hours a
Speaker 1: week studying. All astronauts received intensive academic training to assure
Speaker 1: that they have achieved a common level of spaceflight knowledge.
Speaker 1: The least sexy, yet arguably the most important part of
Speaker 1: the astronauts training took place in flight simulators, which perfectly
Speaker 1: resembled the Command and un modules down to every last
Speaker 1: switch and blinking light. In the complex computer operated electronic
Speaker 1: mechanism called the Command Module simulator, the astronauts learned singly
Speaker 1: and as a team, systems and characteristics of their three
Speaker 1: man ship. In these simulators, the men practiced rendezvousing and
Speaker 1: talking with other spacecraft, and of course, landing on the Moon.
Speaker 1: The outside was a large mosaic of the actual place
Speaker 1: we were going to land and and hanging over that
Speaker 1: was a TV camera that was controlled by the controls
Speaker 1: in the lunar module, and I could actually control the
Speaker 1: camera going down looking for places of land, and the
Speaker 1: actual simulation of the speech and things like that of
Speaker 1: lunar module. It was actually a marvelous device. It was
Speaker 1: very accurate. Their instructors programmed system malfunctions, emergencies, and various
Speaker 1: disasters to see how quickly and proficiently the crew could
Speaker 1: react and how well they knew the spacecraft and its systems.
Speaker 1: Neil put in more than ten weeks of eight hour
Speaker 1: days in the LAMB trainer. Buzz put in even more.
Speaker 1: Michael did half of his Command module simulator training by himself.
Speaker 1: Since he was never going to see the inside of
Speaker 1: the lemb during the mission or walk on the Moon,
Speaker 1: there was no need for him to learn any of that.
Speaker 1: In all, the men calculated that they spent around two
Speaker 1: thousand hours or eighty days in those simulators. According to Michael,
Speaker 1: there was only one angry moment throughout the men's training.
Speaker 1: During one of the simulated lunar descents, Neil was ordered
Speaker 1: to abort the landing after the spacecraft began malfunctioning. Neil
Speaker 1: disagreed with the order, thinking he could still land safely.
Speaker 1: He was wrong. The lambs smashed into the lunar surface,
Speaker 1: breaking apart that night with several glasses of Scotch and him.
Speaker 1: Buzz angrily ripped into Neil. It got so heated that
Speaker 1: Michael slipped away to let them have at it. He
Speaker 1: never did learn how they resolve things, but the next
Speaker 1: morning they were back to their normal cells as if
Speaker 1: nothing had ever happened. Well, we think of Apollo eleven
Speaker 1: as the Moon ending mission. The truth is that Neil
Speaker 1: and Buzz spent less than three of their more than
Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety five hour long mission gallivanting across
Speaker 1: the lunar surface. As such, training for their lunar v
Speaker 1: A represented only four of their overall preparations. Simulators are
Speaker 1: used to train astronauts to work in the one sixth
Speaker 1: gravity on the surface of the Moon. They did some
Speaker 1: things that they supported astronauts on their sides from cables
Speaker 1: and had them run around a vertical track to see
Speaker 1: about mobility. These the vomit comment, which is you know
Speaker 1: flies and parable is to give you actual periods of
Speaker 1: reduced gravity like on the moons, they could figure out
Speaker 1: how to deploy instruments, how to walk. To become familiar
Speaker 1: with the sensations of zero gravity or weightlessness. The astronauts
Speaker 1: ride an aircraft applying precise trajectories. They also practiced in
Speaker 1: a precursor of what is known today as the neutral
Speaker 1: buoyancy simulator. Scuba training has given since another method of
Speaker 1: simulating weightlessness is by working under water in special sally
Speaker 1: constructed tanks. The astronauts enter the water weighted to provide
Speaker 1: neutral buoyancy. The astronauts meticulously rehearsed the entire moonwalk. NASA
Speaker 1: created fake indoor moonscapes, complete with a full sized lunar
Speaker 1: module mock up encased in their spacesuits. The men practiced
Speaker 1: exiting and entering the lamb and ran through every aspect
Speaker 1: of the mission, from the tools they would use, the
Speaker 1: experiments they would deploy, the rock samples they would collect,
Speaker 1: and even the flag they would plant. However, not all
Speaker 1: of their training took place indoors. Classroom work is supplemented
Speaker 1: with field trips. The astronauts collecting samples on the surface
Speaker 1: of the Moon will have the equivalent study of a
Speaker 1: master's degree in geology. This is Harrison Schmidt. I'm astronaut
Speaker 1: TU on Apollo sevent team. Before Harrison Schmidt became an
Speaker 1: astronaut and later the only professional scientists to ever go
Speaker 1: to the Moon, he was a geologist with a U
Speaker 1: S Geological Survey at NASA. He pulled double duty training
Speaker 1: future moonwalkers and what kind of rocks they should look
Speaker 1: for once they were there. We tried to find earth
Speaker 1: analogs for some of the things that we thought they
Speaker 1: might encounter at the particular site. While their families remained
Speaker 1: in Houston, the astronauts spent a lot of time trapesing
Speaker 1: around the world, from Iceland to Hawaii, Texas to Arizona.
