WEBVTT - July 23, 1969 / The Dark Side of the Moon 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:02.800 Nine Days in July is a production of I Heart 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:14.320 Radio and trade Craft Studios in association with High five Content. Palmdale, California, 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.800 just outside Los Angeles, a red sob sonnet is racing 0:00:18.840 --> 0:00:21.840 down back streets. Inside are a man and a woman. 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:25.079 The mail driver appears angry and out of it. The 0:00:25.160 --> 0:00:28.720 woman looks terrified. The driver is going too fast to 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.720 notice that a stop sign at an upcoming tea intersection 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.760 is obscured by low hanging tree branches. The car rockets 0:00:35.760 --> 0:00:39.200 through the intersection, hits a ditch, and is suddenly airborne, 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:45.320 sailing several car lengths before crashing back to earth. The 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.599 woman's head smashes into the dashboard. She will have two 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.839 black eyes for weeks. The man is tossed about like 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:56.360 a rag doll, his body bruised. Thankfully, both are wearing 0:00:56.400 --> 0:00:59.920 their seatbelts. The shocked couple stagger out of the mangled 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:03.120 are and, recognizing that it isn't going anywhere ever again, 0:01:03.800 --> 0:01:08.240 begin walking to town to find help. The couple is 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:15.600 Buzz and Joan Aldren and Buzz is drunk. This is 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:19.039 a follow control at one sixty six hours, eight minutes. 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:25.240 Follow eleven is one seven thousand four nautical miles from 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:28.960 the Earth, velocity four thousand, nine hundred seventy five ft 0:01:29.000 --> 0:01:33.920 per second. Crew still sleeping. All systems are still normal. 0:01:34.720 --> 0:01:37.440 All systems of board Apollo eleven may be normal. But 0:01:37.560 --> 0:01:40.240 on Earth there's a bit of a hiccup. NASA has 0:01:40.240 --> 0:01:43.120 set up a number of monitoring stations across the planet 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.040 to ensure that as the Earth rotates, there is at 0:01:46.080 --> 0:01:50.160 least one station constantly in communication with Apollo. One of 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.280 NASA's most critical stations is in Guam, and while the 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:56.680 astronauts were sleeping, bearings in one of its dishes became 0:01:56.760 --> 0:01:59.880 stuck and the antenna was unable to track the spacecraft. 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.560 There is no way to contact Apollo eleven or for 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:06.919 them to reach Earth. The director of the tracking station, 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:10.480 Charles Force, had tried everything, but the hole through which 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.200 he needed to grease the bearing was simply too small. 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.800 Then it hit him. He raced home and grabbed his 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.840 ten year old son Greg and sped back to the station. 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:22.840 Gregg had no problem at all, reaching through a two 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:26.200 and a half inch aperture and packing grease around the bearing. 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.280 Soon the antenna was able to slew into position and 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.720 once again began tracking its celestial quarry. Years later, Gregg 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:36.600 met Neil Armstrong, who thanked him for his pint size 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:41.920 heroics eleven and I don't think good morning over Okay, 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:50.800 everything right here yet we've been in at It's July, 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.400 the eighth day of the Apollo eleven mission and the 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.440 cruise penultimate day in space. The object outside the cockpit 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.959 that they've been so captivated by is the Earth looming 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:07.640 larger than ever before on here flank plan uh item 0:03:07.680 --> 0:03:10.480 of a few updates. First of all, we've canceled a 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:16.120 mid court number six. I did remain in PPC. This 0:03:16.320 --> 0:03:19.560 is Apollo Control at one seventy three hours eighteen minutes. 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:24.800 Are virtually no flight plan activities scheduled at this time. 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.480 The spacecraft systems will all continue to perform normally. It's 0:03:29.520 --> 0:03:32.799 going to be another quiet day aboard Apollo eleven. We've 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:35.320 been jumping back in time a lot during this podcast, 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.440 but today we'll be jumping forward into the future. How 0:03:39.600 --> 0:03:41.880 is the crew of Apollo eleven greeted on their return 0:03:41.920 --> 0:03:45.360 to Earth, and especially how are their lives changed by 0:03:45.400 --> 0:03:48.400 their experience on the Moon. How do you propose to 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:53.160 restore some normalcy to your private lives and the years ahead. 