Whitehouse - Apollo 11: the inside story

Spaceflight is dangerous. Everyone knew that. None more so than the astronauts, their families, and all those intimately involved in Apollo the project to land a man on the Moon. On that evening, 20 July 1969, everyone in Mission Control in Houston knew the danger. The lives of the two men about to attempt a descent to the lunar surface depended upon single moments, the single decision any of them might have to make in a second.

Gene Kranz, 31 years old, was the Flight Director for the landing. He was confident in his abilities, though not arrogant. His job was to run the show by being able to assimilate all the information coming into Mission Control from Eagle, the Lunar Lander. Formerly a fighter pilot and an engineer, he was leading a talented group. In front of him were rows of computer screens at which sat the mission controllers, all with their individual roles and names such as Guido and EECOM. Kranzs call sign was Flight. The average age of the men of Mission Control was only 26.

He selected a private loop only heard by the controllers. He didnt want anyone else to listen to what he was about to say. He waited a second and spoke:

Today is our day, and the hopes and dreams of the entire world are with us. This is our time and our place, and we will remember this day and what we do here always. In the next hour we will do something that has never been done before we will land an American on the Moon.

Less than an hour after those words were spoken, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were 500 metres from the lunar surface in the region of the Sabine complex of small craters on the western shore of the Sea of Tranquillity. Armstrong was 38 and regarded as the best person to attempt the first landing. He had to put Eagle down within the next three minutes. Next to him was Edwin Buzz Aldrin, who was 39 years old. Ahead of them stretched the dark expanse of lunar night. No one, especially Armstrong himself, knew if they were going to make it. The landing was the goal; the moonwalk was secondary. Before he left Earth, he had told close colleagues that he had only a 50:50 chance of pulling off a successful landing.

In a few seconds Armstrong would have to take over and fly Eagle manually while looking for a suitable site. It was the most difficult thing any pilot had ever been asked to do. His heart rate was 160, double normal. He flexed his right hand around the joystick that controlled Eagles attitude, and his left hand around the thrust controller. He knew that this was never a job for a computer. The windows on the Eagle overhung the floor and were angled downwards so that he could lean against the tethers that tied him to the floor and look downwards.

On the right side of his body was Eagles control panel. Dials, gauges, switches and lights concerning all aspects of the Eagle from fuel to radar, attitude to rate of descent. Two buttons stood out, the only ones with a striped surround. One was labelled Abort, which sent the Eagle back up into orbit, and the other Abort Stage, which initiated an even more dangerous manoeuvre.

They were coming in from the east across the Sea of Tranquillity a misnomer as there were only dry rocks beneath them and with the low Sun behind them, the shadows were long and deeply dark. They had passed over rough ground a few minutes ago and were heading towards Tranquillitys southwestern region. They were long, or downrange. Between the lumpy gravity of the Moon and some extra speed picked up when they undocked from the Apollo Command Module, Eagle was at least a second ahead of its timeline and that translated into a mile too far. Armstrong had noticed the discrepancy immediately, Aldrin later said he hadnt and was impressed by his crewmates alertness. But just one second could make all the difference. The rocks below looked terrifying and the computer was taking Eagle directly into them. Armstrong took over manual control at 150 m, not 50 m as had been planned. He needed more time to look for a smooth landing site.

There was only enough fuel for one landing attempt, and that was running out fast. They were flying for their lives. Aldrin was too busy to look out of the window that was planned. He later said that if it wasnt on the dials he wasnt looking at it. He was looking upwards and to his left at the radar display with its altitude and rate of descent readings: Three hundred and fifty feet; down at four. Three hundred thirty, six and a half down. Youre pegged on horizontal velocity.