Speaker 1: I tried to impart as much of the logic of
Speaker 1: field geology as possible, because that's basically what they would
Speaker 1: be trying to do on the Moon, is to observe
Speaker 1: and sample and document their observations. So how did Neil do?
Speaker 1: I was already very impressed with Neil Armstrong. He was
Speaker 1: a great observer, and so I expected him to do
Speaker 1: a very good job, and he did. It was outstanding.
Speaker 1: John He collected one of the finest suites of samples
Speaker 1: that has ever been collected, including my mission on Paulo
Speaker 1: seventeen back in orbit around the Moon. A Paulo eleven
Speaker 1: has finally rounded the bend in its catching sight of
Speaker 1: the Earth. And if you can see the Earth, it
Speaker 1: means the Earth can see them. All right, I want
Speaker 1: very good nominals. I'll get out and everything looking good.
Speaker 1: It was right perfect. The astronauts will now get their
Speaker 1: first view of the area in which they will set
Speaker 1: down tomorrow, the southwestern corner of a lava plane, dubbed
Speaker 1: the Sea of Tranquility. That's getting The landing approach was great,
Speaker 1: much like the pictures, but like the difference between watching
Speaker 1: a real football game and one on dud for actually
Speaker 1: be in here as you just heard. The Apollo eight
Speaker 1: and ten missions snapped hundreds of images from the chosen
Speaker 1: landing zone. This allowed scientists to determine the safest path
Speaker 1: of approach and the flattest area in which to land.
Speaker 1: R send her and M. We certainly wish we could
Speaker 1: see it firsthand. Also or over Mount Maryland. President Point.
Speaker 1: Mount Maryland, which sits at the southeast corner of the
Speaker 1: Sea of Tranquility, was named by astronaut Jim Level during
Speaker 1: Apollo Weight in honor of his wife. Its size and
Speaker 1: orientation make it an easily recognizable landmark for Tomorrow's descent.
Speaker 1: The astronauts were not the only ones who trained extensively
Speaker 1: for this mission. Unlike Neil Buzzin Michael, the flight controllers
Speaker 1: who worked in the cathedral may have been able to
Speaker 1: go home to their families every night, but they're hours
Speaker 1: where every bit is demanding and their jobs every bit
Speaker 1: is stressful. They sacrificed a lot to ensure that the
Speaker 1: men in the spacecraft made it safely to the Moon
Speaker 1: and back again. While four separate mission control teams rotated
Speaker 1: through the different shifts to cover the entire mission, We're
Speaker 1: going to focus on the White team, the one Jean
Speaker 1: Krans led. Jean's team had been given the coveted lunar
Speaker 1: landing shift. Geene likes the people he's working with. He
Speaker 1: chose them personally. Mission controls Simulation Supervisor, or SIMSUP was
Speaker 1: Dick Kuss, rail thin former Army sergeant. From a back
Speaker 1: room full of computers, sending realistic mission redoubts to each
Speaker 1: of the consoles. Coups could simulate just about any conceivable scenario.
