Speaker 1: Nine Days in July is a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and Trade Draft Studios in association with High five Content.
Speaker 1: It's July eighteenth, just two days before Apollo eleven is
Speaker 1: set to land on the moon. White House speech writer
Speaker 1: Bill Sapphire sits down at his desk to write a
Speaker 1: speech he hopes the world will never hear. Sapphire has
Speaker 1: the unenviable job of giving President Richard Nixon words of
Speaker 1: comfort for the nation. Should Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren
Speaker 1: not make it off the surface of the moon. Just
Speaker 1: stop and think about that for a second. Pretend you
Speaker 1: don't know how this mission ends. Put yourself in Sapphire's place.
Speaker 1: On July eighteenth, Apollo eleven's triumphant history hadn't even been
Speaker 1: written yet, and given this astronomical challenge, the president had
Speaker 1: to prepare for the worst. I will now read you
Speaker 1: the memo in its entirety, as President Nixon would have
Speaker 1: had tragedy befallen Apollo eleven. Fate has ordained that the
Speaker 1: men who went to the Moon to explore in peace
Speaker 1: will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These
Speaker 1: brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldren know that there
Speaker 1: is no hope for their recovery, but they also know
Speaker 1: that there is hope for mankind. In their sacrifice. These
Speaker 1: two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most
Speaker 1: noble goal, the search for truth and understanding. They will
Speaker 1: be mourned by their families and friends. They will be
Speaker 1: mourned by their nation. They will be mourned by the
Speaker 1: people of the world. They will be mourned by a
Speaker 1: mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into
Speaker 1: the unknown. In their exploration, they stirred the people of
Speaker 1: the world to feel as one. In their sacrifice, they
Speaker 1: bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days,
Speaker 1: men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations.
Speaker 1: In modern times we do much the same, but our
Speaker 1: heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others will
Speaker 1: follow and surely find their way home. Man's search will
Speaker 1: not be denied. But these men were the first, and
Speaker 1: they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every
Speaker 1: human being who looks up at the moon and the
Speaker 1: nights to come will know that there is some corner
Speaker 1: of another world that is forever mankind. That letter now
Speaker 1: rests in the National Archives in Washington, d C. Other
Speaker 1: than some manageable issues with the computer during lunar descent,
Speaker 1: the Apollo elevin mission has gone off without a hitch. Then,
Speaker 1: last night, as buzz Aldrin lay on the floor of
Speaker 1: the lunar module trying to sleep, he noticed that the
Speaker 1: switch that supplies electrical power to their ascend engine had
Speaker 1: been snapped off, probably when he and Neil were taking
Speaker 1: off their bulky gear from the moonwalk. Without that switch,
Speaker 1: there is no way they're getting off the moon. Sapphire's
Speaker 1: letter now seems hauntingly prophetic. It's July, day six of
Speaker 1: the Apollo eleven mission. Since the dawn of time, the
Speaker 1: Moon has captured the human imagination. It began as an
Speaker 1: object of spiritual influence and veneration. As science gradually replaced mysticism,
Speaker 1: the moon became an object of profound intellectual curiosity. We
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time discussing how we got to
Speaker 1: the Moon and what we did once we got there,
Speaker 1: but we spent hardly any time at all talking about
Speaker 1: the moon itself. Today, we're going to dive into how
Speaker 1: the Moon has been viewed down through time, how it
Speaker 1: was created, and what it is still teaching US high
Speaker 1: in orbit around the Moon. Command Module pilot Michael Collins
Speaker 1: is woken by Ronald Evans and the capcom seat back
Speaker 1: in Mission Control. Morning Morning. In just a few hours,
Speaker 1: the Eagle, currently resting on a lunar surface as Tranquility Base,
Speaker 1: will leave the Moon and climb through space to reunite
Speaker 1: with the Columbia. But before that happens, Michael has a
Speaker 1: lot of work to do. He has eight hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty individual key commands to work through in the coming hours,
Speaker 1: eight hundred and fifty chances for me to screw it up.
Speaker 1: Michael things. Now it's time to wake the occupants of
Speaker 1: Tranquility Base. Except they're already awake. Tranquility Base, Houston, Corny Houston,
Speaker 1: Transquility Base. Did you get a chance to curl up
Speaker 1: on the engine camp? All right? Drew deals ate so
Speaker 1: really good at Hammock with weights, and he's been lying
Speaker 1: on the at an engine cover, and I curled up.
Speaker 1: The truth is neither Neil Armstrong nor Buzz altern got
Speaker 1: very much sleep last night, between the terrible accommodations, temperatures
Speaker 1: that never exceeded sixty one degrees fahrenheit all the blinking
Speaker 1: console lates in the darkness, and the knowledge that there
Speaker 1: only means off this rock was compromised. The two men
Speaker 1: spent a miserable night shivering inside their space suits. Finally,
Speaker 1: Buzz gave up trying to sleep and turned attention to
Speaker 1: the broken switch. Without the ability to trip that switch,
Speaker 1: the Eagle isn't going anywhere. They go to Columbia. This
Speaker 1: is a backup crew or congratulations for yesterday's performance person
Speaker 1: with as Neil and Buzz prepare their moonship for departure.
Speaker 1: They take a couple of minutes to gaze out the
Speaker 1: windows at the magnificent desolation outside and snap a few photos.
