WEBVTT - July 18, 1969 / “Hungry Kids Can’t Eat Moon Rocks” 0:00:00.440 --> 0:00:02.800 Nine Days in July is a production of I Heart 0:00:02.880 --> 0:00:06.920 Radio and Trade Traft Studios in association with High five Content. 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:13.640 On May fifth, nineteen sixty one, just four months after 0:00:13.680 --> 0:00:16.800 he assumed the presidency, John F. Kennedy stood before a 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:20.239 joint session of Congress and said the following, I believe 0:00:20.280 --> 0:00:23.720 that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.720 before this decade is out of landing a man on 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:30.960 the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.880 single space project in this period will be more impressive 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:38.800 to mankind or more important for the long range exploration 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:42.840 of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.320 to accomplish. Think about it. Less than three weeks after 0:00:46.440 --> 0:00:49.479 launching the first American into space, a trip that lasted 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:53.760 only fifteen minutes, the President went before Congress and charged 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.200 the country with landing on the Moon before the end 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.600 of the decade, and why so that we could wallop 0:00:59.600 --> 0:01:05.320 the rush. Recognizing the head stock obtained by the Soviets, 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.559 and recognizing the likelihood that they will exploit this lead 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:12.520 for some time to come in still more impressive successes, 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:16.319 we nevertheless or required to make new efforts on our own. 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:20.680 For a while, we cannot guarantee that we shall one 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:25.360 day be first. We can guarantee that any failure to 0:01:25.440 --> 0:01:29.400 make this effort will make us lost. Kennedy is inspiring 0:01:29.520 --> 0:01:32.720 and pragmatic. He wants America to go to the Moon, 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:37.679 but he recognizes that the colossal technology, infrastructure, hardware, and 0:01:37.760 --> 0:01:42.840 workforce necessary to make it happen does not exist. America 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.000 would be starting from scratch, and it was going to 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.120 be expensive. Let it be clear that I am asking 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:52.480 the Congress and the country to accept a firm commitment 0:01:52.520 --> 0:01:55.120 to a new course of action, a cost which will 0:01:55.200 --> 0:01:58.960 lost for many years and carry very heavy costs. If 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:01.680 we ought to go only ah way or reduce our 0:02:01.760 --> 0:02:04.440 sites in the face of difficulty, In my judgment, it 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:06.920 would be better not to go at all. Apollo would 0:02:06.920 --> 0:02:09.640 be bigger than anything NASA had ever attempted, by several 0:02:09.760 --> 0:02:13.800 orders of magnitude, requiring the most significant commitment of peacetime 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:17.480 resources and innovation the country had ever seen. There is 0:02:17.520 --> 0:02:20.400 no sense in desiring that the United States take an 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.880 affirmative position in outer space unless we are prepared to 0:02:23.880 --> 0:02:27.000 do the work and bear the burdens to make it successful. 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:30.200 Kennedy is down to brass tax now, and he's not 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:34.640 above baking. This decision demands a major national commitment of 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:39.640 scientific and technical manpower, materiel, and facilities, and the possibility 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:42.960 of their diversion from other important activities where they're already 0:02:42.960 --> 0:02:46.560 thinly in spread. In bringing it Home, Kennedy reminds his 0:02:46.600 --> 0:02:49.679 audience of the stakes. Finally, if we are to win 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:52.200 the battle that is now going on around the world 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:56.760 between freedom and tyranny, now it is time to take 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:02.200 longer strides, Time for a great new American enterprise, time 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:06.200 for this nation to take a clearly leading role in 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:10.600 space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key 0:03:10.639 --> 0:03:18.280 to our future on Earth, freedom and tyranny. For most Americans, 0:03:18.280 --> 0:03:22.680 at least in retrospect, Apollo was about science, technology, and exploration, 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:26.480 but not Kennedy. For the President, it was about stopping 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:30.160 communism before it swallowed the planet whole. The stakes were 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:33.359 literally saving the free world. But as we will learn 0:03:33.400 --> 0:03:36.160 this hour, there were many more Americans who didn't give 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:39.040 a damn about either of those two motivations, and with 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:46.080 very good reason. It's July nineteen sixty nine, day three 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:48.840 of the Apollo eleven mission. This is Apollo control of 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:51.560 forty six hours twenty eight minutes around the lapse of 0:03:51.600 --> 0:03:54.000 time a little more than a half hour remaining in 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:57.200 the crew sleep period. Members of the Green team of 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:01.080 flight controllers, headed up by Prime Flight Director Cliff charles Worth, 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:04.160 are coming into the control room at this time, and 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:08.800 that each console handover is taking place from the black watch. 