Smith - The Eagle had landed: the story of Apollo 11

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Copyright 2012 Jeffrey K. Smith
All rights reserved.

ISBN-10: 1480127744
EAN-13: 978-1480127746
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62347-051-7
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012920319
New Frontier Publications, North Charleston, South Carolina

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M ore than once, I have been questioned about the absence of footnotes or endnotes in my non-fiction books. Simply answeredit is a matter of style. While recounting the lives and times of historical figures, I have chosen to present their stories in narrative format. It is my goal to bring history alive, akin to a fast-paced novel. The chronology and accuracy of the events in this book and my other works of non-fiction are substantiated by extensive research, with the sources listed in the bibliography. Ultimately, I hope readers will understand that fact is often stranger and more compelling than fiction.

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CONTENTS

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I t all began with a blinking light racing across the nighttime skies. A silver-colored satellite, the size of a basketball and weighing 184 pounds, was orbiting the Earth once every 96 minutes at the unheard of speed of 17,000 miles per hour. Christened Sputnik by its Russian designers, the worlds first orbiting satellite was launched on October 4, 1957.

Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev gloated: People of the whole world are pointing to the satellite. They are saying the United States has been beaten.

In a decade dominated by McCarthyism and the exaggerated Red Scare, civilian and military leaders were suddenly pressured to unveil Americas own plans for space exploration. Thus began the Space Race.

Early on, the contest was decidedly in favor of the Soviet Union, as the U.S. struggled to catch up with their Communist rivals. Eventually, the tide turned, and America overtook its Cold War foe, culminating in what many still consider the greatest technological feat of the 20th century.

On July 20, 1969, as a worldwide television audience of 500 million watched, Neil Armstrong became the first human to set foot on the Moon. Nearly a half-century later, Armstrongs words still resonate: Thats one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Barely a decade after entering the Space Race, the United States had achieved the unthinkable. The combined efforts of 400,000 individuals led to the successful design, development, and implementation of the Apollo 11 lunar landing mission.

While the Space Race is commonly remembered as a time of innovation and technological advances, powerful, yet often overlooked forces were also at play. Politics and money were among the prime catalysts of space exploration. Opportunists exploited the emotions of fellow Americans, many of whom genuinely feared nuclear annihilation by the Soviet Union. While history was being made and new heroes were discovered, the aerospace industry reaped enormous profits and political careers blossomed.

The Eagle Has Landed: The Story of Apollo 11 chronicles the triumphs and tragedies of Americas quest to land a man on the Moon, beginning with the stories of the visionaries who made space exploration a reality. It is a remarkable story of political gamesmanship, innovation, perseverance, and courage.

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A t a quarter past four on the morning on Wednesday, July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts received their wake-up calls. After final physical examinations by NASA flight surgeons, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins had a final sit-down meeting with the Director of Flight Crew Operations, Donald Deke Slayton.

Over a breakfast of steak, scrambled eggs, toast, orange juice, and coffee, the four men reviewed the events of the coming day. Across the room, artist Paul Calle sketched the astronauts while they ate; the first of many lasting visual images from that historic day.

After breakfast, the trio entered the suit room to don their launch garb. The Apollo 11 crew had already spent two weeks in virtual quarantine to minimize the risk of exposure to infectious diseases prior to their space flight. After medical bio-sensory leads were attached to their torso and limbs, the three men slipped into their white nylon jump suits. With the assistance of experienced technicians, the astronauts then squeezed inside their pressurized spacesuits. Finally, their helmets and visors were snapped shut, completely isolating them from the outside world.

At 5:30 a.m., the astronauts exited the Kennedy Center for Manned Spacecraft Operations, and boarded a van for transport to launch pad 39A. Clutching their portable ventilators in one hand, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins used the other to wave at the reporters gathered outside the building.

While the majority of the world viewed them as courageous explorers, the astronauts were indeed very human. Neil Armstrong carried a comb and a package of Lifesavers in his pocket, while Buzz Aldrin pocketed pictures of his three children.

At Cape Canaveral, Florida, over a half-million people had gathered to witness the launch of Apollo 11. The neighboring highways were hopelessly clogged, resulting in a 10-mile-long traffic jam. Fires smoldered along the beaches and in the surrounding wooded areas, where eager space enthusiasts had camped all night. Thousands of boats were anchored on the nearby Indian and Banana Rivers, positioned to capture a birds eye view of the historic launch. Worldwide, 25 million viewers huddled around their television sets.

NASA had invited over 20,000 VIPs to view the launch, including some 250 members of Congress, half of the states Governors, former President Lyndon B. Johnson, and the current Vice-President, Spiro T. Agnew. Jack Benny and Johnny Carson were among the notables representing the entertainment world. Over 3,000 journalists, representing 56 countries, had been issued press passes.

A viewing area had been established three miles from the launch pad, with bleachers, portable toilets, water tanks, and refreshment stands. Even though it was still early morning, the Florida heat and humidity were already extracting a heavy toll from the assembled guests. Among the most anxious of the observers were the astronauts wives, all of whom had traveled from their homes in Houston to Cape Canaveral to witness the launch. Neil Armstrongs wife, Janet, stared at the monstrous launch rocket from a yacht anchored on the Banana River.

During the 1960s, demonstrations had become commonplace, and on this sweltering summer morning, a group of 150 protesters led by civil rights leader, Reverend Ralph Abernathy, gathered within sight of the launch pad. As representatives of the Poor Peoples Campaign, Abernathy and his followers loudly decried the governments foolish waste of money that could be used to feed the poor.

At daybreak, Wernher von Braun, the German-born rocket scientist who had supervised the design of the Saturn V rocket that would propel the Apollo 11 crew into space, kissed his wife goodbye, before leaving the Cocoa Beach Holiday Inn.

Pray, he implored.

Bye and good luck, she replied.

To bypass the snarled roadways, von Braun was flown by helicopter to nearby Cape Canaveral. During the final countdown, the man known as the Father of the American space program, bowed his head and recited the Lords Prayer.

When the astronauts arrived at the launch pad, the 363-feet-tall Saturn V rocket towered above, attached by umbilical lines to a steel support tower. After briefly glancing skyward, Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins glided up the elevator to the space capsule perched atop the mammoth rocket.

Three-quarters of the way up, the elevator halted, and Buzz Aldrin stepped onto a platform and waited, while his crewmates were carried the rest of the way to the top. Standing alone, isolated from the outside world in his pressurized spacesuit, Aldrin stared at the rising sun over the Atlantic Ocean. The veteran astronaut, who had spent thousands of hours training for this historic mission, prepared to be hurtled into space for the second time in five years.