TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/60s/60moon

Text File | 1990-12-01 | 8KB | 140 lines

                OPQ                                                      R««To the Moon

  [At the end of 1968, Americans became the first human beings to
reach moon; seven months later, they were the first to walk upon it.]


                                                  (January 3, 1969)

  The flight began flawlessly. On Pad 39A at Cape Kennedy, Fla.,
Borman, Lovell and Anders lay strapped in the 11-ft. commanded module
that was perched atop a 363-ft. Saturn 5 rocket. With a deafening
bellow, the rocket inched upward on a rising pillar of smoke and
flame, then spurted off into earth orbit. During its second turn
around the planet, it accelerated from 17,400 m.p.h., enough to escape
earth's gravitational embrace and send Apollo 8 on the road of night
that would lead to the moon. Almost 69 hours after lift-off, the three
astronauts made their historic rendezvous.

  Below them, less than 70 miles away, lay a desolate, pock-marked
landscape. In the black sky above hung a half-disk--the earth--its
blue and brown surface mottled by large patches of white. Thus,
incredibly, they were there, precisely where the mission planners had
predicted, finally living the dreams of untold generations of their
ancestors. Their telecasts gave earthbound viewers an unforgettable
astronaut's-eye view of the moon.

  "The moon is essentially grey, no color," Astronaut Lovell
reported. "Looks like plaster of paris, or sort of a greyish deep
sand. We can see quite a bit of detail. The Sea of Fertility doesn't
stand out as well here as it does on earth. There's not as much
contrast between that and the surrounding craters. The craters are all
rounded off. The round ones look like they've been hit by meteorites
or projectiles of some sort."

  On Christmas Eve, during their ninth revolution of the moon, the
astronauts presented their best description of the moon in the longest
and most impressive of the mission's six telecasts. "This is Apollo 8
coming to you live from the moon," reported Borman, focusing the TV
camera on the lunar surface drifting by below. "The moon is a
different thing to each of us," said Borman. "My own impression is
that it's a vast, lonely, forbidding-type existence--great expanse of
nothing that looks rather like clouds and clouds of pumice stone. It
certainly would not appear to be a very inviting place to live or
work."

  "My thoughts are very similar," agreed Lovell. "The vast
loneliness up here is awe-inspiring, and it makes you realize just
what you have back there on earth. The earth from here is a grand
ovation to the big vastness of space."


                                                      (July 25, 1969)

  Continuing their flawless flight, the Apollo 11 astronauts zoomed
past the western rim of the moon at 5,645 m.p.h. They were whipped
behind the far side and into lunar orbit by the moon's gravity and a
5-min. 57-sec. burn off of the reliable SPS engine that reduced their
speed to 3,736 m.p.h. When they emerged from behind the eastern edge,
after 34 minutes during which radio communication was blocked, they
had dropped into a 70-by 196-mile-high orbit.

  That was about as close as Collins, the affable, relaxed Air Force
lieutenant colonel, would get. Before the trip, he complained
good-humoredly that because he would be piloting Columbia during the
moon walk, he would be "about the only person in the world who won't
get to see the thing on television." He asked Houston to save a
videotape for him. At least, said Collins, "I'm going 99.99% of the
way."

  Behind the moon again, on their 14th revolution, Eagle's descent
engine was fired, slowing the module down and dropping it into the
orbit that would take it to within 50,000 ft. of the lunar surface.
The crucial word from Houston was relayed by Michael Collins, Columbia
pilot, when a burst of static momentarily cut Eagle off from the
ground: "You are go for PDI (powered descent inertion)."

  Now the tension was obvious in the voices of both the crew and the
controller. Just 160 ft. from the surface Aldrin reported: "Quantity
light." The light signaled that only 114 seconds of fuel remained.
Armstrong and Aldrin had 40 seconds to decide if they could land
within the next 20 seconds.

  At that critical point, Armstrong, a 39-year-old civilian with 23
years of experience at flying everything from Ford tri-motors to
experimental X-15 rocket planes, took decisive action. The automatic
landing system was taking Eagle down into a football-field-size carter
littered with rocks and boulders. Armstrong explained: "It required a
manual takeover on the P-66 (a semiautomatic computer program) and
flying manually over the rock field to find a reasonably good area."

  Then came the word that the world had been waiting for. "Houston,"
Armstrong called. "Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." It
was a wild, incredible moment. There were cheers, tears and frantic
applause at Mission Control in Houston. "You got a lot of guys around
here about to turn blue," the NASA communicator radioed to Eagle.
"We're breathing again."

  Armstrong and Aldrin struggled to put on their boots, gloves,
helmets and backpacks (known as PLSS, or Portable Life Support
System), then depressurized Eagle's cabin and opened the hatch.
Wriggling backward out of the hatch on his stomach, Armstrong worked
his way across the LM "porch" to the ladder and began to climb down.

  Having reached the bottom rung, he lowered himself into the
bowl-shaped foot-pad of Eagle, the spindly lunar module of Apollo 11.
Then he extended his left foot, cautiously, tentatively, as if testing
water in a pool--and, in fact, testing a wholly new environment for
man. That groping foot, encased in a heavy multi-layered boot (size 9
1/2 B), would remain indelible in the minds of millions who watched it
on TV, and a symbol of man's determination to step--and forever keep
stepping--toward the unknown.

  After a few short but interminable seconds, U.S. Astronaut Neil
Armstrong placed his foot firmly on the fine-grained surface of the
moon. The time was 10:56 p.m. (E.D.T.), July 20, 1969. Pausing
briefly, the first man on the moon spoke the first words on lunar
soil:

  "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

  With a cautious, almost shuffling gait, the astronaut began moving
about in the harsh light of the lunar morning. "The surface is fine
and powdery, it adheres in fine layers, like powered charcoal, to the
soles and sides of my foot," he said. Minutes later, Armstrong was
joined by Edwin Aldrin. Then, gaining confidence with every step, the
two jumped and loped across the barren landscape for 2 hrs. 14 min.,
while the TV camera they had set up some 50 ft. from Eagle transmitted
their movements with remarkable clarity to enthralled audiences on
earth, a quarter of a million miles away. Sometimes moving in
surrealistic slow motion, sometimes bounding around in the weak lunar
gravity like exuberant kangaroos, they set up experiments and scooped
up rocks, snapped pictures and probed the soil, apparently enjoying
every moment of their stay in the moon's alien environment.

  After centuries of dreams and prophecies, the moment had come. Man
had broken his terrestrial shackles for the first time and set foot on
another world. Standing on the lifeless, rock-studded surface he could
see the earth, a lovely blue and white hemisphere suspended in the
velvety black sky. The spectacular view might well help him place his
problems, as well as his world, in a new perspective.