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:12.680 Have you ever stopped to consider the gargantuan undertaking that 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:18.080 the Apollo project represented. Pulling off Kennedy's audacious vision required 0:04:18.160 --> 0:04:21.440 hundreds of thousands of people, tens of thousands of companies, 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:25.880 and tens of billions of dollars on paper, There's no 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:28.480 way that Apollo should have worked. It should have been 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:32.280 too big, too unwieldy, too time consuming, and too expensive. 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:36.440 And yet, against all odds, in spite of tragic accidents, 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.880 political hatchet jobs, and public protests, the United States pulled 0:04:40.920 --> 0:04:43.600 it off. But before we look into the army that 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.599 was required to get Apollo off the ground, let's listen 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.160 in as Bruce McCandless in Mission Control rouses our crew 0:04:50.520 --> 0:04:55.680 at morning hands. You're a great day, pride night. Yeah, 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:59.320 we very quiet night down air. I've got the morning 0:04:59.360 --> 0:05:03.600 news here if you're interested over Yeah, already copy and 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:09.200 comment already there uh Roder buzzes pointing out that if 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:11.719 it's too thirty in the afternoon in Houston, this can't 0:05:11.720 --> 0:05:15.719 be called the morning news from St. Petersburg, Florida. Come 0:05:15.760 --> 0:05:19.279 to the radio report from a Narrowagian explorers or hired 0:05:19.360 --> 0:05:22.679 Doll which in the crew of his p pirates boat 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:26.640 or well they'll end a break down Barbados and bite 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.240 damage from heavy seas. Thor hired All was a Norwegian 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.400 explorer who wanted to prove that ancient peoples were capable 0:05:33.440 --> 0:05:37.080 of making epics, sea voyages and contacting far flung cultures. 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.560 He constructed a boat made from papyrus, just like the 0:05:40.560 --> 0:05:44.880 ancient Egyptians did, and attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean. However, 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.719 the raw would sink before reaching its destination. Thankfully, the 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.360 entire crew was rescued and a year from now Thor 0:05:51.480 --> 0:05:55.320 will build Raw too and successfully complete the journey from 0:05:55.360 --> 0:05:59.840 Morocco to Barbados, a fitting terrestrial echo to Apollo Levin's 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:05.200 extraordinary stellar journey. And in Corby, England and Irish wind 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:09.880 John Coyle has won the World urried Gating Championship by 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.000 consuming twenty three bowls events, and not meal in a 0:06:13.080 --> 0:06:15.800 ten minute time limits from a field of thirty five 0:06:15.839 --> 0:06:22.960 other competitors over I like Dianna and Time. Pretty good 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:32.360 at that. He's, as you may have already guessed, Mission 0:06:32.400 --> 0:06:36.320 Control is curating the news, choosing only stories designed to 0:06:36.320 --> 0:06:39.640 bring a smile to the faces of three astronauts racing 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.919 far away from everything and everyone they love. But the 0:06:43.920 --> 0:06:48.040 truth is all is not well back home. Spanning Apollo 0:06:48.080 --> 0:06:51.680 eleven's nine day mission, the streets of York, Pennsylvania, will 0:06:51.720 --> 0:06:54.640 become the site of a race war after a seventeen 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:57.479 year old African American boy is shot by a white 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:00.640 gang looking to stir up trouble. Soon, black and white 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:04.880 mobs clash violently across the city. The next day, three 0:07:04.880 --> 0:07:07.960 police officers will be shot, and one, the two year 0:07:07.960 --> 0:07:10.520 old rookie who's only been on the force for ten months, 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:13.440 will be killed. The mayor will declare a state of 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.600 emergency and flood the streets with state troopers to begin 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:20.680 restoring order, or so he thinks. Angry at the death 