I just completed watching the Apollo 11 landing in real time, and all I can say, in short form, was it was an incredible experience.
I’ve watched the footage before — recall a few years ago I shared the PDI to touchdown footage, but I’ve never experienced the landing in its full context like the experience on apolloinrealtime.org gave me.
The flight control chatter, it was insane. I’d practiced listening to multiple conversations at once while studying events in other missions – Apollo 13’s launch and the O2 tank explosion, the first Space Shuttle launch, and even as a kid watching the Space Shuttle dock with MIR, I enjoyed listening to the mission control and crew chatter as it was present to me. While not super skilled at such, I can listen to multiple conversations at once, but still this was something else — all that information back and forth, so much going on, it was intense.
I won’t go over all the details of the landing here – there are plenty of ways for those interested to learn about the landing. In just those 10 minutes or so, so much went on. It’s strange really, the event just kind of happens when you listen to it — they go from orbiting the Moon to landing to being there, talking about the surface like it’s home. The low fuel alarms, the fact that Neil saw the landing site was strewn with boulders and took over working to find a new landing site all while descent stage fuel was running out, still staying cool under the pressure. Hearing the 1202 and then 1201 alarms happening in context never stops being intense. Hearing the anxious tones in mission control as they polled for go-no go status, this anxiety becoming raw excitement as the landing process began. Seeing West Crater come up in the distance as Armstrong works to find a better landing site – it was all just incredible.
Hell, just the thought that they had done something no one else had ever done — not just actually land on the Moon, but pilot the machine down and land it themselves, it just amazes me.
I’m sorry, I know this entry may be a mess but I’m just caught up in the moment, typing as I think. Yeah, this was 50 years ago but that’s just it — it was 50 years ago right this second everything I’m hearing happened. So many little things being checked, so many steps in a procedure manual being followed, all to make sure that the mission can continue as planned, or change things where necessary.
That’s not ignoring all the issues which came up during and after landing, some small, some major, but all things that the crew and ground control were able to overcome to make Apollo 11 the success it was.
Next up, in about 6 hours, the “moonwalk.” Yes, it was 6 hours before the EVA on Apollo 11 began. You can’t rush these things, they have to be planned out and done correctly, this time putting the Apollo 11 EVA well into the evening here in the United States – a perfect time 50 years ago, for most of the country to experience it on TV.
See you in a few hours.