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:56.080 I wish I knew the answers to the latter part 0:03:56.120 --> 0:04:00.120 of your question. It kind of depends on you. M 0:04:01.840 --> 0:04:05.440 The months and years immediately following Apollo eleven's return was 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:08.320 filled with all the pomp and circumstance you might imagine, 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:12.080 but it also masked a dark lining to this silver cloud. 0:04:13.400 --> 0:04:17.800 Follow eleven, Houston over go ahead. I just wanted to 0:04:17.839 --> 0:04:19.880 make sure you fellas hadn't gone back to sleep again. 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:22.479 And I also have a little bit of late news 0:04:22.560 --> 0:04:25.000 here if you'd like to find out what's happened in 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:31.080 the last twelve fourteen hours over Okay, okay. Looking overseas, 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:35.800 we find South Korea's first super highway linking coal with 0:04:35.920 --> 0:04:40.360 support of in John, has been named the Apollo Highway. 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:45.480 To commemorate your trip, the West Coast residents all planned 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:47.760 to make their areas visible to the three of you 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.159 by lighting their lights between nine pm and midnight tonight, 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:54.520 so that you may be able to see Christmas lights, 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.400 porch light, door lights, and whatever may be turned on. 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.720 Back in Memphis kind of s a young lady who 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.200 was presently tipping the scales at eight pounds two ounces, 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:09.479 I was named module by her parents Mr. And Mrs 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:13.800 Eddie Lee McGhee. It wasn't my idea that Mrs McGhee, 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.880 it was my husband. He said, bulk at the lame 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:21.520 lunar module McGhee because it didn't sound too good. But 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:25.679 apparently they have compromised on just module over Module McGee, 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.840 a special ed teacher, still lives in Georgia and still 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:33.960 loves her unusual name. They All Star Game currently being played. 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.320 The present score at the end of the fourth inning 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.440 as the National League leading the American League by nine 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:43.120 to three, so the hitters are having a good day. 0:05:43.160 --> 0:05:45.640 As you can tell. The National League would go on 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:50.000 to vanquish the American League nine to three. And rain 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.080 clouds are over the MSc area at the moment. It 0:05:53.560 --> 0:05:58.520 began raining here just about ten minutes ago, and last 0:05:58.560 --> 0:06:02.360 report we were having a pretty heavy delusion. So that's 0:06:02.440 --> 0:06:05.479 it from the news front for the afternoon. Here follow 0:06:05.560 --> 0:06:09.760 eleven over. Thank you very much. I thank my yard 0:06:09.800 --> 0:06:14.039 could do water. That's very true. I've forgotten exactly how 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:16.200 many days they did go buzz, but something like thirty 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.240 days without rain, and we can't appreciate the rain we're 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:26.120 getting right now. That was the last time cut. All right, 0:06:26.240 --> 0:06:30.240 you're going what non right now, Buzz, But Janets reports 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:32.920 the grads is getting pretty high, and I would have 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.039 to make that it's going to make close to your 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:40.720 knees by the time you get out of quarantine over. Neil, 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.400 Buzz and Michael returned to Earth very different men than 0:06:43.440 --> 0:06:47.120 they left just nine days earlier. Not only had they 0:06:47.160 --> 0:06:51.479 experienced something transcendent and utterly outside the experience of any 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.360 other human who has ever lived, but they were also 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:58.520 greeted as conquering heroes. They were not merely American celebrities, 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.960 they were global icons. They would forever be changed by 0:07:03.000 --> 0:07:07.600 their encounter with the Moon. Neil Armstrong's biographer James Hansen. 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:12.240 Even before the Powell and spacecraft gets back and splashes down, 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.400 Jim Level, who is capcom the capsule communicator, told the 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:18.320 astronauts as that who were coming back in you know 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:20.720 now the hard part is going to start, which is, 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.880 you know, coming back to Earth and facing everything you're 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.360 gonna face is the first men who visited the Moon. 