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.000 of one of their own, the city police officers will 0:07:23.040 --> 0:07:25.680 begin telling white gangs they need to protect their homes 0:07:25.920 --> 0:07:29.440 and shoot any blacks they come across. Local cops even 0:07:29.480 --> 0:07:32.640 pass out ammunition. One of those bullets may have killed 0:07:32.640 --> 0:07:34.760 a twenty seven year old black woman and mother of 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:37.800 two from South Carolina who is visiting her sister when 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.960 the violence begins consuming the city. She and her family 0:07:41.000 --> 0:07:44.280 are returning from a fishing trip when barricaded streets forced 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.120 them to drive through a white neighborhood, where several men 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:49.440 opened fire in the car, hitting her in the chest 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:53.640 and killing her. Why don't I bring this up? As 0:07:53.680 --> 0:07:56.960 the sun sets? In the nineteen sixties, race relations threatened 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.120 to tear this country apart, and the systemic suppression of 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:04.320 African Americans even intersects profoundly with the Apollo eleven mission. 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:07.760 As we will learn today, the country about to land 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:11.640 on the Moon seems incapable of solving its most fundamental 0:08:11.720 --> 0:08:16.520 problems back home. As the political turmoil at home rages 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:19.160 on and our boys continue their trek toward the Moon, 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:23.240 Let's take a look at how NASA made the impossible possible. 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.600 The Apollo program dwarfs any other engineering project ever undertaken 0:08:28.640 --> 0:08:31.920 by humanity. Previous ventures like the Manhattan Project and the 0:08:31.920 --> 0:08:36.080 construction of the Panama Canal pale in comparison. I'm Bill 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.200 Berry and I'm the NASA chief historian. So over the 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:42.840 course of the nineteen sixties, the official numbers billion dollars 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:45.960 in nineteen sixties money. That's a huge amount of money, 0:08:46.240 --> 0:08:48.880 and four hunds of thousand people worked on the project, 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.439 and twenty thousand different U S companies across the unitsates 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.920 were subcontractors are in some way, shape or form. In 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.440 nineteen sixty one, the year Kennedy kicked Apollo off, NASA 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:03.000 spent about one million dollars on the program. Just five 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:06.559 years later, it was spending roughly the same amount every 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:10.680 three hours. NASA slice of the federal budget at the 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:14.360 time was about five point five If the national budget 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:17.160 were a dollar, NASA was consuming more than a nickel. 0:09:17.679 --> 0:09:21.120 Adjusted for two thousand and nineteen, the Apollo program costs 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:25.160 two hundred and eighty eight billion dollars. Only the Vietnam 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:28.960 War was more expensive. At the time of Kennedy's charge, 0:09:29.400 --> 0:09:32.760 NASA was just eight thousand employees scattered around a handful 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:37.960 of small facilities, but Apolloscope made them instantly obsolete. NASA 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:40.920 needed a lot more people and a lot more space. 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.120 The first priority was a command center from which to 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:48.119 run the entire program. It really need a much larger facility, 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:51.080 and the decisions made located in Houston. So that's the 0:09:51.120 --> 0:09:53.760 birth of the Johnson Space Flight Center. At the time, 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:56.920 the facility was known as the Manned Space Fight Center. 0:09:57.480 --> 0:10:00.079 This was to be the home of mission control and 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:03.360 space flight missions to the Moon and perhaps the planets 0:10:03.679 --> 0:10:06.680 will be commanded from this control room of the Mission 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:10.960 Control Center at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center, twenty two miles 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:14.640 southeast of Houston, Texas. It was built on six acres 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.040 of cattle grazing land donated by Rice University, the same 0:10:18.120 --> 0:10:22.240 Rice University where Kennedy uttered these famous words, Great, here's 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:24.520 to go to the moon and this detained and do 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:28.400 the other thing, not because they are easy, but because 0:10:28.440 --> 0:10:31.280 they are hard. Next up was a place to launch 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.800 the rockets from. People have been using the Cape Canaveral 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:35.920 Air Force Station down there on the coast of Florida. 