Speaker 1: They even turn the cameras on each other, capturing several
Speaker 1: iconic images. Both men looked positively exhausted, yet there's a
Speaker 1: sparkle in their eyes, the sign of having experienced something
Speaker 1: utterly transcendent. Okay, we're going for this top and we'll
Speaker 1: stave with THETFC rogers. That's correct, batteries. They're going e
Speaker 1: D stands for explosive devices. When they are ready to launch,
Speaker 1: small targeted explosions will separate the ascent stage from the
Speaker 1: descent stage. That's like a board Okay, it's finally time
Speaker 1: to address that busted circuit breaker. As you can hear, clearly,
Speaker 1: both the crew and mission control think this launch is
Speaker 1: going to happen. So how did they fix it? Given
Speaker 1: the fact that the lunar module is perhaps the most
Speaker 1: technologically advanced thing humans have ever created up to that point,
Speaker 1: and that an army of America's brightest minds are on
Speaker 1: the astronaut's proverbial speed dial, you might be expecting some complex,
Speaker 1: high tech solution, but no. Buzz saved the day with
Speaker 1: something he found in the pocket of his flight suit,
Speaker 1: a chrome body felt tip pen. He sized it against
Speaker 1: the whole where the broken switch used to be and
Speaker 1: discovered that it was almost the exact same size. Buzz
Speaker 1: stabbed the pen into the cavity and discovered, to everyone's relief,
Speaker 1: that it fits perfectly. The ascent engine had its power
Speaker 1: going to and from the Moon was an unbroken daisy
Speaker 1: chain of dumbfounding successes, both sophisticated and simple, more than
Speaker 1: sixty miles above them. Michael feels like a nervous bride.
Speaker 1: Despite nearly two decades of flying and thousands of hours
Speaker 1: in the cockpit, he has never been more anxious than today.
Speaker 1: If everything goes according to plan, he merely has to
Speaker 1: sit tight and wait for Neil and Buzz to come
Speaker 1: to him. But if there are any issues after they
Speaker 1: blast off, he may have to swoop down and retrieve them.
Speaker 1: He needs to be prepared for anything. Michael has been
Speaker 1: harboring a secret dread for months now that something is
Speaker 1: going to go wrong on the Moon, stranding his teammates
Speaker 1: and forcing him to abandon them and return to Earth alone.
Speaker 1: Michael knows that if Neil and Buzz die on the Moon,
Speaker 1: the mission will forever be viewed as a tragedy rather
Speaker 1: than a success. And you're plays for take off rather
Speaker 1: understand one. On the one, he h the ascent engine
Speaker 1: is their only way off the mood. There is no
Speaker 1: plan B. If the ascent engine fails to work, Tranquility
Speaker 1: Base will become a memorial. That's something eleven year old
Speaker 1: Andy Aldrin, Buzz's youngest son, who was glued to the
Speaker 1: TV beside his mother, understood all too well. That was
Speaker 1: the one time that I was, you know, a little
Speaker 1: bit freaked out because I had complete and total faith
Speaker 1: and Nassa's ability to execute the mission. A complete and
Speaker 1: total faith in the technology, but I was very much
Speaker 1: aware that in order to get off of the Moon,
Speaker 1: one engine had to work. Lunar ascent engine, you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like the regular launch where you can do
Speaker 1: it do over. To minimize any potential complications, NASA designed
Speaker 1: the engine to be as simple as possible. It doesn't
Speaker 1: even need an ignition source. Twin pumps combine the fuel
Speaker 1: and the oxidizer, which combust on contact with each other,
Speaker 1: and away they go. At least that's the plan. A
Speaker 1: split second before the engine is to fire, a horizontal
Speaker 1: guillotine severs power cables between the two stages, and explosive
Speaker 1: bolts disconnect them from each other. The engine fires, and
Speaker 1: in a cloud of moon dust and insulation, flings the
Speaker 1: ascent stage from the lunar surface. And look at that
Speaker 1: stuff all over the make up. Back on Earth. Glued
Speaker 1: to their living room television sets, Janet Armstrong and Joan
Speaker 1: Aldren begin weeping with relief. As the eagle rises, Buzz
Speaker 1: allows himself a quick glance out the window. The bottom
Speaker 1: half of the lamp shrinks beneath him, surrounded by all
Speaker 1: the experiments and litter they left on the surface to
Speaker 1: lighten the vehicle. The flag they planted yesterday, which was
Speaker 1: so hard to drive into the compacted soil, is blown
Speaker 1: over by their exhaust, and everywhere are their bootprints, evidence
Speaker 1: that humans trod and another world. Given the Moon's lack
Speaker 1: of atmosphere, wind, or water, those bootprints remain there still today,
Speaker 1: just as they left them, a silent witness to history,
Speaker 1: and they will remain that way for millions of years.
Speaker 1: Shortly before Neil and Buzz left for the lunar surface,
Speaker 1: mission control told them what they might expect to find
Speaker 1: on the Moon. Watch for a lovely girl with a
Speaker 1: big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl
Speaker 1: called Chango has been living there for four thousand years.
Speaker 1: It seems she was Spanish to the Moon because she's
Speaker 1: told the tale of immortality from her husband. You might
Speaker 1: also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit. And
Speaker 1: you're seeing the live feet from Changa Probe. This is
Speaker 1: the pictures taken on the camera of Changa three off
Speaker 1: the lunar surface. It should come as no surprise, then,
Speaker 1: that when the Chinese landed a rover on the Moon
Speaker 1: in December, it was named Jade rabbit. It landed all
Speaker 1: the moon. Tom Lofree is all the man Chung and
Speaker 1: her rabbit are just one of countless myths associated with
Speaker 1: our celestial neighbor. The Moon has attracted our attention for
Speaker 1: not just millennia, not just tens of thousands of years,
Speaker 1: but presumably even longer. Humans probably even pre humans, have
Speaker 1: been looking at the Moon since the beginning of time,
Speaker 1: because it's this object that's always there, and it's much
Speaker 1: larger than any of the other objects in the sky.
