Speaker 1: Buzz an audio drama for iHeart Podcasts starring John Lithgow
Speaker 1: and Jeffrey Aaron as buzz Aldren. This series is based
Speaker 1: on real events, However, certain characters, names, incidents, locations, and
Speaker 1: dialogue have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Speaker 2: Chapter eight, Good Evening, My fellow Americans.
Speaker 3: Fates has ordained that the men who went to the
Speaker 3: Moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon
Speaker 3: to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and
Speaker 3: Edwin Alburn, know that there's no pope for their recovery,
Speaker 3: but they also know that there is hope for may
Speaker 3: in time. In their sacrifice, they will be mourned by
Speaker 3: their families and friends.
Speaker 4: It will be mourned by their nation.
Speaker 3: They will be mourned by a mother Earth that dared
Speaker 3: send two of her sons into the unknown.
Speaker 5: Neil and I didn't know President Nixon was taping our eulogy.
Speaker 5: We were focused on trying to survive a possible crash
Speaker 5: landing or a Russian attack.
Speaker 6: Houston Eagle position check landing radars and SLEW mode. But
Speaker 6: it's putting us three thousand feet lower than our altitude
Speaker 6: from the guidance computer.
Speaker 7: Our data is not matching prediction.
Speaker 6: The radar echoes are more reliable than the computer I'm
Speaker 6: keying in.
Speaker 5: The command.
Speaker 6: Do you have a visual in a Russian Luna fifteen negative? Houston?
Speaker 8: We have a program along.
Speaker 6: We got an alarm code here, twelve oh two? What
Speaker 6: the hell's a twelve capcom.
Speaker 9: Guide?
Speaker 8: Hope?
Speaker 7: Anyone? No one knows what a twelve o two is?
Speaker 4: What's it?
Speaker 5: Say, Neil?
Speaker 4: I can't find it.
Speaker 10: Trying to run down that program around. What's your engine
Speaker 10: start up?
Speaker 8: We're burning down the descent tanks fast. We need to
Speaker 8: know if we're going to lose primary guidance.
Speaker 6: We're getting from the computer altitude now twenty one thousand
Speaker 6: velocity twelve hundred feet per second. We're going to have
Speaker 6: an abort decision coming up momentarily.
Speaker 2: This better be good, boys.
Speaker 4: Twelve oh two is the warning of a system overload.
Speaker 4: The computer is running too many processes at once.
Speaker 11: It's executing only the most important guidance functions and dropping
Speaker 11: any non essential processes.
Speaker 7: We're about to land on the moon.
Speaker 5: There are no non essential processes.
Speaker 11: The computer may clear the alarm when it reboots.
Speaker 5: What do you mean?
Speaker 6: Is this a software defect or a system failure.
Speaker 11: If it's a system failure, it's not in the computer.
Speaker 6: Where is it.
Speaker 5: He's twelve oh two on a board condition or not.
Speaker 7: There are two lives on the line and we're running
Speaker 7: out of fuel.
Speaker 5: I'm Buzz Aldrin, and this is the story you think
Speaker 5: you know, but you don't.
Speaker 8: Ignition frequent fi S five four three per Gladydavi here
Speaker 8: be able at land on all crap per ram Bam.
Speaker 5: You're listening to Buzz. This is the story of my
Speaker 5: greatest achievement. Chapter eight.
Speaker 4: We're just a few minutes away from that historic moment
Speaker 4: when the lunar module Eagle will touch down on the Moon.
Speaker 4: We expect to be hooking up to NASA's communication line
Speaker 4: to Eagle, so that as the landing occurs, we and
Speaker 4: an estimated half billion television viewers around the world will
Speaker 4: be so to speak along for the ride.
Speaker 5: What they didn't know was how close we were making
Speaker 5: Nixon's eulogy.
Speaker 6: Necessary maintaining speed of descent altitude ten thousand and five Houston,
Speaker 6: Are we go or no go? To continue.
Speaker 8: Eagle?
Speaker 5: We expect an answer on the twelve OZHO two momentarily.
Speaker 10: Momentarily is all we've got.
Speaker 5: You know it's not going to happen before you have
Speaker 5: to appord.
Speaker 8: No, Chris, I don't know that the landing radar is
Speaker 8: still showing a ten percent deviation from the computer's descent trajectory.
Speaker 4: Even if we do aboard, there's no guarantee we can
Speaker 4: put Eagle in a rendezvous position with Columbia.
Speaker 11: If the twelve oh two alarm remains, that are met,
Speaker 11: and we should be okay, that's the best.
Speaker 10: We can do.
Speaker 1: That's not a ringing endorsement.