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:38.719 But they realized that for you, for quality're going to 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:43.040 need much bigger facility. So the Kennedy Space Center. It's 0:10:43.040 --> 0:10:45.719 not the Kennedy Space Center is built next to the 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:49.520 Cape Canaveral, a huge facility of its own, One of 0:10:49.640 --> 0:10:53.640 dasa's major installations devoted to achieving the goals of the 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.680 nation's space programs is the John F. Kennedy Space Center 0:10:58.760 --> 0:11:02.640 Launch Site, or the Apollo Saturn five. It would not 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.880 be named the Kennedy Space Center until after the President's death. 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.800 At this time, it is the Launch Operations Center. To 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:11.800 give you some context of just how much bigger and 0:11:11.840 --> 0:11:14.560 more powerful the Saturn was going to be than anything 0:11:14.559 --> 0:11:17.400 that came before it. The launch escape system that sat 0:11:17.440 --> 0:11:19.560 on the very top of the Saturn five to yank 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:22.800 the command module free in an emergency was more powerful 0:11:22.840 --> 0:11:26.160 than the entire Mercury Redstone that launched the first American 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:29.400 into outer space. The abort signaled figures separation of the 0:11:29.440 --> 0:11:33.880 module from the launch vehicle. Simultaneously, the launch escape motor 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.880 and pitch control motor ignite, accelerating the command module away 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:40.720 from the launch vehicle. NASA also needed a place to 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:43.040 build the Saturn five. They decided to build a test 0:11:43.080 --> 0:11:46.120 facility in the middle of the swamps on the south 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.840 coast Marshall Space Flight Center. Why in the middle of 0:11:48.840 --> 0:11:53.280 a swamp, building and testing rockets tends to be well noisy, 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:57.800 So NASSI goes from being um sleepy eight thousand or 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:01.360 so of personal organization there ultimately small leg and grows 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:04.559 over fourfold. By the mid sixties, you've got over thirty 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:08.319 eight thousand employees working for NASA, and all these multiple facilities, 0:12:08.800 --> 0:12:11.160 all brand spanking new that are all built all across 0:12:11.200 --> 0:12:13.720 the South and the United States. As these various centers 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:16.440 were being built, NASA turned its attention to even more 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:20.280 fundamental problems. Exactly how is America going to get to 0:12:20.320 --> 0:12:24.320 the Moon. The problem is really quite simple, find the 0:12:24.320 --> 0:12:28.800 best path to get from point A two point B. 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:35.280 But of course this is a great over simplification. There 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:39.120 are three options. Direct descent, where you take a big rocket, 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:40.640 launch it to the Moon, the whole thing lands in 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:42.600 the Moon, and the whole thing goes back again. This 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:45.079 is the model made popular by classic sci fi films 0:12:45.080 --> 0:12:48.080 of the eighteen fifties, when the moon monsters, under the 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:51.240 direction of writting, ruthless Dictator of the Moon, scheme to 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:53.880 invade the Earth and have your rank un set up 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:56.880 ready to blast them. This time you must not fail. 0:12:57.200 --> 0:12:59.160 And they decided, well, there's another alternative, where we could 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:03.120 build a spaceship in Earth orbit. We launched pieces of it, 0:13:03.200 --> 0:13:04.880 so we don't have to build such a big rocket 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:08.040 on Earth. So that's Earth orbit rendevou Verni von Braun, 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.200 the x Nazi rocket scientists who designed the Saturn five, 0:13:11.360 --> 0:13:14.480 preferred this option. A voyage around the Moon must be 0:13:14.559 --> 0:13:18.160 made in two phases. A rocket ship taking off from 0:13:18.200 --> 0:13:21.240 the surface. We'll use almost all the fuel that can 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:24.679 carry just to attain a speed great enough to balance 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.440 the pool of gravity. However, if we can refuel the 0:13:28.480 --> 0:13:31.600 ship in this orbit with fuel brought up by cargo 0:13:31.720 --> 0:13:34.640 rocket chips, it can set out on the second phase, 0:13:35.320 --> 0:13:39.199 the trip around the Moon and back. And there's this 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:41.640 other idea that they're called lunar orbit rendevout, where you 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.120 build a rocket, sent it to the Moon and it's 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:47.720 like a big cruise ship. It pulls into the harbor 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:51.200 and then the passengers get off on a smaller dinghy 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:53.040 and run into the shore to go to their visits 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:55.600 and then come back out again. The problem was known 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:59.760 at NASA liked this last idea well, almost no one. 