Speaker 1: Eight weeks before the launch of Apaul eleven Jean's White
Speaker 1: team was confident and self assured. Coups put an end
Speaker 1: to that. The coup must us looked at us and said,
Speaker 1: that team's too cocky, that team needs to get a
Speaker 1: few lessons, and he called his team up, and let's
Speaker 1: put the screws to these guys. Seconds into their very
Speaker 1: first session, they started showing problems with the lens as centenie.
Speaker 1: If the lamb put down on the lunar surface, it
Speaker 1: might never get back off again. Geane and his team
Speaker 1: aborted the landing, and cous agreed with their decision. On
Speaker 1: one of the next simulations, so many things began going
Speaker 1: wrong that the White team began drowning in data. They
Speaker 1: couldn't sort through it fast enough. By the time they
Speaker 1: recognized that the lamb was descending too quickly, it was
Speaker 1: too late. The lamb was splattered across the creators. The
Speaker 1: second month of training, we had a particularly bad day
Speaker 1: where we couldn't seem to do anything right. We went
Speaker 1: through a bad, bad, bad day. We had crashed, and
Speaker 1: we had crashed, and then to avoid crashing, we'd become
Speaker 1: unnecessarily conservative and we'd aboard when we could have landed,
Speaker 1: and by the end of the day we sound pretty bad.
Speaker 1: And this is the way it went again and again.
Speaker 1: Cous was relentless. Gine and his men were simply not
Speaker 1: fast enough to keep up with all the problems Couse
Speaker 1: was sending their weight. Jeane felt unsure of his every call, second,
Speaker 1: guessing his every instinct. Worse, his indecisiveness was wearing off
Speaker 1: on his team. It was there only a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: but it seemed a lifetime where we could not do
Speaker 1: anything right. It wasn't long before the Powers that Be
Speaker 1: asked Jane if they needed to push Upaul Levin's launch date.
Speaker 1: The White Team didn't appear ready. Jean insisted they would be,
Speaker 1: and training was now and Apollo was about as real.
Speaker 1: I mean, you would get the sweaty palms and the
Speaker 1: pressure was on in a training episode. It no longer
Speaker 1: was training, It was real, and the same emotions, the
Speaker 1: same feelings, the same energies, the same adrenaline would flow
Speaker 1: and was was causing all this time. But he decided
Speaker 1: my team wasn't ready, so I kept beating us up
Speaker 1: and beating us up and beating us up. The White
Speaker 1: Team hunkered down. They practically lived at their consoles like
Speaker 1: the astronants. They were training so hard to keep safe.
Speaker 1: They spent more time at work than with their families.
Speaker 1: But the tide was finally beginning to turn. They were
Speaker 1: making real progress, responding faster now morning control. The simulations
Speaker 1: weren't getting any easier, but they were getting better. They
Speaker 1: had successfully landed the lamb a half dozen times now,
Speaker 1: and finally they felt ready. On July five, just a
Speaker 1: week and a half before the launch of Apollo, Levin
Speaker 1: Geane and his White team sat down for their final simulation.
Speaker 1: The final training runs, invariably are supposed to be confidence builders.
Speaker 1: It's to the point now, this is the last time
Speaker 1: we're gonna have an opportunity. Generally, things are going to
Speaker 1: go right during the course of the mission. So let's
Speaker 1: stay within the box. Let's build the conf done so this, Dame, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Who's didn't see it that way? The test started with
Speaker 1: a lunar module beginning its descent, and midway through the
Speaker 1: descent training we saw a series of computer program alarms,
Speaker 1: and we had never seen these before in training. We
Speaker 1: had never studied these before in training. Down in front
Speaker 1: of the guidance position was twenty six year old Steve Bales.
Speaker 1: According to Jean, Steve was the quintessential nerd with thick
Speaker 1: glasses unlike most people. Jean actually meant that as a compliment.