Speaker 11: Primary guidance should stay at the top of the execution list.
Speaker 11: What if it becomes constant, we could lose radar, Give
Speaker 11: me a straight answer.
Speaker 6: Goddamn it.
Speaker 11: If it becomes constant, the computer could shut down altogether.
Speaker 11: They've trained every ounce of mind, body, and spirit for this.
Speaker 6: They're explorers.
Speaker 5: They're also husbands and fathers.
Speaker 7: But if it were me, I'd keep going.
Speaker 6: But it's not.
Speaker 7: I know I'll see my wife and kids again.
Speaker 2: Eagle.
Speaker 6: This is flight.
Speaker 7: We don't have cause for the twelve ZHO two, but
Speaker 7: you might still make it down to the surface with
Speaker 7: an intermittent computer overload.
Speaker 8: Houston, can you quantify, Mike.
Speaker 10: How afiable to offer.
Speaker 6: How does an overload effect redocking with Columbia.
Speaker 10: It doesn't make it easier. The calls yours, gentlemen, all
Speaker 10: of us, you will support your decision whatever it is.
Speaker 10: Are we go for a landing or do we abort.
Speaker 9: Intend to redoc?
Speaker 8: You don't really need to ask.
Speaker 10: Do you.
Speaker 8: We are go for final descent?
Speaker 6: Switch landing radar to rondevu moments landing radar to rendezvous
Speaker 6: altitude six thousand feet.
Speaker 5: At the Genre Bank Observatory in England, Sir Bernard Lovell
Speaker 5: was collecting information on the position of the Russian Luna.
Speaker 10: Fit there you go, Ramon.
Speaker 5: He was also feeding nuts to his two can Ramono.
Speaker 5: But who is not a question in his choice of
Speaker 5: a ped I had a monkey back home?
Speaker 9: Come, Sir Bernard. The Russian craft has changed its declination
Speaker 9: to equate it from eighty seven degrees to sixty five.
Speaker 9: Its orbit is circularizing at low altitude, and the burns
Speaker 9: are being timed to give the craft a landing window
Speaker 9: in the Sea of Tranquility. Pass it here, I see,
Speaker 9: I thought you'd want to know immediately, so you carry
Speaker 9: on feeding Ramont. I'll call Houston.
Speaker 5: Every second brought us closer to the lunar's surface, the
Speaker 5: question still remained, would we land onto it or slam
Speaker 5: into it?
Speaker 6: What do you see out there?
Speaker 3: Mountains?
Speaker 6: I see mountains, Houston. Descend fuel is at twenty five
Speaker 6: percent and falling rapidly. Less than four minutes until we're dry.
Speaker 11: Roger Eagle.
Speaker 10: Three minutes fifty to zero to st fuel capacity.
Speaker 6: Eagle.
Speaker 11: Can you see the programmed landing.
Speaker 4: Side now, Roger Houston?
Speaker 10: It's too un even here. I have a large crater
Speaker 10: on my left and a motor.
Speaker 7: Field stretching behind it. Eagle, this is flight any way
Speaker 7: you could land short of the crater.
Speaker 4: Negative Houston.
Speaker 2: We've got zero visibility below and behind me.
Speaker 8: We can't see what we drop into, Roger Eagle.
Speaker 5: Any sign of the Russians?
Speaker 3: Negative Houston.
Speaker 10: Frankly, we've been a little too busy to look. Dessentiel
Speaker 10: remaining three minutes twenty seconds.
Speaker 4: We have yet to go to the NASSA feed, but
Speaker 4: we're told the descent is proceeding smoothly towards the surface.
Speaker 6: There's a spot over there, too many boulders. We could
Speaker 6: make it well, snap off a stress, I could make it.
Speaker 4: I'm the commander.
Speaker 6: Houston, is still no acceptable landing site two minutes forty
Speaker 6: of available fuel.
Speaker 5: Roger Eagle.
Speaker 10: Fuel has to be reserved in case of.
Speaker 8: An emergency board Roger Houston.
Speaker 4: We're told we'll be switching to the NASA communication line
Speaker 4: and just a matter of moments, as the Eagle is
Speaker 4: descending toward the Moon amerkanski a kasmchiskipa drama. What I
Speaker 4: was ivied to.
Speaker 7: Reach American information is that all systems on Eagle and
Speaker 7: on the command module Columbia orbiting the Moon are in
Speaker 7: perfect condition.
Speaker 6: Altitude eighteen high, hundred speed of descent seven.
Speaker 2: We've got a landing site.
Speaker 6: Altitude one thousand ninety.
Speaker 4: Seconds, landing altitude ninety degrees.
