WEBVTT - Chapter 1 – Eagle’s Descent 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:04.560 Buzz, an audio drama for iHeart Podcasts starring John Lithgow 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:07.960 and Jeffrey Aaron as buzz Aldren. This series is based 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:12.480 on real events, However, certain characters, names, incidents, locations, and 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:15.160 dialogue have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes. 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:26.960 Chapter one, Eagles descending a thirteen hundred feet litteral landing 0:00:26.960 --> 0:00:29.160 area in sight Mission control, Houston. 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:30.080 Do you copy? 0:00:31.520 --> 0:00:32.040 We copy? 0:00:32.120 --> 0:00:35.120 Neil all love and looking good for letter landing? 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:41.000 Mission Control confirm AGS landing coordinates. 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:43.640 Roger that bun and confirming a. 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.840 Decent continuing twelve hundred. 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.920 Feet copy prepare for a lunar touchdown in ninety seconds. 0:00:52.360 --> 0:00:55.880 How about those coordinates used in While We're Young. 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:00.440 We're about the Flights? 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:06.039 AGS is one zero one three six one four point 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:09.920 zero seven plus zero zero zero nine or eight. 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:15.000 Houston, your numbers are incorrect. AGS is plus zero zero 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:17.960 five seven to two. You expect us to hit our 0:01:18.040 --> 0:01:20.640 landing site with coordinates that are off by a factor 0:01:20.640 --> 0:01:21.119 of five? 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:25.399 How long before he mentioned it? Mentions? 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:30.520 What that he's five beta kappa and we're not capcom 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:33.000 run that AGS calculation again? 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:39.720 I already ran it, Houston, AGS is plus zero zero five. 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:40.119 Seven to two. 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:42.600 I'll bet my five beta Kappa. 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:42.880 Key on it. 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:44.520 Told you you know him well. 0:01:45.760 --> 0:01:47.319 Anyone else want to anti up. 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:50.680 AGS? Error is acknowledged. 0:01:51.040 --> 0:01:56.680 Repeat please whose error ours? Your figures are correct? 0:01:56.720 --> 0:02:00.520 Buzz AGS is zero zero five two. 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:07.160 Sorry about that, Roger Houston. The air is human to 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:08.560 forgive is mine? 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:17.519 Eagle descending one thousand feet till lunar touchdown, and then we. 0:02:15.760 --> 0:02:18.560 Have an alarm code descent propulsion failure. 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:20.880 Initiate engine restart. 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:23.600 Losing altitude rapidly eight hundred feet. 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:25.200 Neil is flight. 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:27.160 Your descent rate is critical. 0:02:27.280 --> 0:02:27.920 I can save it. 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:32.600 Engine restart is not five hundred feet and falling. Neil 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:36.440 initiate landing aboard now three hundred feet. 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:37.240 I can save it. 0:02:40.560 --> 0:02:43.399 We're no longer possible lunar impact. 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:51.800 Eminent Eagle has craft likelihood of cruise survival is zeround. 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:56.520 If Neil and I had really left the ground, but 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.920 we hadn't. We were still in the lunar module simulate 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:04.919 at NASA's headquarters in Houston. There's nothing like a near 0:03:05.000 --> 0:03:09.440 death experience, even simulated, to change your priorities. 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.880 Eagle crew and flight engineers stand by to evaluate cause 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:15.520 and effect of DPS malfunction. 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.280 The cause may have been a mystery to everyone but 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.359 flight director Gene Krantz, but the effect was staring all 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:28.359 of us in the face. Neil Armstrong, commander of Apollo eleven, 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:30.799 shut down when he should have stepped up. 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:39.000 Gentlemen, listen up, clench your right hand, stick out your 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:43.960 index finger, and use it to call your wife, your girlfriend, 0:03:44.120 --> 0:03:47.240 or your mommy and tell her you're going to be 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:51.680 late tonight. Today we had a setback, but the launch 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.160 of Apollo eleven will not be delayed. 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.800 More people saw us on the Moon than just any 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:06.600 single event before or since. We galvanized the world, then 0:04:06.680 --> 0:04:10.000 we came home. That's the story you think you know, 0:04:11.680 --> 0:04:12.560 this is the story. 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:16.120 You don't ignition frequent five. 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:27.240 Five four with the quality day here. You ain't going 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.159 to plant the one all trap per ram. 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:33.600 Fil. 