Speaker 1: Those two voices you just heard are Dr Ed Krupp,
Speaker 1: the director of the Griffith Observatory, my favorite spot in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, and Dr Eddie Dove, a planetary scientist at
Speaker 1: the University of Central Florida. You know what, You could
Speaker 1: look at almost any civilization in antiquity and you would
Speaker 1: find immediately that the moon was deified. There are countless
Speaker 1: legends about the moon spanning every culture on Earth, and
Speaker 1: this would apply for example, chancient Egypt, the moon was
Speaker 1: known as con su Uh, and it was in fact
Speaker 1: a personification of the moon and was a very important
Speaker 1: part of Egyptian religion and and Mesopotamia. Uh the god
Speaker 1: was known as Sing You can go to ancient Greece,
Speaker 1: where the moon was a woman who drove a chariot
Speaker 1: across the sky. Selny was her name, and she followed
Speaker 1: the highway of the Moon and the Sun through the stars,
Speaker 1: just as the moon does. The Romans basically took that
Speaker 1: same image, modified it slightly, but the goddess Luna was
Speaker 1: the Roman goddess of the moon, and so it would go.
Speaker 1: You can work your way around the world from one
Speaker 1: culture to the next. To the Hindus, the moon is Soma.
Speaker 1: To the Maya, she is so Chill, the goddess of fertility.
Speaker 1: For the Inuit, it's the god and Incoan who spends
Speaker 1: every day chasing the sun goddess. Mad with lust, his
Speaker 1: body waxes and wanes as he expands all of his
Speaker 1: energy towards the chase, disappearing a dozen times a year
Speaker 1: to hunt and gorge himself for the next leg of
Speaker 1: the hunt. Two tribes in Western Africa the moon is
Speaker 1: ma Wu, one half of an epic love affair with
Speaker 1: the sun goddess Lisa Eclipse, as they claim, are the
Speaker 1: deities in the throes of love making. Ancient culture is
Speaker 1: quickly realized that the moon was more than a source
Speaker 1: of light and beauty, It was also a means by
Speaker 1: which they could chart time. Our word moon is actually
Speaker 1: derived from an archaic word that means to measure, and
Speaker 1: that alone tells you that from deepest antiquity, the moon
Speaker 1: was in fact a vehicle for measurement. It would tick
Speaker 1: out these convenient bundles of days one month or month
Speaker 1: after another as it went through those changes of phases
Speaker 1: and those months. Those cycles of the moon seemed at
Speaker 1: least to a degree, coordinated with the seasons, and the
Speaker 1: seasons are what it's really all about. Changing seasons affected
Speaker 1: anyone's ability to serve vibe. Many Chinese festivals are rooted
Speaker 1: in the lunar calendar, and both Judaism and Islam are
Speaker 1: guided by its celestial ebb and flow. The moon has
Speaker 1: long been fought to have the power over people's bodies
Speaker 1: and minds. The association of the moon with fertility is
Speaker 1: part of this idea of the birth and growth and
Speaker 1: death and rebirth of the moon. You have the parable
Speaker 1: of fertility built into this idea of cyclical renewal. Fertility
Speaker 1: in the moon have long been linked since the female
Speaker 1: menstrual cycle and the lunar cycle are of similar length.
Speaker 1: People say that there are more babies born, for example,
Speaker 1: at the time of the full moon, but when you
Speaker 1: actually do the statistics, this just doesn't pan out. While
Speaker 1: such police don't hold water in our scientific era, Dr
Speaker 1: Crupp thinks they made perfect sense to our ancestors. And
Speaker 1: you can easily imagine people looking at the world and
Speaker 1: trying to understand how it works, and the most iCal
Speaker 1: thing they see is that things essentially come and go,
Speaker 1: whether it's the plants seasonally, uh animals, other living things,
Speaker 1: and including ourselves. And this idea of birth, growth, death,
Speaker 1: and then rebirth is absolutely underscored in the changing phases
Speaker 1: of the moon over the monthly cycle. Historically, the moon
Speaker 1: has been blamed for the darker elements of the human personality,
Speaker 1: from sleepwalking and suicide to criminal activity and violence. The moon,
Speaker 1: it has been claimed, can drive people mad. In fact,
Speaker 1: the words lunacy and lunatic are derived from the Latin
Speaker 1: name for the moon, Luna. The strange case of Dr
Speaker 1: Jekyl and Mr Hyde was inspired by the strange but
Speaker 1: true tale of a Lendoner who committed crimes during the
Speaker 1: full moon, and of course, the most obvious application of
Speaker 1: lunar madness that most people UH know about comes to
Speaker 1: us via holl He would from a European tradition, and
Speaker 1: this is the idea of the werewolf, where a human
Speaker 1: being is transformed at the time of full moon. There
Speaker 1: you go here one minute, here, look very good. Back
Speaker 1: on the eagle. The moon is falling away. A very
Speaker 1: quiet ride, just a little bit of a slow walloway
Speaker 1: back and forth, Grand fine I d. Soon the Eagle
Speaker 1: reaches a vertical speed of eight ft per second. The
Speaker 1: lamb is now soaring over the same landmarks it descended
Speaker 1: over yesterday. Seven minutes later, the engine cuts offine engine
Speaker 1: or down. Now that the engine is shut down, and
Speaker 1: Neil and buzzer once again in micro gravity, the men
Speaker 1: noticed a slight haze in the cabin. It's all that
Speaker 1: lunar dust now hovering in the air all around them.