Speaker 1: I was on the guns console and a program alarm
Speaker 1: came up, and I've never seen it before. My backgroom
Speaker 1: expert jer Garment had never seen it before. The alarm
Speaker 1: read twelve oh one. Since Neil and Buzz were already
Speaker 1: in Florida in quarantine, astronauts Dave Scott and Jim Irwin,
Speaker 1: we're filling in for them. In the simulated LAMB, Steve
Speaker 1: heard them demanding an explanation for the alarm over the radio,
Speaker 1: but he didn't have one to give them. Steve began
Speaker 1: rushing through the pages of a soft to wear handbook
Speaker 1: on his desk looking for an answer. He knew that
Speaker 1: at any moment, Jean was going to be breathing down
Speaker 1: his neck. His mind flashed back to that lamb splattered
Speaker 1: on the moon. Every second counts. Finally he found it,
Speaker 1: twelve o one executive overflow. The computer was overloaded with
Speaker 1: tasks and threatening to crash. But why everything seemed to
Speaker 1: be working just fine? Suddenly another series of alarms rang out.
Speaker 1: It was the same alarm again. What the hell was
Speaker 1: going on? Steve couldn't wait any longer. He had to
Speaker 1: make a decision. He decided to air on the side
Speaker 1: of caution. My guide, this officer, Steve Bales, decided we
Speaker 1: had to abort. I was really seething. I mean, this
Speaker 1: really frustrated a sick There's no I mean, he's the
Speaker 1: Boston in training. He's going to call the shots, and
Speaker 1: I was really ready to kill CU's at this time.
Speaker 1: I said, pay him that we thought we had done
Speaker 1: everything right. And cous comes into us and he says no,
Speaker 1: he says he didn't do everything right. You should not
Speaker 1: have aborted for those computer pro m alarms, but you
Speaker 1: should have done has ignored those alarms. More bewildered than ever,
Speaker 1: Jeane cornered Steve Bales. So after the debriefing, GANE want
Speaker 1: to talk to you, I said, Okay, said, I want
Speaker 1: you to go find out every one of these lams.
Speaker 1: I don't care what they are, and I want you
Speaker 1: to at least make a cheat sheet so that you'll
Speaker 1: know what to do if they come up. I said, Jane,
Speaker 1: you've gotta be kidding. I got ten other things to do.
Speaker 1: We got one to go to the take off of
Speaker 1: the Saturn. I've got this and doing us on this
Speaker 1: and this and this. Said, I don't care. I want
Speaker 1: you get done. I got a call about ten o'clock
Speaker 1: that evening that said the training people were right. We
Speaker 1: had made the wrong decision. Sure the computer was overloaded,
Speaker 1: but it wouldn't have affected safety of flight or any
Speaker 1: of the critical systems. They could have landed on the Moon.
Speaker 1: If Geane and his people had been better prepared, they
Speaker 1: would have known that. Why did I tell you this story?
Speaker 1: When a Paula Levin begins It's lunar de scent for real,
Speaker 1: the reason will be them glaringly obvious, because while everyone
Speaker 1: in mission control may have gone home angry, only Dick
Speaker 1: cous is punishing training will literally save the mission. On July,
Speaker 1: standing by for acquisition, television is now on. Apollo eleven
Speaker 1: has come out from behind the mood. The schedule has
Speaker 1: our trio starting a TV transmission as soon as they
Speaker 1: catch sight of Earth. It's time to describe the new
Speaker 1: view out their windows. Fertility doesn't look very fertile to me.
