“Okay, Mike,” Aldrin says.
“15 seconds…” Collins announces. “Okay, there you go. Beautiful!”
“Looks like a good Sep,” Buzz states, commenting on the undocking of the Lunar Module from the Command and Service Module steered by Collins.
“Roger. How does it look, Neil?
“The Eagle has wings,” the Commander says, steering the fragile looking space vehicle towards the Moon below.
“I think you’ve got a fine looking flying machine there, Eagle, despite the fact you’re upside down,” Collins comments.
“Somebody’s upside down,” Armstrong observes.
“There you go. One minute ’til TIG. You guys take care.”
“See you later,” Armstrong promises.
For a moment, the spidery Lunar Module seems suspended in the airless space, floating in the light gravity, looking like some sort of alien spacecraft out of an H.G. Wells novel, its high-gain antenna pointed in the direction of a far-away Earth.
Collins is concerned as he watches the undocked Eagle glide away. Both vessels are circling the Moon in their respective orbits. It’s kind of mind-blowing being left alone, far from Earth, high above the Moon, anxiously waiting as his fellow crewmen begin the most unusual flight in history.
After about another hour of orbiting, the Command Module pilot notices that the descent engine of the lander has started glowing.
Excitement is mounting a quarter of a million miles away at Mission Control.
At 102:28:08 Ground Elapsed Time, Kranz gives Charlie Duke the command for descent. The Lunar Module is 50,000 feet up, orbiting at a speed of 3,000 miles per hour.
“Eagle, Houston. If you read, you’re Go for powered descent. Over.”
“Ignition,” Armstrong responds.
“Ignition. Thrust 10 percent,” Aldrin replies after punching the descent engine button.
From fifty thousand feet, the fragile, low-gravity space flying machine begins dropping steadily. The aviation is strange for Aldrin and Armstrong because it’s like flying backwards into a landing site they can’t yet see. They’re facing in the opposite direction and are still looking downwards. Talk about living in a relative universe!
The two lunar pilots want to pick out their landing site in the Sea of Tranquility as soon as possible.
But, soon, things go wrong.
“Program alarm!” Armstrong cries out suddenly, with urgency in his voice. “It’s a 1202! Give us a reading on the 1202.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ADRENALIN FLOWS through the two lunar astronauts as they fight back fear.
The Commander is especially afraid of any abort commands from Houston. As an aviator born and bred, he’s determined to complete the mission. The thought of failing at the last hurdle, so close to the end, is just appalling to him.
But, what’s going wrong? How serious a threat is a 1202 to the mission?
When the programme alarm first sounds, Kraft sits bolt upright at his Mission Control console. And CAPCOM Charlie Duke freezes for a few anxious seconds.
“What the hell is a 1202?” Flight mutters.
His heart is pounding in his chest. His face is tightened in stress. There are worried faces all around Mission Control.
Then one of the backroom engineers, twenty-four year-old computer specialist Jack Garman, recognises the meaning of the alarm. That’s because he’s memorised most of the codes. He knows the 1202 alarm is being produced by data overflow in the on-board computer. The machine is over-taxed with data which it can’t process fast enough.
“It’s okay,” Garman whispers. “It’s an executive overflow on the on-board computer.”
“Eagle, Houston,” Charlie Duke instructs. “We’re Go on that alarm.”
The 1202 alarm comes up three more times after that. Each time the benefit of the doubt is given to the mission to go ahead.
Continuing its descent, Eagle reaches high gate – a mere 7500 feet above the Moon.
Armstrong and Aldrin are within striking distance of touching down.
Then Gene Kranz nods to CAPCOM to indicate all indicators are good to proceed.
“You’re Go for landing,” Duke announces.
A strained silence spreads through Mission Control, the controllers, executives and astronauts hold their breaths as Eagle reaches low gate – about 3500 feet above surface.
Armstrong switches the guidance control out of automatic and takes manual control. He wants to steer the spaceship himself. They’re now deep into the lunar void.
“Manual attitude control is good,” Armstrong comments, satisfied with the response of the hand-controller in his fist.
“2000 feet,” Aldrin states calmly, after another program alarm has been overridden by Mission Control.
Only when Eagle gets below 2000 feet can Armstrong properly view the area selected in the computer program for the landing. But what he sees is of grave concern. The on-board system is taking them to a landing position near a rocky crater. It has steep slopes, surrounded by a big boulder field strewn with rocks.
“Give me an LPD!” Armstrong asks, urgency once again creeping into his voice, as he surveys the forbidding-looking, and unexpected, crater coming into view.
Big dude, the aviator thinks to himself, taken aback by the crater’s enormity from close up. It looks the size and shape of a circular football stadium! Eagle is heading straight into its northeast slopes, where there are some massive boulders.
This is not a safe place to land, Armstrong immediately concludes. The Auto targeting had aimed Eagle right into an uneven surface which will jeopardise the landing – and their safety.
The Commander decides to obey his own aviation instincts. He overrides the commands of the computer program. Otherwise, they’ll crash-land, stranded among boulders and the crater’s slopes. His training has taught him to land long when faced with a potentially treacherous landing area. Fuel consumption at this point is not top of mind: safety is the absolute priority. Nor does he have any intention of aborting. He just wants to fly over this large crater and its field of rocks. He’s searching frantically for a smooth area just beyond it where they can touchdown.
All along, Armstrong has thought that a successful touchdown on the Moon is going to be even money, a fifty-fifty bet.
Once again, a collective tension builds in Mission Control, pulsing through Kraft, Duke, Kranz and all the flight controllers. Eagle should be descending, not flying horizontally over the Moon.
“Sixty feet per second,” an unperturbed Aldrin calls out. “Down two and a half. Two forward…two forward.”
Chris Kraft and Charlie Duke are increasingly concerned about the depleting fuel reading.
“Sixty seconds,” Duke warns.
The spacecraft is skimming near the surface at 64 km per hour as Armstrong scans the lunar landscape for a safe landing spot. His heart rate, usually around 60, has jumped to 150 beats a minute.
“That’s not a bad looking area,” he mumbles aloud, looking out at an area lying between some craters and a boulder field. “Pretty rocky area…”
“Slow it up,” Aldrin urges. “Ease her down.”
“I got a good spot!” Armstrong suddenly exclaims.
“You’re looking good. 120 feet… 60 feet… 2 forward. 2 forward. That’s good… 40 feet… Picking up some dust.”
Armstrong is trying to peer through a sheet of fine lunar dust to pick out his final landing position.
“30 seconds!” Duke cries, noting low fuel levels.