Speaker 1: Here you go, the whole world in product. Now that
Speaker 1: the Eagle is in lunar orbit, it's safe to turn
Speaker 1: on their rendezvous radar again. In our minds, miseducated by
Speaker 1: too many sci fi movies, we think of a spacecraft
Speaker 1: merely lifting off and zooming straight to its rendezvous. But
Speaker 1: that's not how orbital mechanics work. From the moment the
Speaker 1: ascent engine fired to the docking of the two craft,
Speaker 1: three and a half hours and two orbits pass before
Speaker 1: they can dock. Eagle has to match Columbia's orbital shape, height,
Speaker 1: and speed, and they don't have a lot of fuel
Speaker 1: to do it with. As Michael monitors their progress, he's
Speaker 1: relieved his greatest fear has not come to pass, But
Speaker 1: now he wonders if they have enough fuel to catch
Speaker 1: each other. Luckily, as you may remember from episode two,
Speaker 1: Buzz literally wrote the book on rendezvous in outer space.
Speaker 1: Here in mission control, flight operations Director Chris Kraft commented
Speaker 1: that he felt, like some five hundred million people around
Speaker 1: the world. We're helping push Eagle off the Moon and
Speaker 1: back into orbit. Now it's time for a series of
Speaker 1: short burns to get the two craft back to each other.
Speaker 1: The Eagles about one nautical miles away from Columbia and
Speaker 1: closing at roughly per second. Since the Eagles set down
Speaker 1: far outside its predicted landing zone yesterday, NASA had Michael
Speaker 1: training his instruments on the Sea of Tranquility with every pass,
Speaker 1: trying to locate the ship. He was never able to
Speaker 1: find his crewmates. This is Apollo Control range between Eagle
Speaker 1: and Columbiana, showing sixty seven point five nautical miles closure
Speaker 1: ratecond black team of flight controllers here in mission control
Speaker 1: or or less and an advisory capacity and hearing this
Speaker 1: round the boos sequence. They're actively computing when over times,
Speaker 1: but in the final analysis, it's onboard confrontations by the
Speaker 1: crew of Columbia and the Eagle which really bring about
Speaker 1: the round the boom. Up to this point, Michael has
Speaker 1: just been waiting. Now he begins to prepare the Command
Speaker 1: and Service module to meet the limb. Okay, two burns down,
Speaker 1: only one to go. The fancy orbital mechanics are more
Speaker 1: or less done. The two spacecraft are less than forty
Speaker 1: miles apart, now close enough for a line of sight thrust.
Speaker 1: The Eagle is making a bee line straight for Columbia.
Speaker 1: It is now about fifteen miles below the Command Service
Speaker 1: Module and closing aboard Columbia. Michael feels like a hotel
Speaker 1: manager preparing to welcome guests in from the cold. He's
Speaker 1: looking for the Eagle through the sextant. The Limb starts
Speaker 1: off as a tiny, indecipherable blinking light framed by the
Speaker 1: enormity of the Moon, but soon it's recognizable bug like
Speaker 1: shape comes into view. For millennia, humans look to the
Speaker 1: heavens and try to tease out their fate, messages from
Speaker 1: their gods and portends for their lives. Then Galileo Galilei
Speaker 1: changed everything. In sixteen o nine, he used a telescope
Speaker 1: to examine the sky, not for signs and wonders, but
Speaker 1: to understand it scientifically doctor ed Krupp. When Galileo first
Speaker 1: points a telescope up to the sky a little over
Speaker 1: four hundred years ago and looks add among other things,
Speaker 1: the Moon, he winds up not just finding out something
Speaker 1: about the Moon, but transforming our perspective on the Earth,
Speaker 1: on the universe, and on ourselves. Since Aristotle, it was
Speaker 1: believed that space was part of nested heavenly orbs, and
Speaker 1: that all the celestial bodies, including the Moon, were perfect spheres.
Speaker 1: But Galileo challenged accepted orthodoxy largely unchanged since the third
Speaker 1: century Dr Eddie Dove. When Galileo built his telescope, he
Speaker 1: was able to start doing even finer details of what
Speaker 1: he could see on the lunar surface. It was this
Speaker 1: completely different way of looking at the universe. Galileo saw
Speaker 1: shadows on the Moon's surface, indicating that it was not smooth.
Speaker 1: It had lofty mountains and deep chasms. Once Galileo, U
Speaker 1: and then other astronomers were able to start looking and
Speaker 1: finder detail, we could see that there was this other
Speaker 1: planetary body that's actually shaped by the similar processes to
Speaker 1: what we have here on Earth. Telescopes didn't mean we
Speaker 1: got everything right. Prominent astronomers began predicting entire civilizations lived
Speaker 1: on the Moon. Even William Herschel, the British astronomer who
Speaker 1: discovered Urnus, asserted that evidence of aliens could be clearly
Speaker 1: seen through his telescope. Still, later observers thought that the
Speaker 1: dark patches might be oceans of liquid water, while others
Speaker 1: swore they could make out vegetation, and where there is
Speaker 1: water and flora, they said there must be life. In fact,
Speaker 1: it wasn't until Neil and Buzz set down on the
Speaker 1: Moon that it finally began giving up its secrets. Sure,
Speaker 1: we built ever better telescopes over the centuries, and then
Speaker 1: built spacecraft to photograph the Moon from orbit, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't until the twentieth century that astronomers applied the principles
Speaker 1: of geology to the study of the Moon and began
Speaker 1: forming hypotheses around how it came to be. Apollo eleven's
Speaker 1: up close inspection and the keepsakes they brought back transformed
Speaker 1: our understanding about what the Moon is. More on that.