Speaker 1: I don't know the name. It may have been named
Speaker 1: otographers King I'm sane and made one of the one
Speaker 1: of the early agreemably accurate maps of the class clown
Speaker 1: Michael making a joke and brainiac Neil showing off, and
Speaker 1: we're getting a good view of the track leading into
Speaker 1: the landing right now, Okay, this is very point. Neil
Speaker 1: is walking the audience through Tomorrow's descent, checking it against
Speaker 1: the lunar roadmap. They get a real good, uh look
Speaker 1: at that Tomorrow afternoon. As a paul lepant passes out
Speaker 1: of communication range again, the astronauts realize that the exterior
Speaker 1: skin of the spacecraft is covered in a discolored sheen
Speaker 1: they can't quite identify. Michael suddenly realizes exactly what they're
Speaker 1: looking at. Well, lamb and condamnate urine particles all over,
Speaker 1: No more and not turn away the bone. Michael decides
Speaker 1: to run another of his experiments, moat things rolling over,
Speaker 1: I'm thank you. Having finished peeing into a condom like hose,
Speaker 1: Michael discards the waist liquid through a urine dump nozzle
Speaker 1: on the outside of the spacecraft, inspiring them to discuss
Speaker 1: the unique properties of fluid dynamics in space but they're like, no,
Speaker 1: one's got a little little curve in it. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: little paper in it that came to the surface and
Speaker 1: went there's an epispheric grap I think what really happened
Speaker 1: is we're rolling, but now it's time for a quick
Speaker 1: dinner and then bed were betting. I'm going over to
Speaker 1: wait at a dude, we're all eight, didn't be twenty nine?
Speaker 1: This is a pottle control Houston at eighty three hours
Speaker 1: forty three minutes. So now to the flight of Pollo eleven.
Speaker 1: We expect the next time we acquire a Pollo eleven,
Speaker 1: Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins, and buzz Aldan will have a gun.
Speaker 1: Their rest period that the last me a week or
Speaker 1: a d center. Wh okay, I want to get there.
Speaker 1: My parther amazing quickly at Jack, but I didn't seem
Speaker 1: weird at all of me. Look out here to the
Speaker 1: man going by, well, aren't to day? Went three? Well, Maria,
Speaker 1: next day? Erect carry on booted day. How the men
Speaker 1: think they're going to be able to get any sleep
Speaker 1: tonight is beyond me. And they're not the only ones
Speaker 1: back on Earth, as the astronaut's families and Gean trans
Speaker 1: and his White team prepare for bed. Everyone is surely
Speaker 1: asking the same question, are we ready? Did our training
Speaker 1: cover everything we're bound to encounter? Did we train for
Speaker 1: everything we could? Did we forget something crucial? And the
Speaker 1: fact is no one can answer that. Tomorrow, Neil, Buzz
Speaker 1: and Michael will do something no one in all of
Speaker 1: human history has ever done before. If they're successful, they'll
Speaker 1: go down in history, their names will be known the
Speaker 1: world over throughout all time. Or they'll fail and I
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of miles from everyone they love. Day
Speaker 1: four is over. Tomorrow is Day five July, the day
Speaker 1: human beings first attempt to step foot on another world.
Speaker 1: And as we'll hear on our next episode, it very
Speaker 1: nearly didn't happen. This podcast is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and trade Craft Studios, Executive producers Ashe Seroia
Speaker 1: and Scott Bernstein, in association with High five Content and
Speaker 1: executive producer Andrew Jacobs. Amazing research and production assistance by
Speaker 1: associate producers Brian Schosau and Natalie Robomed. Our incredible editor
Speaker 1: is Bill Lance. Original music by Henry ben Wah Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Andy Aldrin Lily Copel, the author of the
Speaker 1: Astronaut Wives Club, historian Amy Shira Title, the author of
Speaker 1: the upcoming Fighting for Space Apollo thirteens, Jim Level Apollo seventeens,
Speaker 1: Harrison Schmidt, and Mission Controls Steve Bales. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: everyone at NASA who made this podcast possible, especially the
Speaker 1: incredible technological wizardry of consulting producer Ben Feist, who's responsible
Speaker 1: for organizing and cleaning the eleven thousand hours of mission
Speaker 1: audio you're hearing selections from in this podcast. Special thanks
Speaker 1: also to consultant Gina Delback. Licensing rights and clearances by
Speaker 1: Deborah Carea. This is a brand new podcast and we're
Speaker 1: so excited to be sharing it with you. Help us
Speaker 1: spread it far and wide, tell your friends, leave ratings
Speaker 1: and reviews, and chat about it on social media. Our
Speaker 1: hashtag is nine D I J. We would love to
Speaker 1: hear what you think. New episodes come out each week,
Speaker 1: so be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm Brandon Phipps. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll
Speaker 1: see you next episode.