This month marks the 40th anniversary of humankind's first steps on the moon. Auspiciously timed is Craig Nelson's new book, Rocket Men--one of the most detailed accounts of the period leading up to the first manned moon mission. Here, we have ten little-known Apollo 11 facts unearthed by Nelson during his research.
1. The Apollo's Saturn rockets were packed with enough fuel to throw 100-pound shrapnel three miles, and NASA couldn't rule out the possibility that they might explode on takeoff. NASA seated its VIP spectators three and a half miles from the launchpad.
2. The Apollo computers had less processing power than a cellphone.
3. Drinking water was a fuel-cell by-product, but Apollo 11's hydrogen-gas filters didn't work, making every drink bubbly. Urinating and defecating in zero gravity, meanwhile, had not been figured out; the latter was so troublesome that at least one astronaut spent his entire mission on an anti-diarrhea drug to avoid it.
4. When Apollo 11's lunar lander, the Eagle, separated from the orbiter, the cabin wasn't fully depressurized, resulting in a burst of gas equivalent to popping a champagne cork. It threw the module's landing four miles off-target.
5. Pilot Neil Armstrong nearly ran out of fuel landing the Eagle, and many at mission control worried he might crash. Apollo engineer Milton Silveira, however, was relieved: His tests had shown that there was a small chance the exhaust could shoot back into the rocket as it landed and ignite the remaining propellant.
6. The "one small step for man" wasn't actually that small. Armstrong set the ship down so gently that its shock absorbers didn't compress. He had to hop 3.5 feet from the Eagle's ladder to the surface.
7. When Buzz Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface, he had to make sure not to lock the Eagle's door because there was no outer handle.
8. The toughest moonwalk task? Planting the flag. NASA's studies suggested that the lunar soil was soft, but Armstrong and Aldrin found the surface to be a thin wisp of dust over hard rock. They managed to drive the flagpole a few inches into the ground and film it for broadcast, and then took care not to accidentally knock it over.
9. The flag was made by Sears, but NASA refused to acknowledge this because they didn't want "another Tang."
10. The inner bladder of the space suits—the airtight liner that keeps the astronaut's body under Earth-like pressure—and the ship's computer's ROM chips were handmade by teams of "little old ladies."
Craig Nelson uncovered these facts in various NASA archives while researching his new book, Rocket Men (Viking; $28).
A documentary for the 40th anniversary of moonland. Interesting information in it. You can see the video on
I hate these "things you didn't know titles", really. Let me check off the things in your list I *did* know.
3. Duh except for the anti-diarrhea drug business
5. Covered in lots of other articles
6. Duh, seen the movies?
10. Again, well covered in lots of materials over many years
Why don't you title these things, "Interesting facts about..."
All this info is false, they never landed on the moon duhhh
About Number 7...
What if a gust of wind had blown the door shut?!
This is not rocket science. It is simple.
1. Where's the dust? There is no atmosphere to suspend the dust particles. Any 'moon dust' that gets kicked up will simply fall back to the ground within seconds. Watch the astronauts as they walked around...they kicked up a lot of 'moon dust' and it immediately fell back to the ground. Any dust stirred up by the exhaust of the lander did the exact same thing.
2. The waving flag? I remember this as clearly as if it happened yesterday. It was explained that the flag was held out by the use of a stiff wire otherwise it would have simply fallen limp and would have been difficult to see. Nasa wanted the world to see the US flag. Any waving motion that may have been indicated was created simply when the astronauts were moving it around trying to secure it into the ground. Once they got it secured..it stood completely motionless...no wind on the moon.
3. Where's the stars? Any second rate photographer understands this. The surface of the moon is very bright and reflects a large amount of the suns light energy. Stars are not very bright...that's why its dark outside at night. I'm not sure what kind of film was used in the cameras...probably a relatively low ASA (ISO) film speed to create sharp and clear images...But, the brightness of the moons surface would require an exposure that would not be capable of capturing the low intensity of star light.
4. What about the shadows? Some appear to be angled differently than others as though there was more than one source of light. It's all a matter of perspective...Again, any second rate artist understands this. A photograph, like a painting or drawing, is a two dimential reproduction of something that is three dimential. When the image is captured on film, all the shadows, lines, angles, tend to converge toward a single point called a vanishing point somewhere in the distance. That is what gives us the illusion of three dimentions on a two dimential plane. Objects farther away from the camera have a vanishing point that is slightly different than objects closer to the camera. The sun being the main source of light on the moon creates very strong and harsh shadows...all of which converge toward that one distant point.
But What about the fact that the Lunar Lander appears well lit even when back lit by the sun?
Again, the surface of the moon is very bright and reflects a lot light. The shadowed part of the Lander is illuminated by this reflected light and with proper exposure compensation on the camera, the details of that shadowed area will be captured on the film. Our astronauts were pretty good photographers.