Speaker 1: In a moment right now in Columbia, Michael is preparing
Speaker 1: to welcome his shipmates home. Doctor it won't belong now.
Speaker 1: Buzz can see Michael orienting the capsule for their docking.
Speaker 1: Michael turns on the video camera to film the Eagle's
Speaker 1: approachak O. Michael is about to take one of the
Speaker 1: most famous pictures of the entire Apollo program. In one image,
Speaker 1: he gets the Earth, the Moon, and the Eagle. Every
Speaker 1: single human being alive is in that one picture, except
Speaker 1: for one himself. Okay, by got it. Neil and Buzz
Speaker 1: bring the Eagle to a stop, and Mike swoops down
Speaker 1: to complete the docking. Jesus, he thinks to himself, we're
Speaker 1: really going to pull this off. There's a slight nudge
Speaker 1: as the spacecraft meet. I'll tell you right there. Both
Speaker 1: spacecraft have been on the far side of the Moon
Speaker 1: for this final maneuver. They now re emerge on the
Speaker 1: Earth facing side as a single spacecraft control Columbia Eagle
Speaker 1: now reunited to become Apollo eleven again. I can. When
Speaker 1: Michael opens the hatch upgrading the two ships, he finds
Speaker 1: himself face to face with Buzz covered in moon dust.
Speaker 1: Michael is overwhelmed with a sudden urge to grab Buzz's
Speaker 1: balding head and give it a kiss, but imagines that
Speaker 1: act making it into the history books and decides to
Speaker 1: shake his hand instead. Buzz and Neil start passing Michael
Speaker 1: their moon samples of the lot. Michael quickly realizes he
Speaker 1: has to ensure he has a firm hold on the
Speaker 1: rock boxes. As heavy as they are, they feel as
Speaker 1: if they could easily get away from him and sail
Speaker 1: right through the side of the ship. Hello, you go
Speaker 1: give it a beerad over. That's Charlie Duke in the
Speaker 1: capcom seat he took over from Evans while Apollo eleven
Speaker 1: was on the far side of the Moon. Since the
Speaker 1: Eagle is now docked tight, Michael lets him know it's
Speaker 1: the Columbia. He's reached. Clambi Radiol. We're all right back
Speaker 1: and back and now we're running a brand, your degerd
Speaker 1: Decker and going well. Roger Egal correct and rode to Clambia.
Speaker 1: Weake copy you go, you lead it to the fine
Speaker 1: Now get friendly white tame on Beyon do we get
Speaker 1: be on the way home. And we'd like to congratulate
Speaker 1: everybody on a Corrindau and a beautiful b d A.
Speaker 1: It was a great deal for everybody. Or I don't.
Speaker 1: Now that everyone is united and the lunar samples have
Speaker 1: been stowed aboard Columbia, it's time to say goodbye to
Speaker 1: the eagle. Hello Columbia, and we'd like you to start down.
Speaker 1: You get up and pickle or they can't take the
Speaker 1: eagle home with him. It's done its jobs spectacularly, but
Speaker 1: it's no longer needed. You can get a pendicure convenience. Okay,
Speaker 1: under gone. Have you ever tiered up getting rid of
Speaker 1: an old car? Sure you know it's just a machine,
Speaker 1: an assemblage of metal and wires and rubber, but it
Speaker 1: also literally drove you through so much of your history.
Speaker 1: Though they'd spent only a couple of days of border
Speaker 1: Neil and Buzz take the loss of the eagle. Heard
Speaker 1: they can't bring themselves to flip the switch and ask
Speaker 1: Michael to do it instead. It you're good doing a
Speaker 1: good one. R. We got eagle looking good holding cabin
Speaker 1: pressure and it picked up about two feet per second
Speaker 1: from that Jedison. The eagles carcass will remain in orbit
Speaker 1: around the Moon for several years before smashing into the surface,
Speaker 1: rejoining its other half. Afterwards, Charlie, Duke and Michael spend
Speaker 1: some time catching up. How it feel a bed? Have
Speaker 1: some company? Damn, I'll beat you always be talking to
Speaker 1: yourself up where after Ben rev is though it's a
Speaker 1: happy home. My parent be nice to have company. Being
Speaker 1: married back nine. Have a couple of hundred million Americans
Speaker 1: up here right They were with you in spirit anyway,
Speaker 1: at least that many. We heard on the news today
Speaker 1: eleven that plays New York Times came out with a
Speaker 1: uh headlines, the largest headlines they've ever used in the
Speaker 1: history of the newspaper. They had a copy, but I print.
Speaker 1: The motto of the New York Times is, of course
Speaker 1: all the news that's fit to print. Speaking of news,
Speaker 1: congratulate story. Messages on the Apollo eleven mission have been
Speaker 1: pouring into the White House from world leaders in a
Speaker 1: study stream all day. Even the Soviet Union said congratulations,
Speaker 1: though the only mentioned about the moon landing in the
Speaker 1: main Moscow newspaper was a small story at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the page, buried inside the middle of the newspaper.
Speaker 1: Some newsman's estimate that more than six of the news
Speaker 1: houston papers across the country today concern your mission. The
Speaker 1: New York Times has had a such a demand for
Speaker 1: its edition of the paper to day, even though it
Speaker 1: ran nine hundred and fifty thousand copies, that it would
Speaker 1: reprint the whole thing on Thursday as a souvenir edition.