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.440 John Hubalt was convinced that lunar orbit rendezvous was the 0:14:03.520 --> 0:14:07.079 only way NASA would successfully meet Kennedy's vision. The idea 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:10.480 of using l O R lunar Orbert rendezvous as a 0:14:10.520 --> 0:14:14.559 way to go into the Moon appealed to me tremendously. 0:14:15.400 --> 0:14:17.920 I knew, however, that it would meet with much opposition. 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:21.600 People in fact, would probably think I was crazy. Who 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:24.120 about This is a really interesting character. He's was an 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:27.280 engineer at Langley Research Center where they were looking at 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:33.440 questions about orbital mechanics. Hubbolt sort of grabbed this idea. Mathematically, 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:36.680 this makes the most sense, and he basically championed that idea. 0:14:37.000 --> 0:14:39.600 The reason known at NASA like who Bolt's option is 0:14:39.640 --> 0:14:42.680 because it required the astronauts to dock their spacecraft two 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:46.600 hundred and fifty thousand miles away. Remember this is half 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.520 a decade before Project Gemini proved it was even possible 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.400 in Earth orbit. So this terrified NASA's engineers, and so 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:55.880 who Bolt was sidelined. He may not have been high 0:14:55.960 --> 0:14:59.600 ranking or well connected, but he was tenacious, and so 0:15:00.040 --> 0:15:02.360 he jumped the NASA chain of command. They really put 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:04.680 his career on the line by being a real pest 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:07.280 about it, you know, going over people's head, sending letters 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:10.960 to Dept Administrator NASA and other things that you know 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.040 could have gotten fired. Who Will argued that for direct 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:16.640 descent to work, they need a rocket even larger and 0:15:16.680 --> 0:15:20.040 more expensive than the proposed SATURD five and Earth orbit 0:15:20.080 --> 0:15:23.360 rendezvous required multiple launches. But he kept at it, and 0:15:23.360 --> 0:15:25.880 eventually pounding away at it. You know, people realize, well, 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:27.560 you know, maybe that's winder with thing around the moon 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:29.280 isn't so bad, And look at the math on this, 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:31.880 we can actually do with missing one Saturn five launch, 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:33.840 you know it. Eventually it wins out, and hop Will 0:15:33.960 --> 0:15:36.360 becomes sort of the hero in the story, largely because 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:38.320 he was smart enough to do it and brave enough 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:40.960 to take on the powers that be to push the idea. 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.640 The accomplishment of lunar orbit rendezvous is a vital portion 0:15:44.720 --> 0:15:48.200 of the Apollo lunar landing missions. The next question was 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:51.800 what would these spacecraft look like and who would build them. 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:53.640 Getting a very good view of the work going on 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:57.480 in the come out on Service module tunnel preparation for 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.800 the dress people Uner module. But first let's check in 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:04.400 with Apollo eleven, currently one and seventy five thousand nautical 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:07.240 miles away from Earth, where the astronauts are preparing to 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.760 open up the lunar module for the very first time. 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:12.720 They're filming the whole thing and beaming it back to 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:17.760 Charlie Duke in mission control. We're really getting great a 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:22.480 drug remment coming back. Once removal of the drogue is completed, 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:24.760 they will have access to the lam hatch and be 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.040 able to go into the tunnel. The drogue is part 0:16:27.080 --> 0:16:29.760 of the mechanism used to dock the two spacecraft to 0:16:29.920 --> 0:16:32.720 enter the lunar module. Neil must first remove the drogue 0:16:32.880 --> 0:16:36.600 as it blocks the narrow tunnel connecting the two ships. 