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:29.640 Following their splashdown, which we will cover on our next episode, 0:07:30.000 --> 0:07:32.920 the men were immediately placed into three weeks of quarantine 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:35.640 just in case they came back with any dangerous lunar 0:07:35.720 --> 0:07:40.960 micro organisms. While in quarantine, Buzz began drinking heavily. No 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.720 one thought much of it, after all, he just done 0:07:43.760 --> 0:07:47.520 something monumentally stressful, and military pilots are known to blow 0:07:47.560 --> 0:07:50.080 off some steam with a couple of drinks. What no 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.440 one knew, including Buzz, was that this would become the 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.800 norm for the next decade. Three days after they were 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:00.320 released from quarantine, the crew of Apollo eleven hunkerd for 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.440 a relentless victory. And there was one day, you know, 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:07.880 in August when they started in Houston, they go to 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:10.960 New York City for a Tigercape parade. In New York, 0:08:11.280 --> 0:08:14.520 people dumped so much confetti that the astronauts writing and 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:17.720 open convertibles could not even see the sky above them 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:24.840 way to play for their black of the cars before 0:08:25.480 --> 0:08:28.640 one million New Yorkers lined Wall Street and Broadway for 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.000 a look at the crew. That's more than turned out 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.000 for the festivities celebrating the end of the Second World War. 0:08:34.480 --> 0:08:37.319 That same day, they had to Chicago for another big parade. 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.839 State Street just crowded with push Chicagolan's wishing well to 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:47.400 the astronauts to follow eleven by Chicago, buzzes face eight. 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:50.400 With all the smiling he was doing, he was overwhelmed. 0:08:51.000 --> 0:08:53.559 Everywhere he went people asked him what it was like 0:08:53.679 --> 0:08:55.719 to walk on the moon, but he never had a 0:08:55.760 --> 0:09:01.199 good answer. They wanted something philosophical, something spiritual, something profoundly 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:04.640 poetic that spoke to some deeper meaning of life. But 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.400 he was just an engineer. The words he uttered on 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:12.240 the Moon's surface, magnificent desolation, slowly began to describe what 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.079 was going on inside of him. In the end of 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.360 the day, out in Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, where 0:09:18.360 --> 0:09:22.240 President Nixon has a big black tie dinner for them 0:09:22.320 --> 0:09:24.400 with all kinds of v I P s and uh, 0:09:24.720 --> 0:09:27.760 that's just one day. President Nixon presented each of the 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:30.520 men with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and we are 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.880 therefore awarding them tonight the Medal of Freedom, the highest 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.600 civilian honor that we can present to an American citizen. 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.280 Remember Steve Bales, the flight controller who recognized that the 0:09:41.360 --> 0:09:43.520 Eagle was still go for the moon despite all of 0:09:43.559 --> 0:09:46.640 those alarms. He was there too, and unbeknownst to him, 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.280 was called up to receive the same award from the President. 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.280 On behalf of the entire White team in mission control. 0:09:52.600 --> 0:09:54.559 I told my parents, I'm going to this dinner. I 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:56.480 don't know, probably you won't see me. That I'll be 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:58.880 back in the back somewhere. One of the guys on 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.240 whatever network was Karen, said, there's this young guy, Steve 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:04.640 Bals going to come up and be given this award. 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.840 They about sell off their chairs. I mean, they couldn't 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:11.400 believe it. This is a young man. When the computers 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:13.880 seemed to be confused and we when he could have 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:17.800 said stop, or when he could have said wait, said go. 0:10:21.080 --> 0:10:23.640 Three days later, another parade was thrown for the crew 0:10:23.760 --> 0:10:27.040 back home in Houston, where three thousand people lined the 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:30.520 streets to catch sight of Neil, Buzz and Michael. That evening, 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.000 people packed the Astrodome to see them on stage. Frank 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:38.000 Sinatra was there too. He sang fly Me to the Moon. 