Suppose you were around in 1959 and told your friends that 10 years from now, we’d send men to the moon and bring them back safely to Earth. You would have been laughed at, ridiculed, and probably told to see a psychiatrist.
This was considered fantasy at the time, not too different than saying that in 2029 we’re going to visit Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to the Sun. Yet on July 20th, 1969, that’s what happened. Neil Armstrong took Man’s first step on the moon on that day.
The circuit breaker switch that saved the moon landing
A thousand years from now, when historians look back on humanity’s history, Neil Armstrong’s name will likely still be remembered. The moon landing is perhaps man’s greatest technological accomplishment ever in the history of human civilization.
This is not just a celebration for the United States, the flag of these three men represented, but the entire world because that landing represents the zenith of human technology and ingenuity.
Yet this event should never have happened. The odds of success were very low. Even Neil Armstrong only gave it a 50% chance of success. Computer technology was measured in kilobytes and megahertz at the time, not terabytes and gigahertz of today, a million times less powerful.
The astronauts had to be shielded from deadly cosmic rays
The number of stages involved in the rocket launch, from Earth orbit to lunar orbit, to descent on the moon, to ascent, and the landing back on Earth, all had to be choreographed and practiced to perfection, with little to no room for error. Safety margins were razor-thin. The smallest anomaly could cause disaster. Everything had to work flawlessly.
Is it any wonder that millions of people believe that we never landed there? Yet it happened – not just once, but six times over three and a half years, between 1969 and 1972, in multiple Apollo missions.
But the very first mission had two life-threatening events that could have easily ended in disaster. These potential disasters are now mostly forgotten, but it’s time to remember them on this anniversary.
They remind us how individual creativity and determination can turn catastrophe into stupendous success: the incredible moon landing and the moon takeoff disasters averted by Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong.
Final Descent
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were on their final descent in the Eagle lunar module. They were falling rapidly toward the surface of the Moon at 20 feet per second. But when they looked out the window, they did not recognize anything they saw. They had not seen this terrain in any of their numerous simulations nor in dozens of photographs they had studied from previous Apollo missions.
It turns out that a navigational error and a faster-than-anticipated speed caused them to overshoot the planned landing zone by four miles. The terrain was not smooth, as it would have landed at its designated landing site. Instead, there was a huge crater field and car-sized boulders, dangerous areas to land.
But they had to land, and land soon, because they were running low on fuel. 400 feet or 122 meters before they hit the surface, Armstrong decided to level the craft and cruise horizontally until he could find a smoother surface to land on.
This, of course, would use up more fuel. They would drop to the ground like a rock if they did not land before running out of fuel.
At best, they would almost certainly damage the craft beyond repair, or they would have to abort the mission, which was equally risky because it was not known whether there was enough time to ignite the ascent engine before they hit the ground.
And there was not going to be a rescue mission. They were flying to save their lives! There were 60 seconds of fuel left. They had not found a suitable landing spot. Houston control: “Down two and a half, “forward, forward….” In Houston, they heard the 60-second low fuel alarm warning.
In normal simulations, the craft was expected to land with plenty of fuel or two minutes of fuel left. But at the 60-second mark, they were still about a hundred feet or ten stories above the moon’s surface. Armstrong began to descend further with 30 seconds left.
Contact With Lunar Surface
They were still 10 feet or 3 meters off the ground. At this point, the thrust from the engine was kicking up so much moon dust that they could not tell exactly how far off the surface they were. All they could see was a haze of powder and a few boulders.
The contact light finally came on, and they were on the surface. Only 20 seconds of fuel was left! And disaster had been averted. Houston controllers breathed a sigh of relief but celebrated only mildly, knowing that the mission was long from over.
There was supposed to be a four-hour rest before Armstrong and Aldrin explored the Moon’s surface. But within 3 hours, they were eager and ready to go.
After exploring the surface of the Moon for about two and a half hours, when they came back into the module, and they took their backpacks off. Unbeknownst to them at the time, Aldrin’s backpack had snapped off something on the control panel.
Aldrin noticed a small black object lying on the floor
And as the astronauts were getting ready for some long overdue sleep, Aldrin noticed a small black object lying on the floor and realized it was a circuit breaker switch. Scanning the control panel, he noticed that the switch was missing from the label “Engine Arm.”
Now, they could have broken numerous switches on that control panel, and it would have made no difference.
The LM’s Circuit Switch
But this circuit breaker switch was special. It happened to be the one required to ignite the ascent engine so that they could go back up into orbit.
If the engine did not ignite, they could not return home. And there would be no rescue mission. So this tiny black switch could potentially determine whether they lived or died. He told Houston, and they didn’t immediately know what to do.
They said, “We”ll “work on this down here, so you guys go ahead and go to sleep.” Of course, these guys could not sleep with this looming catastrophe hanging over their heads.
Contrary to the popular narrative, it was not a metal ballpoint space pen that Aldrin inserted into the circuit, but a spare plastic felt tip pen that he had brought with him on his spacesuit that saved the day and saved their lives.
Aldrin: “I had gotten a felt tip pen so I could read the writings on the rendezvous” “chart. So I used it, felt tip pen two hours before.” “Hey, we got a circuit! We got power! So we were coming pretty close to not being able to come home.”
Was Apollo 11 a Moon Hoax?
I want to add a couple of thoughts that millions of people in the world don’t believe that man has ever walked on the moon. Some stats are pretty surprising. In 1969, less than 5% of people doubted the authenticity of the video images they saw on their TV screens. But today, a full 6% of Americans doubt the moon landing ever took place.
And over 50 percent of Russians refuse to believe that Americans set foot on the moon. Now, this may not be all that surprising because the Russian regime has widespread government control of media and propaganda. But the most surprising stat is that 25 percent of British people and 9 percent of French people – our allies, do not believe we landed on the moon.
Go to Google and type in site: moon hoax, and you’ll get back over 670,000 websites that reference in some way or another that the moon landings were faked or we have never been to the moon at all.
Footprints On The Moon
What would be the irrefutable proof that could convince people that we did land there? How about photos of the Moon’s surface that show the moon rover tracks, footprints, and photos of the abandoned lunar modules from the Apollo missions on the surface of the Moon?
Well, in 2009, we sent the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter partly for this purpose, and those photos are exactly what you see right here.
That’s it, and I hope you enjoyed this essay. Check out this article that reveals the inside of the Apollo Saturn V rocket and its significant components. See for yourself these fantastic drawings. You will be amazed.
To learn more about the first landing on the moon, check out our article, First Apollo Mission to Land on the Moon: A Historic Milestone.