Strapped in for the ride of their lives, the men are lifted into the skies on a cloud of blazing firepower.
Spectators three miles away, surrounded by a deafening roar, feel a physical surge rumbling up from the ground and pulsing into their bodies. Their chests pound as they look in wonder to see the lone rocket propelled through the atmosphere.
“Tower cleared,” declares the Public Affairs Officer, as supervision of the flight passes from Launch Control to Mission Control.
Inside the Saturn 5 rocket stack, the three astronauts are relieved to transcend the launch tower. By now it’s completely obscured by smoke, fire and rising dust kicked up by the lift-off.
After rising vertically for around 12 seconds under this explosive ball of fire, the vehicle’s control system instructs the gimballed engines to pitch the rocket at the right angle for the first stage boost. Increased g-forces shake the spacemen, pressing against them, pinning them back to their couches.
Lift-off has thrilled the sun-drenched crowds, squinting in the bright sun as they peer upwards. What a leap of power they’ve witnessed!
After three minutes, they’re forty-three miles up, soaring at seven times the speed of sound. The astronauts feel strange and heavy, their normal body-weight appearing to have quadrupled, their insides shaken to the core.
At three minutes, the IU commands the first-stage engine to shut off and then to separate off. The first of three rocket stages is over. It falls away, jettisoned, tumbling harmlessly into the sea below.
“Tower’s gone,” radioes Armstrong, as the steeple-like launch escape tower is dumped, too.
“Roger, tower,” replies CAPCOM Bruce McCandless, a 32 year-old former decorated US Navy aviator and astronaut, at Mission Control.
A magnificent propulsion has already boosted Saturn 5 to a speed of over 6000 miles per hour. It’s still pummelling the crew with g-forces that seem, at times, to be throttling them. Armstrong’s heart, for example, is pumping at 110 beats per minute.
It’s one spine-tingling, head-rattling, organ-shaking ride.
The second rocket stage, S-11, is ignited. The astronauts are jerked forward in their straps.
At four minutes after launch they’re sixty-two-miles high, crossing the dividing line between blue sky and sheer space, black as coal. Out of their windows, the horizon of the Atlantic curves far below them.
About eight minutes into the mission, the second stage shuts down. The crew wait for ignition of the third rocket stage, S-1VB, to kick in. Once again, the acceleration pushes them back into their seats. The second stage drops into the ocean.
The third and final launch stage begins. The spacecraft accelerates to over 17,500 miles per hour, going fast enough to enter orbit.
“Apollo 11, this is Houston,” McCandless radioes. “You’re confirmed Go for orbit.”
“Roger,” Armstrong responds.
Twelve minutes after launch, they’re inserted into orbit. From there, the crew can see the whole sphere of Earth, its delicate horizon wrapped around itself into a perfect circle.
The IU carries out its final checks, ensuring everything is ready for the next mission phase: propulsion from orbit into the trans-lunar trajectory to send them on a three-day journey to the Moon.
The men enjoy the stunning views as they glide through weightless space. They remove their helmets and gloves, able to fly out of their seats. They relax after the tumult of the launch.
Apollo 11 is scheduled to circle Earth one-and-a-half times.
The crew check some spacecraft systems, take photographs and conduct star sightings to be used in their navigation to the Moon.
“How does zero g feel?” the Commander asks his men. “Your head feel funny, anybody, or anything like that?”
Buzz takes a snap of Armstrong and Collins with the onboard Hasselblad camera.
“It just feels like we’re going around upside down,” Collins says.
“I feel the horizon coming up,” Armstrong adds.
Mike takes shots of the cloud-covered Earth. There’s a low-pressure cell swirling around miles below them. From space, it’s like a scene trapped inside a tiny paperweight.
Since they’re orbiting at very high speeds, the Sun is rising rapidly over the Southern Pacific Ocean, as if someone has speeded up the Sun’s journey just for them.
Their spacecraft is like a submarine sailing in a vacuum, orbiting above the southern Pacific.
The remaining Saturn 5 rocket engine will be reignited to speed up the spacecraft to just under 25 000 miles per hour, the velocity needed to escape Earth’s gravity. The aim is to sling the craft at high-speed out of orbit onto its pathway to the Moon.
As the spacecraft flies over Hawaii, the S-IVB stage is re-ignited for the translunar injection (TLI).
“Ignition!” Armstrong states.
“We confirm ignition, and the thrust is Go,” reports McCandless. “Guidance looking good.”
“Phew!” Armstrong exclaims. “Pressures look good. We’ve got a lighted horizon at 2½ minutes. Pretty horizon.”
“I see a bright star out there, must be Venus,” Collins comments. “Venus or not, but it’s sure bright.”
“And here comes the old Sun,” Aldrin observes.
Apollo 11 has now slung itself safely out of earthly orbit. They’re on their way into the space void.
The astronauts take off their pressure suits and stow them away. Their flight suits are much more comfortable as they settle down for the ride.
As Earth shrinks behind them, the astronauts think about what lies ahead for them. Collins sees the flight plan as a delicate daisy chain of steps which each have to hold, one by one, for the mission to succeed. Each of them is aware that death is only an inch away, right outside the spaceship.
The bright blue ball they call home is getting smaller, hour by hour, as they zoom seamlessly through an airless sea of space.
Soon after their first onboard meal, the spacemen prepare to separate their Command and Service Module from the final stage of the Saturn launch vehicle, while extracting Eagle, the cone-shaped Lunar Module.
“Sep!” Armstrong calls out.
“Look at that trash!” a breathless Aldrin exclaims, snapping shots with the Hasselblad as the last stage of the rocket is jettisoned.
Collins turns the Command and Service Module around. He wants its probe, which is mounted on its tunnel, to face towards the drogue on the docking tunnel of the Lunar Module. Next, he joins up the two vessels in space, interlocking them as twelve automatic docking latches lock.
Once this space maneuver is over, they remove both the probe and drogue from the tunnels of the joined vehicles and stow them away.
Although outer space, having no fixed point anywhere, has no days or nights, the Apollo systems and flight plan are aligned to Ground Control in Houston. Since evening has descended down there, the crew continue to observe the times of the Earth clock. Their own biological clocks are still synchronized with the turning of their planet and its orbit around the Sun, even though they were heading off into a different dimension with its own eerie sense of timelessness.
For a much-needed space nap that “night”, they climb into their lightweight sleeping bags, pull down the shades over the windows, turn down the radio, and try to switch off their minds. Within three hours, Mission Control records their heart rates are in the 40s, indicating deep sleep.
When they’re awakened in the “morning”, the crew are given updates to their flight plan, after which they perform some maintenance activities.
Outside, in the blackness of space, the pressure is zero. In its near-perfect vacuum, without friction, stars, planets and moons move smoothly along endless orbits. What dangers might lurk somewhere out there for the three celestial explorers?