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:41.240 They had an appearance before a joint session of Congress 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:43.559 where they gave a talk. They brought with them two 0:10:43.640 --> 0:10:46.000 flags that they had carried on the lunar module to 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.800 fly over each House of Congress. Neil wasn't comfortable as 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.719 a public speaker, but by all accounts he always rose 0:10:52.800 --> 0:10:55.959 to the challenge and dazzled his listeners. The formality and 0:10:56.080 --> 0:11:00.559 pomp of everything terrified Buzz. After parades in their hometowns, 0:11:00.960 --> 0:11:05.040 it was time for Operation Giant Leap, NASA chief historian 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:08.120 Bill Berry. President Nixon had plans for them. They wanted 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.360 to make sure that everybody knew that we won the 0:11:10.440 --> 0:11:13.160 race of the Moon, and so he sends them off 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.559 on a world tour. One of the wives said, at 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.920 one point, and now it begins, and that was a 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.640 reference to the fact that they were leaving their normal 0:11:22.760 --> 0:11:26.280 lives behind. That was space historian and author of A 0:11:26.360 --> 0:11:30.080 Man on the Moon Andrew Chacken, with their wives beside them. 0:11:30.400 --> 0:11:33.760 The Apollo eleven astronauts visited twenty eight cities in twenty 0:11:33.800 --> 0:11:36.880 three countries, meeting with twenty heads of state in just 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:40.360 thirty seven days. Elam Strong, the first man on the Moon, 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.559 led the way on this historic meeting, anesty, her husband 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:45.959 and family, like the people of Britain, were proud to 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.719 greet the space trio. Buzz later confessed that traveling to 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:54.760 and from the Moon was less exhaustic than jetting between Mexico, England, Iran, India, 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.959 Japan and zaire I always referred to this as the 0:11:58.040 --> 0:12:00.640 mission they never trained for. Right, we come back from 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:04.239 the Moon and suddenly you have to go be public celebrities. 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:07.000 You have to make speeches at dinners, you have to 0:12:07.040 --> 0:12:11.079 be beating heads of steak, and you know, shaking so 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:15.439 many hands, being in one parade after another, having to 0:12:15.600 --> 0:12:19.400 sign autographs. You know, this was not what they had 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:23.520 originally signed up for as test pilots and fighter pilots, 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:27.480 but it came with the job of being a conquering hero. 0:12:28.000 --> 0:12:31.000 Mike Collins adapted pretty Walter World Tour, and Neil seemed 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:33.000 to do pretty well at it too, but it really 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:35.600 took its toll on Buzz because they really weren't prepared 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.520 for that. Hundreds of thousands of people came out to 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:40.880 see them in Berlin, it was more like a million. 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:44.560 But cracks were starting to show in Buzz. His wife 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:46.800 Joan kept asking her husband to tell her about his 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:49.679 experiences on the moon, but Buzz kept brushing her off, 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.600 saying he was so tired of talking about that subject. 0:12:53.280 --> 0:12:56.640 According to Lily Coppell, the author of The Astronaut Wives Club, 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.760 he began acting more and more erratic and rome. He 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:05.520 was out parting all night little j VDA style. Buzz 0:13:05.559 --> 0:13:07.959 felt like he had been being a very good boy. 0:13:08.520 --> 0:13:11.439 He had done what NASA asked of him, so he 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.640 sort of allowed himself to sort of start letting luc 0:13:14.720 --> 0:13:18.080 a bit. Buzz began to drink, he began to dance, 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:23.920 He began to show his dissatisfaction with what he saw 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.600 is I think propaganda role that he had placed. Both 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.400 Neil and Michael noticed something was the matter, but they 0:13:30.440 --> 0:13:33.880 didn't know what it was or how to help. At 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:37.360 one point, Bill Carpenter, the Apollo eleven flight surgeon, pulled 0:13:37.400 --> 0:13:40.920 Buzz aside and asked him if everything was okay. Buzz 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:44.559 admitted to being overwhelmed and accepted some pills. He was 0:13:44.880 --> 0:13:49.240 having a space age existential