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:49.120 You're listening to buzzz and this is the story of 0:04:49.160 --> 0:04:52.919 my greatest achievement. Chapter one. 0:04:57.240 --> 0:05:02.280 Normally, which expects to being the leader of other natives, 0:05:02.600 --> 0:05:05.880 can't expect to stay behind in this race of space. 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.960 In the fall of nineteen sixty two, President Kennedy summoned 0:05:10.000 --> 0:05:14.000 the best in US as Americans and as human beings. 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:19.240 We choose to go to the moon. We choose to 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:20.080 go to the moon. 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.520 And this decayed because that challenge is one. 0:05:23.400 --> 0:05:27.640 That we're willing to acampt, one we are willing to postpone, 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:29.640 and one we intend to win. 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.160 Then it was dead. Six years later, what should have 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.400 been America's decade saw us on the brink of a 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:46.240 second civil war, city streets on fire, with racial violence, 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:51.480 campuses torn apart by the war in Vietnam. Kennedy's challenged 0:05:51.520 --> 0:05:55.640 to reach the Moon seemed an impossible dream, a race 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:59.320 we were bound to lose to the enemy in Moscow. 0:06:00.440 --> 0:06:03.599 Intends to militarize space as a platform to hold the 0:06:03.640 --> 0:06:07.839 world hostage. We want to explore the final frontier for 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:11.919 the betterment of man. When a flag is planted on 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:15.599 the Moon, it'll be our flag and you will have 0:06:15.680 --> 0:06:16.160 put it there. 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:17.159 Yeah. 0:06:18.320 --> 0:06:21.719 Anyone who says Apollo eleven was about collecting moon rocks 0:06:22.120 --> 0:06:25.000 has their head up their ass. It was the stars 0:06:25.000 --> 0:06:27.880 and stripes versus the hammer and sickle, the land of 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.239 the free against the home of the enslaved, the white 0:06:31.320 --> 0:06:35.279 hatted capitalists and the commies in black. For those of 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:37.960 us who flew fighter jets in Korea and during the 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:41.840 iciest days of the Cold War, Beating the Russians was 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:44.920 what we lived for and would have died for. 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:49.520 So make your calls, gentlemen, grab dinner, potato chips, fig Newton's, 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:53.159 whatever's in the vending machines, and then it's back to work. 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:02.560 One man at Mission Control wasn't deployed. Chris Kraft had 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:06.400 been flight director before Gene Krantz took over. Chris was 0:07:06.480 --> 0:07:10.320 Jeane's mentor, his surrogate father until the bosses at NASA 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:12.880 kicked Chris upstairs but not out the door. 0:07:14.240 --> 0:07:17.680 Nice speech, Jane, Well, I said what I thought you 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:18.040 would have. 0:07:18.640 --> 0:07:20.720 What went wrong with the landing exercise? 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.880 I simulated a DSL malfunction and Neil missed it. 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:27.600 Has he missed before? We never ran the simulation before. 0:07:27.960 --> 0:07:30.840 What made you run it? Now? All other systems have 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:33.920 been cleared. Why would Neil have missed? Is what the 0:07:34.000 --> 0:07:39.200 reviews for? Chris? If you want, you can sit in. 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:41.239 I'm not flight director anymore. 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:44.640 Well, as long as I am, you're welcome to the table. 0:07:45.600 --> 0:07:46.840 I wouldn't be in the job if it. 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:47.240 Wasn't for you. 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:49.280 What about Neil and Buzz? 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:50.720 Have they done their own review. 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.160 I was just in the process of offering some constructive 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:55.679 criticism to my bosom. 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.360 Chum, you fucked up, Neil. 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:04.400 Your boart was unnecess Mission control overreacted when the code sounded. 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:08.560 You froze That simulation should have been cake. I would 0:08:08.600 --> 0:08:10.400 have pulled us out of it. A kid in flight 0:08:10.480 --> 0:08:12.560 school would have pulled us out of it. You know 0:08:12.600 --> 0:08:14.960 it goes on record as a crew failure. A crew 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:16.880 failure includes me and I. 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:20.280 Don't fail boys, boys, let's play nice. 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:21.960 What do you want, Brian? 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:24.400 The reporters are ready. 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:25.680 Fuck them. 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.400 It's the last briefing before the launch. Where's my Collins? 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:31.280 They want to talk to the entire crew. 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:33.839 Are you gonna tell them about our little glitch? Are 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.800 we still perpetrating the myth of Neil's infallibility? 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:39.160 There are some things they don't need to know, but 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:41.640 if I cancel, they'll get suspicious. 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.000 Hi, guys, how's everybody's day? 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:45.319 Mike? 