5. Finally...the knuckleheads who think we didn't land on the moon were probably the same knuckleheads who sat thru science class in school with their hands down their pants instead of paying attention. They are also the same crowd who readily jump on the UFO coverup bandwagon (an even more rediculous concept) while at the same time fail to grasp the significance of one of the most remarkable adventures mankind has ever acheived.
krbrid - I agree with everything you said except the last thing. I have seen Ufos up close and personal. It's doubters like you that helps keep the cover-up seem legit. I understand that seeing is believing and had it not been for my personal experiences I would not be a believer either.
My uncle was an engineer on the Apollo 11 program. I believe him when he says we went to the moon. Don't you think that the Soviet's would have known about a massive hoax and conspiracy like this. It would have been in their best interest to reveal this as a hoax to the world, after all they were competing to be the first on the moon. That would have been the biggest feather in their cap against the American Capitalist Pigs.
There's another pesky little detail that moon-landing conspiracy theorists fail to explain. One task of our manned lunar program was to position a mirror on the moon that we could bounce signals off of so we could measure it's distance from the Earth. We are still using that today. Unless, of course, they are part of the grand conspiracy.
I remember watching this broadcast with my dad on our new Zenith color, tube TV - moonlanding broadcasting was on all 3 channels!! - on a warm July day.
What a rush for the country this was at a time we needed it.
Happy 40th anniversary to all of the men and women who made this possible and God Bless America!
One item that is frequently overlooked in the hoax argument is that we possessed the technology then to make the trip. We did not possess the technology then to create a fake that would fool the entire world for 40 years.
To people that had read works by Werner von Braun and Willy Ley in the fifties, the only question is "What took so long?"
Ok That's it I'm tired of the moon landing conspiracy theorists. Consider this... we had the technology to go to the moon. Hundreds of people watched the launch in person the world watched on t.v. the return of those brave guys was also well witnessed. If your gonna spend all that money and effort to send them up there and have the ability to go to the moon why wouldn't you. Seriously someone who really thinks it's a hoax please tell me where were the astronauts really at if they didn't go during the time between launch and return? In orbit? why spend the money and effort to put them in orbit and fake the moon landing when they could actually go to the moon? it wouldn't make sense! They actually went to the moon.
on another side I don't see why we are now doing reconnaissance on the moon for a return mission. I think we would have noticed if anything had changed and it's pretty well mapped out. seems a waste of time and money to do recon. spend that on getting NASA's s**t together and get back there already.
11th fact: The First to touch moon surface are Canadian.....landing gear made by canadian company Heroux Devtek Longueuil,Quebec,Canada ....
lnwolf41 Some stuff I knew other stuff didn't.
For the doubters out there, at the time we went to the moon, we had submarines that held a crew of 100 underwater for over six months at a time how hard to keep 3 men alive for a week?
Laced, arguing with conspirators on this matter is futile and only raises the blood pressure. Currently, the LRO and the LCOSS are in orbit around the moon snapping photos. The hi-res images of the lunar surface will yield two important finds:
1: Helium3 (He3). The energy rich material is abundent in small pockets and is the primary reason to recon the surface. A shuttle bay full of this stuff can power the US electric grid for one year with zero carbon emissions.
2: The survey of the entire surface will reveal images of the abandon lunar rover complete with visible tire tracks and foot prints leading towards and away from the US flag.
No rover, no landing; plain and simple.
6 is misleading. The 'small step' was when Armstrong stepped off the foot of the LM, not when he descended the ladder.
Another one you might not know. The first thing Aldrin did when he got on the Moon was to empty his bladder.
How sad and pathetic people that read popsci or the magazine are on here doubting our scientific endeavours, still. Even with photographic evidence now it will never end until they themselves go to the moon and see the landing sites in person. Every argument a skeptic can raise with me will be shot down in piles of proof.
My one trick is asking any skeptic how they can believe it was faked if when we returned we gave samples of the moon rocks to several countries, including Russia. Why would we fake that? Why would we want to? Why wern't we caught if they were "fake?" Anybody? I dare you...
I agree with joker5delta that argueing with the knuckleheads is futile.The majority of these clowns couldn't find the moon in the sky with both hands and a road map.They only do so to get people riled up.You know these people,they are the ones who would argue with a stop sign about things of which they are ignorant.
Highdobb,these people are the LAST people you want at the landing site.They would be stealing everything that isn't nailed down,throwing empty beer squeeze-bulbs everywhere and trying to piss on a leg of the lander (THAT I would like to see them try,if you follow my thinking).
Gosh,what a heady time in our history that was!! Summer of '67,Woodstock,all the manned missions that,with our technology at the time,shouldn't have been possible. But somehow,with spit and determination,we managed to pull it off.We could use a good chunk of that spit and determination right now.
deanmyrick@mac, the moon-hoax theorists all label your uncle and you as liars and frauds. They somehow even include the Soviets as part of the conspiracy.