crisis. At some point, he 0:13:49.360 --> 0:13:52.400 turns to Joan and she's sort of wondering why he 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:55.679 can't just enjoy this moment of glory, and he just 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:59.240 said to a very flatly Joan, I've been to the moon. 0:14:00.040 --> 0:14:02.240 Nothing in our lives is ever going to be the 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:05.920 same again. Things got so bad at one point that 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.360 Joan told her husband that he needed to get control 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.120 of himself or move out. Once they got back to America, 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.800 Buzz righted himself, at least for a little while, as 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:17.120 they finished the tour in d c. At dinner with 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:19.440 the President and spent the night at the White House. 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:22.120 A few days after they returned to the United States, 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:24.760 the US Postal Service came out with a new stamp 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:27.840 on it. Neil Armstrong was shown to sending the ladder 0:14:27.880 --> 0:14:30.560 to the lunar surface. Beneath the image was the text 0:14:30.960 --> 0:14:36.640 first man on the Moon Man singular. He was incredibly 0:14:37.480 --> 0:14:40.720 upset over not having been the first man to step 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:43.600 on the face of the Moon. It still seems absolutely 0:14:43.640 --> 0:14:47.400 incredible to me and many of the lives I spoke to, 0:14:47.600 --> 0:14:50.440 and I think many people, hey, you were up there, 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:52.720 you were with Neil, But I guess he would have 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:57.239 preferred to be first. Sort of typical as these competitive astronuts, 0:14:57.760 --> 0:15:01.320 we're in deeply speculative territory here. To this day, Buzz 0:15:01.360 --> 0:15:03.960 denies caring about being the first man to step foot 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.840 on the Moon. He's even said he's thankful, given how 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:08.960 Neil was mobbed all of his life for the honor, 0:15:09.440 --> 0:15:13.000 and yet those closest to him never bought it. Many 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:15.640 friends and historians think that Buzz was very angry that 0:15:15.720 --> 0:15:18.680 he was not chosen as number one, but there's almost 0:15:18.720 --> 0:15:21.960 always this qualifier. It was not a matter of pride, 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:26.480 but rather an inability to please his overbearing father. Buzz 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:30.080 came from a very difficult background in the sense that 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:33.960 he had a very difficult and demanding father, and he's 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:36.360 certainly whether or not he was always conscious of it. 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:40.840 I think he felt the impact of that. That was 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.120 almost as if nothing he ever did was good enough 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:45.840 for his father. In fact, some of the other astronauts 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:49.480 told me that they even remember his father kind of 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:54.200 campaigning on Buzz's behalf. You know that maybe Buzz should 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:56.240 be the first guy out on the moon, and it 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.360 must have been very hard on Buzz to have that 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.480 kind of father. Neil, Buzz and Michael traveled half a 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.080 million miles to the Moon and back, and another one 0:16:05.160 --> 0:16:09.000 hundred thousand criss crossing the Earth. In all, nearly one 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:11.800 and fifty million people came out to see the crew 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:14.440 of Apollo eleven, and it was estimated that they shook 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.520 half a million hands. We've all come a long way 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:21.560 with these three Apollo eleven aspronauts. They've made us proud, 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:25.800 They've shown us the massive national effort can be mounted 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.800 and carried through to success, whether out into their reaches 0:16:29.880 --> 0:16:32.560 of space or praised me perhaps right here on the 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:54.720 face of the Earth. Back on Apollo eleven, the crew 0:16:54.800 --> 0:16:58.120 has just finished their breakfast, and as always, Michael is 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:02.479 singing the praises of their re hydrated food. Bo's magnetism 0:17:02.600 --> 0:17:06.359 is usually it's like they got it patty doo, cups 0:17:06.480 --> 0:17:09.280 coffee and I forget all what else, And that does 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.040 sound pretty good. As a matter of fact, I'm way 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:14.200 overdue for a meal myself here. I could use some 0:17:14.320 --> 0:17:17.320 of that to get milk to give you five minutes 0:17:17.440 --> 0:17:20.840 up Hamburg. I've exacted that a while ago. He was 0:17:20.880 --> 0:17:23.320 pointing out about the weight problem here. I gotta keep 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:27.000 the calorie is low, so I better stand by without it. 0:17:28.080 --> 0:17:31.679 As with yesterday, everyone is a lot more relaxed, cracking 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:35.560 jokes and goofing around. Speaking of food, Mike has some 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:38.840 advice for a Paul twelve due to launch the following November. 