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:48.319 What do you do the briefing? Maybe a few jokes 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.200 about suborbital rendezvous. 0:08:50.440 --> 0:08:51.240 Just do me a favor. 0:08:51.640 --> 0:08:55.719 No questions about why I became an astronaut. 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.120 Everyone one at a time, one at a time. 0:08:59.240 --> 0:08:59.920 Yeah, you over there? 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:02.680 There hand raised, Yes, sir, Neil. What's it like knowing 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.480 the success or failure of Apollo eleven is in your hands? 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:08.800 Apollo eleven is the result of the efforts of four 0:09:08.920 --> 0:09:12.840 hundred thousand people, and each one is just as vital 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:15.640 to its success as the mission commander. 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:18.520 And you in the far corner when you're on top 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:22.240 of that rocket as a launch sequence counts down, how 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:23.360 do you expect to feel? 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:27.400 Define what you mean by feel. 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.920 Exhilary, asking Neil about his emotions was like asking a 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:31.800 fish how to sing. 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:34.000 I wouldn't know how to answer that. 0:09:34.760 --> 0:09:37.679 I almost felt sorry for him. He was so out 0:09:37.720 --> 0:09:40.880 of his depth. Next question, on the other hand, talking 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.280 aerospace to the reporters was right in my wheelhouse. 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:48.120 After departing the command module, coming down in the descent 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.240 orbit will ignite the descent engine. 0:09:50.400 --> 0:09:53.559 They didn't understand a word, which is why I love 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:54.959 demand module bus. 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:56.760 Can you translate for those of us who don't have 0:09:56.800 --> 0:09:58.280 an MIT degree. 0:09:58.200 --> 0:10:04.760 An MIT doctorate? And sorry, boys, translation wouldn't help you. 0:10:05.520 --> 0:10:08.520 Any questions for Colonel Mike Collins. 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.000 Mike, why did you want to be an astronaut? 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.360 Normally, after a tough day at the office, I'd visit 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:20.160 a saloon called Elroy's, where, if you happen to be 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.840 buzz Aldrin, the drinks were free and the women were moonstruck. 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:28.400 But first Gene Krantz brought Neil and me to his office, 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:32.160 where as flight director, he admitted what I already knew 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:33.079 in my gut. 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.200 I triggered the DPS malfunction. 0:10:38.040 --> 0:10:39.839 For what possible purpose. 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:41.480 It could happen during an actual dissent. 0:10:41.679 --> 0:10:43.600 The odds are statistically nil. 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:47.400 The odds aren't the issue. The issues your failure to 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:49.199 react after the alarm sounded. 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:50.800 I didn't fail to react. 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:52.960 We crashed, didn't we. 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:57.360 It's the job of mission control to provide timely and 0:10:57.440 --> 0:11:01.760 accurate information to the crews coordinates where you're a mistake, Jane, 0:11:01.800 --> 0:11:04.559 not ours, And it's the commander's job to push the 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:07.520 simulation as far as it will go, even when mission 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:09.920 control panics and calls for an abort. 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:12.080 You're not buying that horse shit, are you? 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:12.439 Jane? 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:14.160 Are you? 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:17.679 When the review is complete, I'll assessed the data. 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:19.840 There's nothing left to review. 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.640 Buzz wait, buzz hold up. 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:29.360 I'm aware of the significance of being commander, and therefore 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:32.319 of being the first man on the moon. It's a 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:35.440 position I've earned and deserve, and I expect that what 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:38.000 happened today will have no impact on my keeping it. 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:41.840 Unless this was a setup designed to justify replacing me. 0:11:43.559 --> 0:11:46.439 What makes you think Buzz has resented that I'm commander 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:48.400 since the crew assignments were announced. 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:52.439 He can resent it all he wants. As flight director, 0:11:52.600 --> 0:11:54.559 I'm responsible for the selection. 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:54.640 Of the crew. 0:11:56.640 --> 0:12:00.160 Will I be replaced? Jane? 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:07.040 Until today, I hadn't considered it, But you are now, Neil. 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.600 But I understand you're not wanting to admit failure to us. 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.280 I worry about you not admitting it to yourself. 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:18.840 You think Buzz is any different? 0:12:19.640 --> 0:12:22.400 He would have reacted, Buzz. 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:27.240 Can't be commander. We both know it, and we both 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:29.400 know why. 