Speaker 1: It turns out that NASA weren't the only ones delighted
Speaker 1: with the follow eleven success. The Italian police reported their
Speaker 1: Sunday night was the most crime free night of the year,
Speaker 1: and in London, a boy who had the faith to
Speaker 1: bet five dollars with a bookie that a man would
Speaker 1: reach the moon before nineteen collected twenty four thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: It's pretty good on Neil's wife jan was asked by
Speaker 1: the press if she considered the moon landing the greatest
Speaker 1: moment of her life. She said, no, that was the
Speaker 1: day we were married, and and about covers the news
Speaker 1: uh this day in Apollo eleven, Man's first landing on
Speaker 1: the Moon, there was no objective more important to science
Speaker 1: than the collection and return of samples of the lunar surface.
Speaker 1: Within five days after the samples were picked up on
Speaker 1: the lunar surface, where they had lain for millions of years,
Speaker 1: they were delivered to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory at the
Speaker 1: Man Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas, inside special vacuum chambers and
Speaker 1: nitrogen filled cabinets. Decontamination measures were taken and the containers
Speaker 1: were opened. Samples were examined, described, photographed, and wade. They
Speaker 1: were then prepared for preliminary physical and chemical analysis. Amazingly,
Speaker 1: of the Moon Hall has yet to be analyzed. As
Speaker 1: Dr Dobb explains, a lot of the samples we have
Speaker 1: from the lunar surface are still kept in the through
Speaker 1: baggies they came back in and they haven't been opened,
Speaker 1: just because we want to keep them as christine as possible,
Speaker 1: so that when someone has a new idea or a
Speaker 1: new technique, they can study an actual pristine sample and
Speaker 1: not one that's already been exposed to for instance, our
Speaker 1: atmosphere that's going to interact chemically with the rock is
Speaker 1: our ideas mature and we get new ideas on what
Speaker 1: to look for and we get new technology with which
Speaker 1: to look for them. That was a Paulo seventeens Harrison Schmidt,
Speaker 1: geologist and moonwalker. Analytical chemistry has advanced in the last
Speaker 1: fifty years, where now we can tease out of these
Speaker 1: rocks things that we never imagined we could do fifty
Speaker 1: years ago. And the FOLLOW program hasn't ended for lunar
Speaker 1: scientists and probably never will. From their studies and discoveries,
Speaker 1: basic new knowledge and understanding will emerge, and basic new questions,
Speaker 1: the beginning of what one investigator has called a new science.
Speaker 1: Of The rocks that have been studied have completely transformed
Speaker 1: the Moon's origin story. We really didn't know much about
Speaker 1: the Moon. Most of our ideas before Follow eleven more
Speaker 1: were wrong. In the scientists preliminary studies of the lunar
Speaker 1: samples in the Lunar Receiving Laboratory, there were several significant findings.
Speaker 1: For instance, all the rocks are similar chemically, which points
Speaker 1: toward a family relationship. Firstly, the rocks from the Moon
Speaker 1: are very similar to the rocks found right here on Earth.
Speaker 1: We were able to do chemical analyzes and age dating
Speaker 1: and look at isotopes and say, actually, the chemical makeup
Speaker 1: of the lunar rocks and their ages are very similar
Speaker 1: to what we have here on Earth, and it's really
Speaker 1: hard to have those be so identical unless they basically
Speaker 1: came from the same starting pool. Perhaps the most interesting
Speaker 1: discovery was that the volcanic rocks are at least three
Speaker 1: billion years of age, dating back as far, perhaps further
Speaker 1: than the oldest rocks ever discovered on Earth, and that
Speaker 1: gout scientists thinking did the Earth and the Moon share
Speaker 1: a common ancestor. Our current understanding of how the Moon
Speaker 1: was formed is that it was through a giant impact.
Speaker 1: Impacts are very very very common in the early Solar System.
Speaker 1: Something probably a little bit smaller than the Earth was
Speaker 1: hit by a Mars sized body u When that collided,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of material that was thrown out
Speaker 1: into orbit around the Earth and it's sort of coalesced
Speaker 1: together to form the Moon. This is known as the
Speaker 1: giant impact hypothesis. For millions of years, both the Earth
Speaker 1: and the Moon were molten spheres. After about one million years,
Speaker 1: rocks floated up and created the lunar crust of the
Speaker 1: Moon and a planetoid crystallized and hardened. Then came millions
Speaker 1: of asteroids, meteoroids, and commets. The Moon doesn't have an
Speaker 1: atmosphere to protect its surface, so all of these impacts
Speaker 1: get all the ways to the surface and then they're
Speaker 1: recorded over the history of time. All of these impacts
Speaker 1: pulverized the moon surface, creating several inches of a powdery surface.
Speaker 1: We call regulars. The best word I love saying regulars.
Speaker 1: Typically on the Moon, the regulars is actually pretty fine,
Speaker 1: so it gets to particle sizes that are smaller than
Speaker 1: the width of the human hair, for instance. But while
Speaker 1: it may look as soft as fine ash, it is
Speaker 1: anything but sand on the Earth gets rounded because it
Speaker 1: gets rolled around with each other and with the ocean
Speaker 1: and with wind, and so it gets really rounded. On
Speaker 1: the Moon, the broken up bits of rock stay super jagged.