I think they should take some conspiracy theorists with them next time they land on the Moon. Since they believe it's all fake, they can find their own way back.
To joker5delta, He3 will only be useful after we have a workable Fusion Reactor! That's like drilling for oil in the early 1800's, they knew where the oil was but we didn't need it in large enough quantities to go after it.
Hey you missed THE MOST IMPORTANT Thing That Nobody Knows:
Armstrong was SUPPOSED to say:
"That's one small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind" ...
which of course makes sense and was quite clever ...
But instead he missed or swallowed the 'A' and it came out as a not quite so profound:
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" ...
(since Man and Mankind are the same thing in that one -- no cleverness).
They tried recently to try to extract the 'A' sound from the recordings but without luck and so it still stands the way he said it rather than the way he meant it. If I were Neil I'd be peeved about that -- probably as much as Obama was when the oath of office got all messed up (thru no fault of his own really).
If we didn't go to the moon, then how in the crud did we get the moon rocks? Conspiracy theorists are a bunch of morons who just want to stir things up and refuse to believe the truth.
Man, some of you are so damn ignorant. It's no wonder why people hate some people.
For a great article on the Apollo Anniversary and some footage weblinks NASA has to offer.
Funny thing about number 7. When you think about it, the handle on the outside of the door might have been a little bit important. Can't you just see them getting locked out and going- "Huston, we have a problem..."
#10: The Apollo computers didn’t have ROM chips, they had magnetic core memories. The programs were made from permanent core memories; data used rewriteable core technology.
See here: http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm
It’s unlikely that Raytheon used “little old ladies” to weave the cores. The probability of error would be way too high.
Cool facts! It is good to know. Fact number 7 is quite scary though: the Eagle's doorhas no outer handle... Imagine what could have happened...
yait is scary. they would of died from to much CO2
Actually, #9 is wrong. The flags were made by Annin & Co., which is one of the nation's oldest flagmakers. It was actually a last minute decision to bring a flag along; originally, NASA was abiding by a gentlemen's agreement between the US, the Soviet Union, and other European countries that the first to reach the Moon would not plant a flag there and technically "claim the Moon". In the weeks before the launch, however, NASA directors decided that, if the American taxpayer was shelling out billions of dollars to put an American on the Moon, then an American flag was going up. NASA then quickly had several flagmakers submit flags for review, and Annin's was the one picked, partially because they were a NASA supplier (they also made the American flag patches for the Apollo uniforms and EVA suits). To solve the issue of where the flag should go on the Lunar Module (LM), a NASA engineer rigged a pretty simple solution: on the ladder leading from the "front porch" of the LM down the front landing strut, a 4-inch wide, 3-inch deep, 4 foot long metal box was bolted on, and inside was the folded flag, as well as an extendable flagpole with a spring loaded arm on the top to make sure the flag wouldn't simply sag due to the lack of air (wind) on the Moon. That way, it would be really easy for the Astronauts to retrieve it when heading down to the lunar surface.
I worked at an Aerospace museum on Long Island, NY, where we had on permanent display one of the only 3 Lunar Modules left in existence (besides the descent stages of the ones that are still on the Moon). The LM was built by Grumman on Long Island, and I was told this story about the flag on the Moon by a bunch of former NASA engineers who worked on building and prepping all the LMs for their landings.
It is strange that the dust of the propulsion from the craft is not suspended anymore at the time of the photograph. If there's no gravity, then the dust can't settle very soon. In any kind of propulsion, even placing your boot down, will cause upward propulsion, even if there is no air. The lack of dust in the picture does spread some doubt since the craft IS on the ground, and there was propulsion to land it.
Another question, where is the wire leading to?
To kput, who posted on July 18th:
Actually, although you would probable like to continue to make your claim that the first thing to touch the Moon was a piece of Canadian hardware, the first thing to actually touch the Moon (via a SOFT landing) was the Surveyor 7, which was launched on Jan 6, 1968 and soft-landed on the moon three days later, on Jan 9.
Prior to that soft landing, there were several missions where probes (both Russian and American-made) crashed into the Moon's surface, taking photos all the way down until impact.
Americans, however, were NOT the first to perform a soft landing on the moon. The Ruskies soft landed Luna 6 on Jan 31, 1966. Here's the link:
Sorry to burst your Canadian bubble...
The appollo astoronausts blasted off, cirled the earth for a few days they crashed lnded into the ocean....meanwhile Stanley Kubrick and the gamng faked the lunar landings.
1)The space suits were not safe for traversing the moon. In the sunlight the moon is boiling hot, in teh shadows it's absolute zero...come on man
2)Russian scientists abandoned putting a human on the moon after they figured out it would take 1 foot of lead to surround and protect the space craft through the van allen belts....come on!?
3) Where are all the photographgs from the moon (2 million missing) and what's up with all the anamolies they forgot to air brush out? Come on man!