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.680 What I didn't know was that in a windowless office 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:39.280 at Missigan Control, a chain smoking woman named Rachel Ludwig 0:12:39.400 --> 0:12:42.560 who'd soon become part of my life, was making it 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:45.480 her mission to learn more about US astronauts than we 0:12:45.520 --> 0:12:48.880 did about ourselves. She wouldn't be putting Neil's head in 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:59.240 the noose, She'd be putting mine. The streets were empty, 0:12:59.280 --> 0:13:01.640 When who should pull up to me at a red light, 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:06.840 but Neil he and his Corvette, me and mine gifts 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:11.960 from Chevrolet. The cars were identical, the drivers weren't. 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.360 What do you say, pal first off the line, fastest 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:22.520 down the block, just es you see. 0:13:22.280 --> 0:13:23.239 Anyone else. 0:13:25.200 --> 0:13:27.439 Ten bucks or glory? 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:35.360 I don't need your money. 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:38.360 Within seconds, Neil and I were doing upwards of eighty 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:42.840 in a thirty zone. We'd have wound up behind bars. 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:45.960 If justice was as blind as it's supposed to be. 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.280 We got high speed trexters on Elm and Carlisle. 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:55.040 Turn off the siren. 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:59.040 You see those guys, that's buzzing'. 0:13:59.040 --> 0:14:05.400 Neil let him be. I beat him by an hour. 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.720 Flushed with victory, I made a pit stop at the 0:14:13.720 --> 0:14:17.480 apartment of an able and very willing brunette named Lauren. 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:22.240 Being with women other than my wife was just another perk, 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:28.400 like personalized parking admission control. Doesn't mean I didn't love Joan. 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:33.320 I just loved being buzz more Hi, honey, to replace 0:14:33.360 --> 0:14:36.720 the full time husband she deserved. I'd got her a 0:14:36.760 --> 0:14:39.840 monkey the kids named Popo. Where have you been? 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:46.520 We had a DPS malfunction. Neil didn't pick up on it, so, ah, 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:47.960 what's that smell? 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:49.800 It's popo. 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:52.080 What's wrong with him? What's wrong? 0:14:53.000 --> 0:14:53.720 He's a monkey? 0:14:54.280 --> 0:14:56.280 I mean this afternoon he ripped off his diaper and 0:14:56.320 --> 0:14:58.080 threw shit all over the living room. 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:02.040 The drapes are ruined, the sofa is a wreck. 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:04.000 You wanted to read decoration? 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:07.440 Come on for Christmas. He was a joke. He stopped 0:15:07.480 --> 0:15:10.720 being funny at Easter. Next week's the fourth of July. 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:13.040 That kids love him, The kids. 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.280 Never look at him. It's all on me, buzz. I'm 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:17.320 through with it, honestly, all of it. 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:18.880 All of what. 0:15:20.960 --> 0:15:24.080 I want him gone given to the zoo. I don't 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:24.800 care enough. 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:29.000 I'm not talking about the monkey. You said all of it? 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:36.600 What's all of it? Come here, Joe, come here? 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:43.960 Oh how was Alroy's. 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:46.240 I wasn't at al Roy's. 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.440 I told you we had a DPS malfunction and all 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:50.520 of us were working on it. 0:15:50.600 --> 0:15:51.680 I called Pat Collins. 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:54.280 Mike got home three hours ago. So don't treat me 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:55.640 like an idiot. 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:02.440 Baby, No, buzz, no, Yes. 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:04.960 That's my girl. 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:08.760 So if you're going to be out there making the 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:12.120 most of your celebrity, at least show some discretions. 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:13.640 I don't have to hear about it for my friends. 0:16:15.280 --> 0:16:23.920 Oh well, that was my favorite shirt. 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:25.200 Somewhere else saw it later. 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:35.080 We were stars of a new magnitude. Our faces were 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:39.240 on magazine covers and cereal boxes, the blue eyed, pimple 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:45.400 free personifications of all American values. Did I recognize the 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.840 hypocrisy as I sat in a pew on Sundays with 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:54.120 my wife and kids? Sure, but it didn't bother me. 0:17:09.960 --> 0:17:13.680 Buzz, starring John Lithgow and Jeffrey Errand, is created by 0:17:13.680 --> 0:17:18.080 Stephen Cronish and directed by John Scott Dryden. Episode one 0:17:18.160 --> 0:17:22.840 is written by Stephen Cronish. Original music is by Sasha Putnam, 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:26.679 editing and sound design by Elouise Whitmore. The producer is 0:17:26.720 --> 0:17:31.240 Emma Hearn. The executive producers are Jeremy Fox, John Scott Dryden, 0:17:31.480 --> 0:17:35.960 Stephen Cronish, Howard Stringer and Jason English. Buzz is a 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:40.600 production of Thoroughbred Studios, Goldhop Productions and iHeart Podcasts.