Speaker 1: While Neil and Buzz didn't have any issues, later apolymsians,
Speaker 1: particularly those in which the astronauts were more active and
Speaker 1: as a result Fell more often reported that the lunar
Speaker 1: soil was so abrasive it began to cut into their
Speaker 1: space suits, releasing precious and critical oxygen. Have you ever
Speaker 1: noticed that your view of the Moon never changes. The
Speaker 1: orbit of the Moon around the Earth is interesting because
Speaker 1: it's actually what we call synchronously orbiting or tidally locked.
Speaker 1: Because of this, many people assume that the Moon does
Speaker 1: not rotate, but it does. So it goes around the
Speaker 1: Earth one time, and it also spins on its axis
Speaker 1: one time, and the result of that is that if
Speaker 1: they're perfectly in sync, but we always see the same side.
Speaker 1: So from our perspective observing from down here on Terra Firma,
Speaker 1: the Moon appears as if it's frozen still. Other than
Speaker 1: pictures taken by the spacecraft and the astronauts who visited it,
Speaker 1: no human eyes have ever seen the so called dark
Speaker 1: side of the Moon. In addition to all those craters,
Speaker 1: you've no doubt noticed that the Moon is covered in
Speaker 1: both light and dark patches. These dark regions that are
Speaker 1: called mara and they're actually lower topography, and then lighter
Speaker 1: regions that are called the highlands. Typically, the dark regions
Speaker 1: are from lava flows that's sort of seeped out from
Speaker 1: under the surface when those craters happened um and sort
Speaker 1: of filled in in those regions. So how large is
Speaker 1: the Moon, Well, it's about that of the Earth, roughly
Speaker 1: two of the planet's overall volume. If the Earth were hollow,
Speaker 1: we could fit fifty moons inside. That's a lot more
Speaker 1: than you thought, I bet. In fact, the United States
Speaker 1: is roughly half the circumference of the Moon. If you
Speaker 1: were to lay a scale outline of America over top
Speaker 1: one of the Moon, it would almost perfectly fit on
Speaker 1: the observable surface. We're in a pretty special time in
Speaker 1: the history of the Earth and the Moon, and that
Speaker 1: the Moon right now is the size it is, and
Speaker 1: it's just far en us away that in the sky
Speaker 1: it appears to be the same size as the Sun.
Speaker 1: Lunar and solar eclipses remain a thrilling site for Earthlings.
Speaker 1: So there, um, the Sun is much much further away,
Speaker 1: it's much bigger, so in our sky right now they
Speaker 1: look like they're the same size. So this is how
Speaker 1: we get eclipses. But sometime in the distant future there
Speaker 1: will be no more total solar eclipses because, believe it
Speaker 1: or not, the Moon is drifting away from us at
Speaker 1: the rate of a few centimeters per year. Actually, the
Speaker 1: Moon has been moving away from the Earth. That turns
Speaker 1: out for most of its history. So as the Moon
Speaker 1: moves further away, it's actually going to get a little
Speaker 1: bit smaller to our view, and we won't get these
Speaker 1: total solar clipses like we see today. While the Moon
Speaker 1: is two hundred and thirty eight thousand miles away from
Speaker 1: the Earth now, it was roughly four hundred miles away
Speaker 1: when it was first formed. Imagine how much larger it
Speaker 1: would have appeared in the sky then. And how do
Speaker 1: we know the Moon is moving away from us? The
Speaker 1: crew of Apollo eleven, of course, do you remember that
Speaker 1: laser reflector. We can measure the amount of time it
Speaker 1: takes to get there and then come back, and that
Speaker 1: tells us how far away the Moon is, because we
Speaker 1: know how fast light moved in a couple of billion years.
Speaker 1: Earth's tides will also act very differently, because despite what
Speaker 1: Bill O'Reilly thinks, we know exactly why the Earth's oceans,
Speaker 1: which cover roughly seventy the planet's surface, behave the way
Speaker 1: they do. The Moon has gravity and the Earth has gravity,
Speaker 1: and they tug on each other. If the Earth was
Speaker 1: just a solid body like the Moon, we wouldn't even
Speaker 1: observe this very much. But because the Earth's covered with
Speaker 1: all this water. Um these forces and these tugs actually
Speaker 1: pull at the water at different times of day and
Speaker 1: at different amounts, and it ends up causing tides. The
Speaker 1: Earth's gravitational poll also affects the Moon. It causes moonquakes
Speaker 1: that occur deep beneath the lunar surface. And just how
Speaker 1: do we know that? Yeah, the seizedmometer that Neil and
Speaker 1: Buzz deployed. There's still so much more to learn about
Speaker 1: the Moon. Nearly everything we know came from six Apollo
Speaker 1: moon missions, eighty and one half hours on the surface
Speaker 1: and eight dred and forty two pounds of moon rocks.
Speaker 1: Now that the gear is stowed, it's finally time for
Speaker 1: Apollo eleven to head home. This is Apollo Control. At
Speaker 1: this time, the crew should be involved in their pre
Speaker 1: trans Earth injection status check. The trans Earth injection burn is,
Speaker 1: as Michael Collins refers to it in his biography, the
Speaker 1: get us home burn, the save our as burn, the
Speaker 1: we don't want to be a permanent Moon satellite burn.
Speaker 1: As they strap into their couches, Buzz realizes he is
Speaker 1: at the end of his physical limits. He has barely
Speaker 1: slept in three days and is running on pure adrenaline.
Speaker 1: All he wants to do is sleep the rest of
Speaker 1: the way back to Earth Houston year ago for one minute,
Speaker 1: yellows go sick, thank you well, good once again. You
Speaker 1: will not be surprised to learn that this burn will
Speaker 1: take place while the spacecraft is behind the moon and
Speaker 1: we have lots of signal. Now, so let's say that
Speaker 1: the waters this way and then staffs escave that. Right. Therefore,
Speaker 1: I'm parting like that. Normally a joke like that would
Speaker 1: be all Michael, but that was actually buzz. Perhaps his
Speaker 1: sleep deprivation is relaxing him in more ways than one night.