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:39.320 Looked like it's pretty crowded in there with that grove 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:49.800 over alright, dv Cale will get in a way. One 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:52.760 guess who the guy making the jokes is, of course 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:55.680 as Michael Collins. If it sounds like I've been making 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:59.360 fun of Michael Collins, think again, in a very real way. 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:02.760 He is the most accessible of our crew. Neil and 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:05.879 Buzz are always so straight laced. Both were described in 0:17:05.920 --> 0:17:10.280 their day as squares. Michael is much more well down 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.480 to earth bare. He didn't really have a hanging card there. 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:16.359 We can't really complain things like I had. They were 0:17:16.359 --> 0:17:19.400 about to open the hand now, but we don't see 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:24.080 anything up there. Well, greas good, This is the first 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:26.439 time that anyone other than the technicians who built her 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:34.919 has climbed inside the lemb During the Apollo mission, this vehicle, 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:38.480 the Lunar Module, will take two men and their scientific 0:17:38.520 --> 0:17:42.439 instruments to the surface of the Moon. While there, it 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:46.120 will serve as command post and communications center, and when 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:49.880 the astronauts finished their exploration, it will take them back 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.560 to the orbiting command module for the return trip to Earth. 0:17:54.640 --> 0:17:57.880 In late July of nineteen sixty two, NASA invited nearly 0:17:57.920 --> 0:18:00.520 a dozen companies to bid on the Lunar Module design. 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:05.000 The winning concept came from the aircraft manufacturer, the Grumman Corporation. 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:07.560 These are the guys who built the F nine Panther 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:10.480 that Neil flew in Korea. Later, they designed the most 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:13.400 beautiful American fighter jet to ever take to the sky, 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.520 the fourteen Tomcat. I'm standing on the floor of plant 0:18:16.600 --> 0:18:21.240 number five at the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation in Best Page, 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:26.040 New York. The Lunar Modules, or lambs for short, were designed, assembled, 0:18:26.040 --> 0:18:29.120 and tested at Grumman's Long Island facility in New York. 0:18:29.800 --> 0:18:32.919 Mike Lisa was a Grumman environmental test engineer. When I 0:18:33.040 --> 0:18:36.040 went to the interview to Grummin. They said, James, you're 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:38.640 gonna be working on the LAMB. I go, Lamb, you're 0:18:38.680 --> 0:18:41.960 kidding So now I said, oh my gosh, I was 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.240 through the day one. None of the engineers at Grumman 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.240 had ever built anything like the LAMB before. No one had. 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:50.879 The Lamb was for use on the Moon. It would 0:18:50.880 --> 0:18:54.080 never taste Earth's atmosphere. It would live and die in 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.440 the vacuum of space. As such, unlike its gum drop 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:00.399 shaped sibling, the Command Module, the Limb did need to 0:19:00.440 --> 0:19:03.600 be aerodynamic. Once you get two D fifty miles away, 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:07.639 there's no atmosphere it obviously, it doesn't have to be sleek, 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:11.520 doesn't have to look Because of that, it would never 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:15.720 be described as beautiful. Instead of smooth, sleek sides, it 0:19:15.840 --> 0:19:20.040 was functional, bristling with sharp edges, antennas, weird bulges, and 0:19:20.119 --> 0:19:24.240 clusters of thrusters. Appropriately enough, it looked like something alien. 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.160 The thing has a face, eyes, nose, even a mouth. 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:33.639 It was a spider, it was. The Lamb evolved a lot. 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:37.200 First it was roughly capsule shaped. Still later it resembled 0:19:37.200 --> 0:19:41.000 a helicopter cockpit with large curved windows. Then someone got 0:19:41.000 --> 0:19:43.640 out of calculator and added up how much it would weigh, 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.160 and that was the end of that. The lamb had 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:48.240 to be liked or else it would never get off 0:19:48.280 --> 0:19:52.359 the moon. Grumman's engineers soon became obsessed with taking weight off. 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:55.359 The single massive window was ditched and in its place 0:19:55.440 --> 0:20:00.320 two small triangular shaped windows were substituted. Glasses heavy. Five 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.679 landing legs offered the best possible stability, but that was 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.600 one too many. Now it was only four. At one 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:09.240 point in time on the lemb they actually had seats, 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:11.560 and they said, now get these things out of here. 