Chariots for Apollo #9 - The landing
Dave Newkirk
minutes into the maneuver, the crewmen began hearing alarms. On one
occasion, the computer told them a switch was in the wrong position, and
they corrected it. Another time, they could find no reason for the alarm,
but they juggled the switches and the clanging stopped.
Coping with these alarms, some of which were caused by computer
overloads, lasted four minutes. ... But these nerve-wracking interruptions
had come at a time when the crewmen should have been looking for a suitable
spot to sit down, rather than watching cabin displays. They had reached
`high gate' in the trajectory - in old aircraft-pilot parlance the begin-
ning of the approach to an airport in a landing path - where the Eagle
tilted slightly downward to give them a view of the moon. When they
reached `low gate' - the point of making a visual assessment of the land-
ing site to select either automatic or manual control - they were still
clearing alarms and watching instruments. By the time they had a chance
to look outside, only 600 meters and three minutes time separated them
from the lunar surface.
Armstrong saw the landing site immediately. He also saw that the
touchdown would be just short of a large rocky crater with boulders, some
as large as five meters in diameter, scattered over a wide area. If he
could land just in front of that spot, he thought, they might find the
area of dome scientific interest. But the thought was fleeting; such a
landing would be impossible. So he pitched the lander over and fired
the engine with the flight path rather than against it. Flying over the
boulder field, Armstrong soon found a relatively smooth area, lying
between some sizable craters and another field of boulders.
How was the descent fuel supply? Armstrong asked Aldrin. But the
lunar module pilot was too busy watching the computer to answer. Then
lunar dust was a problem. Thirty meters above the surface, a semitrans-
parent sheet was kicked up that nearly obscured the surface. The lower
they dropped, the worse it was. Armstrong had no trouble telling altitude,
as Aldrin was calling out the figures almost meter by meter, but he found
judging lateral and downrange speeds difficult. He gauged these measure-
ments as well as he could by picking out large rocks and watching them
closely though the lunar dust sheet.
Ten meters above the surface, the lander started slipping to the
left and rear. Armstrong, working with the controls, had apparently
tilted the lander so the engine was firing against the flight path. With
the velocity as low as it was at the time, the lander began to move back-
ward. With no rear window to help him avoid obstacles behind the lander,
he could not set the vehicle down and risk landing on the rim of a crater.
He was able to shift the angle of the lunar module and stop the backward
movement, but he could not eliminate the drift to the left. He was
reluctant to slow the descent rate any further, but the figures Aldrin
kept ticking off told him they were almost out of fuel. Armstrong was
concentrating so hard on flying the lunar module that he was unable to
perceive the first touch on the moon nor did he hear Aldrin call out
"contact light," when the probes below the footpads brushed the surface.
The lander settled gently down, like a helicopter, and Armstrong cut
off the engine.
4 days, 6 hours, 45 minutes, 57 seconds. Capcom: We copy you
down Eagle.
Armstrong: Houston, Tranquility Base here. THE EAGLE HAS LANDED.
Capcom: Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got
a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again.
Thanks a lot.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From "Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft", NASA
SP-4205, available from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government
Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402, stock number 033-000-00768-0, $12.
This is the last in this series of excerpts. If anyone has missed an
installment, send mail to ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn for a copy.
Dave Newkirk
--
Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn
Lew Mammel, Jr.
.
.
> The lander settled gently down, like a helicopter, and Armstrong cut
> off the engine.
>
> 4 days, 6 hours, 45 minutes, 57 seconds. Capcom: We copy you
> down Eagle.
>
> Armstrong: Houston, Tranquility Base here. THE EAGLE HAS LANDED.
>
> Capcom: Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got
> a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again.
> Thanks a lot.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> From "Chariots for Apollo: A History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft", NASA
> SP-4205, available from the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government
> Printing Office, Washington, DC 20402, stock number 033-000-00768-0, $12.
>
> This is the last in this series of excerpts. If anyone has missed an
> installment, send mail to ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn for a copy.
> Dave Newkirk
> --
> Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn
For all the detail being given, you'd think that the actual words spoken
after touchdown would be included. From memory, I think it was Armstrong who
recited the checklist:
"OK, engine stop, ACA out of detente, modes control both auto, descent
engine command overide off, engine arm off, 413 is in."
Pure poetry. This was was what elicited the response "We copy you down Eagle."
The only sources I know which avoid this wanton excision are the National
Geographic record insert, and Norman Mailer's OF A FIRE ON THE MOON. It was
from the latter that I got the words, since I couldn't quite understand
the record.
Lew Mammel, Jr.
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