Speaker 6: Decent speed two hundred fbs sixty seconds, Roger Eagle, the
Speaker 6: versions all clear. Forty seconds altitude fifty feet. Activate external camera.
Speaker 4: Down here we see it on the louse surface as egleoproaches.
Speaker 4: This man is about to land on the Moon.
Speaker 3: Eagle will touch down, and the last word is that
Speaker 3: all systems are performing very well.
Speaker 4: Everything seems to be going as smoothly as parking your
Speaker 4: car at the local.
Speaker 6: Supermarket, descent engine and kicking up lunar dust altitude fifteen
Speaker 6: feet twenty five.
Speaker 8: Seconds contact leg We have contact. Left front pad of
Speaker 8: the eagle is down. We had to set engine shutdown.
Speaker 8: If you stay, Tranquility Base here the eagle has landed.
Speaker 11: Roger twin Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. We've
Speaker 11: got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're
Speaker 11: breathing again.
Speaker 8: Thanks a lot, Thank you, oh.
Speaker 5: Boy, which seemed to speak for everyone of those half
Speaker 5: billion people, including our wives and kids we brought along
Speaker 5: with us.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, can you hear me?
Speaker 11: Joan Cat, get some water.
Speaker 5: Eagle had been depressurized in preparation for Neil and I
Speaker 5: to step onto the lunar surface in that order.
Speaker 10: Houston, this is Tranquility Base. We are suited up and
Speaker 10: ready to egress the lunar module. Over runching that tranquility,
Speaker 10: have a nice luster all.
Speaker 5: Over, Houston.
Speaker 10: We've got an issue here again, Tranquility over a lunar module.
Speaker 8: Hatch will not budge Pep Tranquility.
Speaker 4: The hatch is it won't open.
Speaker 10: You gotta be kidding me, Neil, have you followed through
Speaker 10: a hearse sequence.
Speaker 7: Every step and I could give it a kick if
Speaker 7: that help.
Speaker 3: Negative tranquility any damage to the door, and you won't
Speaker 3: be able to repressurize when you retired.
Speaker 10: I wasn't serious about that, Houston, Tranquility. It looks like
Speaker 10: some residual cabin pressure is sealing the hatch. We're gonna
Speaker 10: have to work on. It's the aluminum cover blocking the door.
Speaker 10: I I'm gonna have to peel it back to break
Speaker 10: the seal. Houston. I'm trying to peel back the skin
Speaker 10: from the hatch. It's like peeling back the seal on
Speaker 10: a can of sartines. Be careful, the terror propete bush.
Speaker 10: Be careful there, That should do it.
Speaker 5: I opened the hatch, releasing a cloud of ice as
Speaker 5: the last of the oxygen in the module was sucked
Speaker 5: into the vacuum of space.
Speaker 2: Houston Tranquility.
Speaker 8: The hatch is open, and I'm about to step onto
Speaker 8: the lunar surface.
Speaker 2: Here have a sip of water.
Speaker 5: Thanks a quarter of a million miles away, our wives
Speaker 5: and families were watching, waiting to hear what Neil was
Speaker 5: going to say. I have to admit so was I.
Speaker 10: Get one small.
Speaker 5: On Those words would become cemented in our culture and
Speaker 5: in our history, but they weren't my words. The fact
Speaker 5: I couldn't live with for more years than I care
Speaker 5: to count.
Speaker 2: Did you know what Neil was going to say? I
Speaker 2: had no idea. You wouldn't tell me, and I asked
Speaker 2: him one hundred times. I can't believe they did it.
Speaker 4: Step on the Moon?
Speaker 10: Are you ready for me to come out? Prepared to
Speaker 10: descend beautiful view, magnificent desolation?
Speaker 5: In mission control there was a slogan on the noticeboard,
Speaker 5: Tough and Competent. There we were two men, tough and competent,
Speaker 5: preparing to plant our flag on the Moon, answering Kennedy's
Speaker 5: challenge and beating the Russians to the greatest prize of all.
Speaker 5: Or so we thought. I told you this was a
Speaker 5: story you only thought you knew.
Speaker 1: Buzz, starring John Lithgow and Jeffrey Errand, is created by
Speaker 1: Stephen Kronish and directed by John Scott Dryden. Chapter eight
Speaker 1: is written by Stephen Cronish. Original music is by Sasha Putnam,
Speaker 1: editing and sound designed by Elouise Whitmore. The producer is
Speaker 1: Emma Hearn. The executive producers are Jeremy Fox, John Scott Dryden,
Speaker 1: Stephen Cronish, Howard Stringer and Jason English. Buzz is a
Speaker 1: production of Thoroughbred Studios, gold Hawk Productions, and iHeart Podcasts.