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.600 Grumman proposed having the astronauts climb out of the vehicle 0:20:15.600 --> 0:20:17.720 by using a rope ladder, or even at one point 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.680 repelled down the side via a rope. Ultimately they compromised 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.120 on an aluminum ladder. Throughout the different phases of its 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:28.760 design and construction, Grumman built full sized wooden mock ups 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.760 for the NASA personnel to tour, equipment to be test fitted, 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.920 and even space suited astronauts to try out. Buzz and 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:38.679 Leo had put it on the backpack, and what happened 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:40.439 was when they tried to get through the round opening, 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:43.040 it was beaten the heckhead of the backpack, so it 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.480 instantly was a redesign. I mean it was like, stop everything, 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:49.280 this thing has to become rec dangular. The limb has 0:20:49.320 --> 0:20:52.640 two sections, the ascent stage from which the astronauts operated 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.879 the craft, and the decent stage, with its spider legs 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:58.359 and compartments for all of their equipment. This is the 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:00.639 bit that gets left on the Moon. The engine on 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:04.200 the decent stage is the most sophisticated ever designed. It's 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:06.800 powerful enough to get the lemb down to the lunar surface, 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:09.439 but it can also allow the lemb to hover like 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:12.919 a helicopter while the astronauts choose a suitable landing spot. 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.080 All that gold foil wrapped around the descent stage is 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:20.400 milar insulation. It reflects hot sunlight away from the sensitive equipment. 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:24.240 Beneath the foil is the craft's metal hull. At some places, 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:28.159 it's the thickness of only three inches of kitchen aluminum foil, 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:31.960 but once pressurized, it was remarkably strong. Think about it 0:21:31.960 --> 0:21:34.800 in terms of a soda can. After you've finished your soda. 0:21:34.920 --> 0:21:37.440 It's fairly easy to pierce the side of its aluminum skin, 0:21:37.920 --> 0:21:39.600 but it takes a lot more work to do, so 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:42.520 when the contents are under pressure, it's the same idea here. 0:21:42.960 --> 0:21:45.320 Once the lemb was pressurized in the vacuum of space, 0:21:45.600 --> 0:21:47.399 it was much stronger than how it was back in 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:50.480 Grumman's labs, where a misplaced foot or a fallen screw 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.280 driver could have easily punctured the hull. Never in history 0:21:54.280 --> 0:21:57.000 had a flying machine gone into service without a comprehensive 0:21:57.040 --> 0:21:59.400 test fight. But when it came to landing on the Moon, 0:22:00.040 --> 0:22:02.120 there was no other way to do it, which meant 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:03.880 that Mike and his team had their work cut out 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.160 for them. It was their job to stress test every 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.439 individual part that went into the lamb, not once, but 0:22:10.720 --> 0:22:14.240 thousands of times. I need you to picture a huge speaker, 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:18.160 a regular ordinary speaker, except that the speaker is going 0:22:18.240 --> 0:22:21.560 to be about fifteen ft in diameter. Mike's vibration machines 0:22:21.560 --> 0:22:24.240 are basically speakers. They would mount the lamb on top 0:22:24.280 --> 0:22:27.520 of these shakers to simulate the vibrations experience during takeoff 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:29.720 and all the other phases of the mission. It was 0:22:29.760 --> 0:22:32.959 shaking the lamb to the point where it was they 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:35.919 would fall apart. I mean, we had actually introduced so 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:39.560 many g forces that we wouldnock things off and m 0:22:40.160 --> 0:22:42.640 just to see if we can break it. We had 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:45.080 to prove that the best thing was going to make 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:48.080 it to the bone and back to Earth in one piece. 0:22:48.480 --> 0:22:51.920 On another test, they rotated the lamb upside down and 0:22:51.960 --> 0:22:54.480 shook it to see if anything would come off, and well, 0:22:54.720 --> 0:22:59.359 MD hold outcomes are nut a plane ordinary nut. It 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:02.240 hit the ground on and the Nasser inspector was there 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:05.439 and he pulled the plug on us. He stopped us 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:09.040 for an entire week, and all of those units had 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:11.680