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:41.440 We've been doing a little flight planning for a POB 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:45.639 twelve up here, Roger go ahead, trying to calculate how 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:48.320 much spaghetti and mate bills we can get on pork 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.760 for Elbain. I'm not sure the stage craps will take 0:17:51.800 --> 0:17:54.040 that much text your weight? Have you made any antimates 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:59.440 it'll be closed. Last comment came from my colin's referring 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:03.240 to Al being as the Leno modical pilot to a 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:07.399 Polo twelve. Shortly after this chat, Apollo eleven passes the 0:18:07.440 --> 0:18:10.320 midway point on its homeward journey. They are now just 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:17.239 over one hundred thousand nautical miles from splashdown Houston. Are 0:18:17.240 --> 0:18:20.800 you still up there over? Oh? Yeah, but not like 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:24.600 we were wanting to go for a general informational eleven. 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:28.200 You're now nine or five thousand, nine hundred and deny 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.720 miles from the areas over trying to come downhill a 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:36.840 little bit? Now, what velocity is five thousand and nine 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:41.120 hundred and per second? And you are indeed coming downhill. 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.760 In y one, Citizen Kane opened in theaters. The film 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:52.119 is considered the greatest American masterpiece ever made. Its director, 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:55.879 co writer, and star Orson Welles was just twenty five 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:59.400 years old. For the rest of his life, Wells would 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:01.760 try to make something as good as his very first film. 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:05.800 The attempt would nearly ruin him. The crew of Apollo 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:09.200 eleven isn't yet forty years old. They have done something 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:13.320 no one else in human history has ever accomplished. They 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:17.320 are heroes the world over. So what do they do next? 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.280 NASA's Bill Barry. It became apparent right after the Paulovan 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:23.960 crew came back to Earth that they weren't going to 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.000 fly in space again. The worst fate for pilots and 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:29.639 astronauts is sorry, you don't get to go in space anymore. 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:31.960 I don't think I can emphasize it enough that you know, 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:36.320 their identity was as military aviators and and test pilots, 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.520 and so suddenly they're not going to be allowed to 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:41.680 do that anymore, and they have to find some of 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.080 their meaning in their life. Neil, Buzz and Michael were icons, 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:48.600 now too important to risk on another flight. It was 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:53.040 time to reinvent themselves. After the Giant Leap Tour, Neil 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:55.760 spent a few weeks with Bob Hope entertaining the troops 0:19:55.800 --> 0:20:02.320 in Vietnam. I've had the privilege of meeting some outstanding 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:04.280 men in our time, but the very quiet and soft 0:20:04.280 --> 0:20:07.040 spoken young man you're about to meet now is a 0:20:07.160 --> 0:20:10.200 part of a team that provided this world with a thrill. 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:14.800 They will not soon forget Armstrong biographer James Hanson, and 0:20:14.920 --> 0:20:17.399 Neil showed a lot of good humor and was very 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:21.159 popular with the troops all across Vietnam. And then he 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:23.720 was invited to go to the Soviet Union and gave 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:27.920 talks and was met cosmonauts and met the wife of 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:31.440 Uriga Garin, the first man in space. Neil may have 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:33.520 fled the country just to get away from the mountains 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.080 of mail that was coming in. While he'd planned on 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:39.639 responding to everyone, it quickly became clear that that was impossible. 