Tracks on the Moon

By Roger Eaton, grandson*

*Relation to Andy and/or Flora Lehr

An Extraordinary Year

The year 1969 is remembered for many landmark events.  In January, the New York Jets of the American Football League won the Super Bowl.  Leading the Jets was quarterback Joe Namath.  He was flamboyant and boldly predicted victory.  This was counter to the prevailing sportsmanship norms and earned him the nick name “Broadway Joe”.

The New York Jets of the rival AFL rival start-up league were never expected to defeat the Baltimore Colts of the established Nation Football League.  The following season, the two leagues merged.  Another Big Apple team surprised sports fans with a world championship, when the New York Mets defeated the Baltimore Orioles in the 1969 World Series.  They were nick named the Miracle Mets, because the team was only eight years old and never finished higher than ninth in the ten-team National League.

An estimated half a million people journeyed to a farm in upstate New York for the Woodstock rock concert.  It was like none before or since.  Organizers had not planned for that size of attendance.  The popular rock and roll band, The Beatles, completed their last public performance.  In January of 1969, they assembled on the roof of their recording studio and played for 42 minutes, before the police interrupted the impromptu concert.  The unannounced concert was attended by local residents within earshot.

Republican Richard Nixon was sworn in as the 37^th President of the United States, in January 1969.  The country was in turmoil.  Violent protests over the war in Vietnam and racial inequality were punctuated with the assassinations of presidential candidate Robert Kennedy and social change leader, Martin Luther King, Junior.  

Hippies emerged as an anti-establishment culture promoting love, peace and “flower power”.  These young adults challenged normal social norms.  The extreme hippies assembled into communes and “dropped out” of the normal society.  They advocated the use of hallucinogenic drugs and free love (promiscuous sex). One of these communes, was led by (infamous) Charles Manson.  He influenced several commune followers to murder several high-profile people in California.  The guilty, including Manson, were prosecuted in a well-publicized trial.

There were peaceful demonstrations, also.  Some were called “Sit-Ins”.  A famous sit-in was staged at the University of California in Berkley, in 1964.  Thousands of students sat in front of the administration building to protest against some students being restricting from distributing political literature.  In the south, sit-ins were organized to protest against racial inequality.  Musical icon, John Lennon, of the popular rock and roll band The Beatles and his wife, Yoko Ono, staged two bed-ins for peace during 1969.  They stayed in bed for a week each time and received news reporters.

Of all of  the extraordinary events in 1969, the most significant was humans landing on the moon and returning to earth.  This was an amazing accomplishment.  The state of the art spacecraft was less sophisticated than some of today’s children toys and significantly less than our smart phones.  When you look at the technology that they used, it seems unlikely to complete such a journey.  It would be like Christopher Columbus using a row boat to cross the Atlantic.

Let’s Go to the Moon!

The moon landing began in 1962 with the proposal of U.S. President John F. Kennedy.  He announced his proposal during a speech on September 12, 1962 at Rice University, Houston, Texas.

Below is a link to the John F. Kennedy speech at Rice University, September 12, 1962

The person behind the president (in sunglasses) is Lyndon Johnson, the vice president.  Before becoming the vice president, he was a senator from Texas.  That may explain why The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, more commonly known as NASA, is located in Houston, Texas.  At the time of the speech, the Soviet Union was considered the leader in space exploration.  They launched the first satellite and the first human in space.  Landing a human on the moon was considered science fiction and not realistic.  The U.S. had only launched three manned rockets at the time of the speech.

President Kennedy did not live to see the moon landing.  He was assassinated on November 22, 1963, in Dallas Texas.

The Spacecraft

The rocket that carried the crew of three was a Saturn V.  It remains the largest space rocket ever built.

Along with the fuel, it carried two vehicles.  The lunar lander was called LEM, for Lunar Excursion Module.  It was an oddly shaped spaceship.  The other vehicle was the command module.  It orbited the moon while two of the crew descended to the lunar surface.

During the flight, the crew separated the command module and lunar module from the remaining rocket.  The command module turned 180 degrees and docked with the lunar module.

The command module orbited the moon under the control of Mike Collins.  Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin descended to the lunar surface.  After completing their assignments on the surface, they returned to the command module and returned to earth.

Each vehicle was named by the crew.  They named the lander Eagle, a national symbol of the United States.  The command Module was named Columbia.  That name was derived from Jules Verne’s novel, From the Earth to the Moon.  The cannon that launched the novel’s spacecraft was named Columbiad.  Columbia is also a reference to the famous explorer, Christopher Columbus.

The Mission

The rocket erupted at 9:32 on the morning of July 16, 1969.  The two crew members landed on the moon at 2:17 pm (easter time) on July 20^th.  That was a 76-hour flight.  After setting the lunar module on the moon, Neil Armstrong contacted NASA on the radio to report,

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

A 4-hour rest period was in the schedule, but the astronauts were eager and accelerated the moon walk.  Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon at 9:56 Central Daylight Time.  As he stepped off the Lunar Module ladder, he said,

“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

In 1969 news was delivered through structured and scheduled sources, mostly television news programs and newspapers.  TV news was a summarization, while the newspapers provided detail information.  Occasionally, there were special bulletins on TV to report on important situations, e.g., assassinations, dangerous weather, manned rocket launches and the moon landing.  Newspaper had scheduled printings and deliveries.  I remember seeing my uncle Charlie Smith’s copy of the Des Moines Tribune of the moon landing.  We were at their house in December 1969.  He was saving it as a souvenir.

We watched the Apollo 11 moon landing on television.  At ten years old, I lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with my parents, a brother and a sister.  There were three broadcast channels on the television: ABC, CBS and NBC.  Each had news coverage.  We tended to watch ABC.  Our TV was black and white and about seventeen inches in width.  The moon landing was broadcast in black and white.