Speaker 1: The burn is powerful enough to pin them to their seats,
Speaker 1: and it feels like presures are good. Tanter conjectures should
Speaker 1: be completed in about the town seconds any racer and
Speaker 1: shut down. Now, okay, start down. When the engine cuts off,
Speaker 1: the astronauts find themselves witless again. We should have shot
Speaker 1: down at the time at this point of follow eleven
Speaker 1: land of feet of a box eight six hundred sixty
Speaker 1: feet per second, or about five sols nine hundred mile
Speaker 1: to be honest, way back to work, not hated forth
Speaker 1: flashed out in the Pacific ocean at one hundred tiny
Speaker 1: five hours eighteen. I love you. You are eight zero.
Speaker 1: Back on Earth, Charlie Duke and everyone in mission control
Speaker 1: are eager for news. Finally, Columbia emerges for a final
Speaker 1: time from behind the Moon. I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1: I'll day, but you guys today Paula levin Houston had
Speaker 1: to go over and I'll open up the r L door.
Speaker 1: L L r L stands for the Lunar Receiving Laboratory,
Speaker 1: the facility at nassa's Man Spacecraft Center in Houston, now
Speaker 1: known as the Johnson Space Center. Here's where the astronauts
Speaker 1: and their lunar booty will be quarantined upon arrival back
Speaker 1: on Earth. There are some very expectant lunar rock scientists waiting. Roger,
Speaker 1: we got you coming home. It's well stocked. Secretly, Michael
Speaker 1: hopes that stock means loaded with vermouth and gin. He
Speaker 1: is craping a martini. As they fly from the Moon,
Speaker 1: they become tourists, once again, gazing out the windows to
Speaker 1: look longingly at the world shrinking behind them, And just
Speaker 1: like that, the hardest phase of the mission is over.
Speaker 1: They successfully landed and walked on the Moon. There's only
Speaker 1: one harrowing element of the mission left, atmospheric cree entry,
Speaker 1: but it's still several days away. For now. D Slayton,
Speaker 1: the director of flight crew Operations, has a more immediate concern.
Speaker 1: Congratulations on an outstanding job. You guys are looping on
Speaker 1: a great show up there. I think it's a fun
Speaker 1: time to power down. I've got a little rest of
Speaker 1: eason and playing along later. Hope girl is going to
Speaker 1: get a good sleep on the way by, given how
Speaker 1: long they were up on the Moon and how little
Speaker 1: sleep they got in the cold and cramped lemb dealon
Speaker 1: buzz can't agree more. We're looking forward to a little
Speaker 1: wrap and wrastle trip back, and as you've heard it.
Speaker 1: Slayton passes the mic back to Duke, who lets the
Speaker 1: crew know that they have ceased receiving data from the Eagle. Okay,
Speaker 1: very good. Without its life support systems and heaters running,
Speaker 1: the vessel has succumbed to the cult of space two
Speaker 1: point seven kelvin a fancy space way of saying negative
Speaker 1: four d and fifty five degrees fahrenheit. As Apollo Levan
Speaker 1: races back to Earth, it is simultaneously moving further away
Speaker 1: from it, because after millennia of humans gazeing up at
Speaker 1: the Moon in both worship and scientific marvel, we have
Speaker 1: finally visited another world, and in so doing we have
Speaker 1: demonstrated to ourselves and anyone else who might be watching
Speaker 1: from the stars, that humanity is now a space faring civilization.
Speaker 1: Day six is over. Day seven July begins with our
Speaker 1: next episode, in which we describe an epic showdown between
Speaker 1: two titans, the United States and the Soviet Union, as
Speaker 1: they used the space race to wage the Cold War,
Speaker 1: and one thing will become abundantly clear, America would have
Speaker 1: never reached the Moon before the Russians without a whole
Speaker 1: lot of help from the Nazis. This podcast is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and trade Craft Studios. Executive
Speaker 1: producers Ashe Seroia and Scott Bernstein, in association with High
Speaker 1: five Content and executive producer Andrew Jacobs. Amazing research and
Speaker 1: production assistance by associate producer is Brian show Saw and
Speaker 1: Natalie Robomed. Our incredible editor is Bill Lance. Original music
Speaker 1: by Henry ben Wah. Special thanks to Andy Aldred, Dr
Speaker 1: Ed Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory and UCF planetary
Speaker 1: scientist Dr Eddie Dove. Special thanks to everyone at NASA
Speaker 1: who made this podcast possible, especially the incredible technological wizardry
Speaker 1: of consulting producer Ben Feist, who's responsible for organizing and
Speaker 1: cleaning the eleven thousand hours of mission audio you're hearing
Speaker 1: selections from in this podcast. Special thanks also to consultant
Speaker 1: Gina Delvac. Licensing rights and clearances by Deborah Correa. This
Speaker 1: is a brand new podcast and we're so excited to
Speaker 1: be sharing it with you. Help us spread it far
Speaker 1: and wide, tell your friends, leave ratings and reviews, and
Speaker 1: chat about it on social media. Our hashtag is nine
Speaker 1: D I J. We would love to hear what you think.
Speaker 1: New episodes come out each week, so be sure to
Speaker 1: subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Brandon Phipps. Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for listening, and I'll see you next episode.
Speaker 1: M