0:20:40.240 --> 0:20:42.800 For the first couple of months, he received ten thousand 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:46.320 letters a day. NASA threw a bunch of clerks and 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:48.760 public affairs officers into the mix to help him, but 0:20:48.880 --> 0:20:52.280 they couldn't keep up with the tsunami. Even decades later, 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:56.320 he continued to maintain an administrative assistant whose sole job 0:20:56.640 --> 0:21:00.520 was handling his overwhelming correspondence. He was getting all kinds 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:02.760 of invitations to do this, and do that, and give 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:05.040 this talk, and give this commencement speech, and come to 0:21:05.160 --> 0:21:08.159 this grand opening, and and Neil, it was sort of 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:12.000 it was overwhelming. Neil needed some stability, and he found 0:21:12.040 --> 0:21:15.360 it in an offer from NASA. The NASA Administrator Dr. 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:19.560 Thomas Paine asked Neil to take on a position back 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:25.120 in the NASA's aeronautics programs as Associate Administrator for Aeronautics, 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:28.040 which would have been a desk job in Washington, and 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:31.719 Neil accepted it kind of grudgingly. He wasn't that interested 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:34.560 in staying in Washington. He wasn't interested that much in 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:38.080 a desk job, but aeronautics was his passion, so he 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:42.000 accepted the job. Not surprisingly, Neil didn't enjoy flying a 0:21:42.119 --> 0:21:44.119 desk and he remained in the job for only a 0:21:44.200 --> 0:21:46.399 couple of years. I think he would have been happy 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:48.680 if in the job, if they had just let him 0:21:48.720 --> 0:21:51.680 do it. But being in Washington, d C. It was 0:21:51.760 --> 0:21:54.919 constantly getting calls to come over to have a photo 0:21:55.000 --> 0:21:59.680 shoot with an ambassador or visiting dignitary or congressman or 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:02.560 something like that. And after a while Neil just got 0:22:02.640 --> 0:22:05.240 tired of that. They wouldn't leave him alone, and and 0:22:05.320 --> 0:22:07.640 he chose, well, I'm going to just have to get 0:22:07.640 --> 0:22:10.639 out of I need to find a normal life. Neil 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:14.520 tried to get back to some sense of normalcy by 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:18.800 going back to Ohio, having a farm that he lived on. 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:23.159 Even as he was teaching engineering at the University in 0:22:23.240 --> 0:22:28.480 Cincinnati and maintaining a fairly low profile throughout his post 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:31.720 Apollo years. He was not the recluse that people made 0:22:31.800 --> 0:22:35.240 him out to be. He just didn't seek publicity and 0:22:35.720 --> 0:22:39.080 he was steadfast about meeting the world on his own terms. 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:42.560 As Andrew Jakin just alluded to, for Neil, it was 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:45.800 never about celebrity or fame, It was only ever about 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:49.720 the flying. He became a favorite professor at Cincinnati's School 0:22:49.760 --> 0:22:53.360 of Engineering from nineteen seventy one to nineteen seventy nine, 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:56.680 but in the early eighties he decided to try something new. 0:22:57.080 --> 0:22:59.000 I don't think he was really after big money, but 0:22:59.080 --> 0:23:01.320 I think he was in tree by the possibilities of 0:23:01.480 --> 0:23:04.080 what he might be able to do for certain corporations, 0:23:04.200 --> 0:23:08.720 especially those that had a had a technical engineering side 0:23:08.800 --> 0:23:13.240 to it. So, starting you know, around nineteen eighty, really 0:23:13.480 --> 0:23:17.120 until his retirement, Kneels involved with a number of different companies, 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:21.760 including Lear Jet and Chrysler. Michael Collins retired from NASA 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:25.199 just a year after the Apollo eleven mission. Having basically 0:23:25.280 --> 0:23:27.520 worked as a US diplomat during the Giant Leap tour, 0:23:27.960 --> 0:23:31.359 Michael took a job he would later describe as plush purgatory. 0:23:31.600 --> 0:23:34.200 He actually volunteers to be the Deputy Assistant Secretary of 0:23:34.240 --> 0:23:36.520 State for Public Affairs, and he does that for a 0:23:36.640 --> 0:23:39.320 year or so, and like his colleagues, after about a 0:23:39.400 --> 0:23:42.480 year so and his his alternate career, realizes that there's 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:45.640 another opportunity I like better. He became the first director 0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:51.720 of National Air and Space Museum, where he supervised the design, 0:23:52.359 --> 0:23:56.040 the development of the exhibits, the construction of the building, 0:23:56.960 --> 0:23:59.040 made sure that it came in on time and under 0:23:59.119 --> 0:24:02.359 budget when opened right around the time of the nation's 0:24:02.440 --> 0:24:07.760