All three networks broadcasted the event – at the same time.  So, that was all that you could watch that evening. Each channel provided their experts to explain the details of the landing.  Our channel was set to ABC.  Their Science Editor was Jules Bergman. 

We watched in amazement.  We heard Neil Armstrong announce the landing.  A few minutes later, a camera was deployed to record his descent down the ladder to the moon’s surface.  The camera was aimed at the ladder.  The image was blurry.  We didn’t know what to expect.  We listened to the astronauts complete their landing checklist. It seemed to drag on forever as we waited for Neil Armstrong to emerge.  The video was crude, but we could see him step off the ladder.  Buzz Aldrin followed him to the lunar surface 19 minutes later.    As the two astronauts hopped around on the moon, we couldn’t believe our eyes.  No one said anything, we just stared at the TV.

After completing their mission on the surface, the two sojourners returned to the lander module.  It separated into two sections.  The landing gear stayed on the moon while the ascent stage lifted off.  The ascent stage rendezvoused with the orbiting command module.

NASA scoped three programs to make the moon landing (and return) possible.  All were named after mythical figures.

Mercury – In Roman mythology, Mercury was the messenger of the gods.

Gemini – In Latin, Gemini means twins.  It is the name of a constellation that include two (twin) stars; Castor and Pollux.  The Gemini program included two humans in each flight.

Apollo – The Greek mythical god of archery, prophecy, poetry and the God of the Sun

The crew designed the mission patch.  The discipline of heraldry dates back to the Middle Ages with the creation of coat of arms, shields, crests and heraldic banners.  Colors and art are selected for specific symbolism.  A flying eagle, the national bird, in the center of the patch represents the United States. The olive branch clinched in the eagle’s talons expresses the peaceful intent of the mission.  The lunar surface is in the foreground with earth in the distant background. This symbolizes the vast distance between the two celestial objects.  A black background was chosen, just as the sky looked from the moon. 

To avoid confusion for non-English speaking people, the crew decided to use the Arabic number, 11, instead of spelling the number or using Roman numerals.

Unlike other patches, the crew elected to exclude their names from the patch.  This is an acknowledgement of all of the people who worked to make this mission possible. 

New methods of feeding the travelers were developed.  Most of their food was fully cooked freeze-dried meals in vacuum-sealed packages.  Those methods were developed in parallel with the rocket and vehicle development.

The Columbia command module splashed down on July 24, 1969 in the Pacific Ocean – 900 miles southwest of Hawaii.

United States spacecraft landed in the ocean.  The crew and spacecraft are plucked from the bounding sea by a team of swimmers to a hovering rescue helicopter.  The helicopter takes the crew to a nearby aircraft carrier.  This one was a little different from the previous missions.  To avoid possible contamination, the rescue swimmers assisted the crew into contamination suits.  Another precaution was a 30-day quarantine period.  A modified Airstream camper trailer was added to the air craft carrier for the astronauts quarantine shelter.

The President of the United States was aboard the U.S.S. Hornet to welcome the adventurers back to earth.  It was selected as the recovery ship due to the limited available carriers.  Some were in port for repairs or upgrades and the rest were supporting the war in Vietnam.  The Hornet is anchored in Alameda and serves as a museum, today.

Moon Mania

In the weeks leading up to the launch, the moon landing became a marketing theme.  Many television commercials included a connection to the moon landing.  There were countless toys with the moon landing theme.  Many companies gambled their marketing budgets on a successful moon landing and return mission.  A failure would have had a negative effect on their company and products.

Space

Was it Worth It?

The space exploration program of the 1960s led to countless innovations that have impacted our lives.  Below is a short list of the derivatives of the space program. You can decide if it was worth the risk, effort and expense.

• Memory foam – for pillows and mattresses
• Anti-corrosion coating
• AeterioVision
• Cochlear Implants
• Scratch-resistant eyeglass lenses
• Insulin pump
• Jaws of Life
• LED
• Water filters
• Dustbuster vacuum
• Mylar space blankets
• Vacuum-sealed food
• Shock-absorbing shoe soles – running shoes
• Fireproof firefighter uniforms
• Artificial limbs
• Lasik (eye) surgery
• Photovoltaic cells – solar panels
• Wireless headset
• Freeze-dried food
• Invisible dental braces
• Baby formula
• CAT scans
• Velcro

Below is a simulation of the Apollo 11 mission.

https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/

Conclusion

I really couldn’t appreciate the size of the rocket until I saw a full-scale model while on vacation in Huntsville, Alabama forty-four years later.  My son was at a summer internship at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.  There was a rocket museum in Huntsville.  The rocket is 363 feet (111 meters) tall.  That is the height of a 36-story building.  Most of the rocket is fuel.  It takes a lot of fuel to reach the moon – over 230,000 miles from earth!

Forty years after the moon landing, I found myself next to a full-scale model of the lunar lander module.  A tour of the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center was included as an aerospace activity during a Civil Air Patrol encampment.  I served as the Commandant of Cadets.  My two children also attended.  The museum also included a full-scale model of the command module.

The spacecraft used for the moon landing was made from thin metal and protected with Mylar.  It seems to be very fragile and unlikely to make it safely to the moon.  The is no air lock as in science fiction space craft.  Instead, there is a thin metal door.  Outside that thin door is the vacuum of space.  They are similar to a storm door on a house.  The technology is primitive when compared to today’s technology.  Seeing the Apollo spacecraft was an enlightening experience. 

On July 16, 1969, the world shared a common experience.  We knew it was an extraordinary event.  This post is intended to pass that experience along to those who follow.

Please add your Apollo 11 memories in the Reply/Comment section below.