ASTRONAUT: Base here,
the eagle has landed.
Man on the moon, whew boy.
Project Apollo and Apollo
11, more specifically,
was the first live global
television broadcast in history
when people from all around
the world were able to watch.
MISSION CONTROL: And we're
getting a picture on the TV.
Okay Neil, we can see you
coming down the ladder now.
The estimates are between
500 and 600 million people
were tuning in their
television sets.
And then millions
more following it
on the radio or newspaper.
So half the world's population
was following the flight.
NARRATOR: While
the world watched
and celebrated the three
brave men of Apollo 11,
there was a relatively
unheralded group
back on Earth who
made this a success.
A group that was not
lost on the astronauts
in their broadcast
back home from space.
NEIL: All this is possible,
all this is the blood,
sweat, and tears of
a number of people.
To all those, I would like
to say thank you very much.
NARRATOR: At its peak,
NASA estimates more than
400,000 engineers, scientists,
computer programmers,
and manufacturers
contributed to putting
man on the moon.
While the world
would know the names
Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins,
unsung heroes who
dedicated years of work
would be the guiding force to
make the giant leap a reality.
We had a commitment
that was being made
at the national level
that we were going to the
moon with men and return them.
We all thought that was a
rather ambitious program
but we all had a great
deal of confidence.
Sonny Morea has a long career
of being a problem-solver
behind the scenes.
I said to myself,
we can do this,
we just gotta find the
way, and we found that way.
NARRATOR: Morea was critical
to overcoming the
engineering challenges
of incorporating the
engines that would
be powerful enough to
take man to the moon.
His team helped solve
the F-1 engine combustion
instability problem,
solved the J-2 engine problem,
and developed the
Lunar Roving Vehicle
that would fly on
Apollo 15, 16, and 17.
I tell people I'm
the project manager
who developed the engines to
get the astronauts to the moon.
When they got there, I had a car
for the last three missions
that they could drive
and they didn't have to go
through a rental agency
to get one. (laughs)
People like Jim Odom,
he was the second stage
manager for the Saturn 5.
I was in charge of engineering
and testing of the second stage.
NARRATOR: NASA relied on
legacy employees like Odom,
who not only managed a critical
part of the Saturn 5 rocket,
but would continue on
as a project manager
for the Space Shuttle,
the Hubble Telescope, and the
International Space Station.
Twice earning Presidential
Commendations for his work.
The sheer gratification
of having met
the President's desire for
that milestone was outstanding.
If you look at the photographs,
the majority of the
people who worked
on Project Apollo,
they're white men.
That being said, there
were a significant number
of women who are contributing
and minorities who are
contributing as well.
Just before landing on the moon
was the most exciting part,
for some of us at least.
Three minutes before
Armstrong and Aldrin
touched down on the moon,
Apollo 11's lunar
lander alarms triggered.
Red and yellow lights
across the board.
Our astronauts didn't
have much time,
but thankfully, they
had Margaret Hamilton.
All of a sudden, the
priority alarms came on,
1201 and 1202.
And I knew that
those alarms came on
when it was an emergency
and they had no business
going on right then.
NARRATOR: A young MIT scientist
and a working mother in the 60s,
Hamilton led the team
that created the software
for the Apollo Guidance Computer
that was able to decipher
the emergency code
and avoid a mission abort.
NEIL: Eagle looking
great, your go.
I like to say not only was it
the first human on the moon,
but the first software
to run on the moon.
NARRATOR: In 2016,
Hamilton earned
the Presidential
Medal of Freedom,
the highest civilian honor,
for her work on Apollo 11.
She was also a pioneer
when it came to being
a woman in the working place
and as a software engineer.
I was the only
woman in the field.
There was a tremendous element
of just human hard work
that went into the
Apollo Program.
The ones that I remember
more than any other,
were the people who were putting
together the space suits.
You would see a room of
these women bent over
doing manual labor
with great precision,
slowly putting this suit
together for Neil Armstrong.
And you know, if one of them
slipped just a little bit,
he'd go out and say, one
small uh, wait a minute.
His life was dependent on
the quality of their work.
NARRATOR: Katherine Johnson,
whose tremendous
work was encapsulated
in the Oscar-nominated
2016 film, Hidden Figures,
was renowned for her
work as a human computer
throughout the Apollo missions,
including calculations for
the trajectory of Apollo 11.
After Sputnik in 1957,
people began to really think
about that problem
for the first time,
in terms of race, but in
terms of gender as well.
That created a paradigm shift
in the way people thought.
And we can no longer sit back
and try to solve problems
with the same group of people
that have always tried
to solve problems.
NARRATOR: Through
the Apollo Program,
doors were opened and future
generations were inspired.
I stayed glued to
the television set.
I can always remember saying,
I really wanna be
a part of that.
It was 11 years later I was
starting my career at NASA.
So, I get emotional when
I kind of think about it
because the likelihood
of me in 1969
being a part of
something like that
was about as far away
as the moon itself.
Only a few get a chance
to be the astronauts
and they are a special
group, no doubt about it,
but there is a special
group of people too,
the inside of this
agency that drives it,
that makes all of
those things happen.
NARRATOR: The
people behind Apollo
were up for every
challenge along the way,
but two elements would
constantly remain at odds,
technology versus time.
Could America develop
the technology needed
in the time allotted?
Well the Saturn
Program was always
gonna be a massive undertaking,
that would not
have been possible
without President
Kennedy's declaration.
NARRATOR: The
presidential support
gave the Apollo Program
the resources it needed
to be successful.
The United States spent
$25 billion on it,
which today would be
roughly $180 billion.
NARRATOR: The national
backing was crucial,
but with it came pressure.
Constant pressure, constant.
Well at that point,
I had not had
a vacation with my
family for over 10 years.
Without that team,
this mission never
would've been successful.
You had hundreds of thousands
of people across the country
committed to Kennedy's goal.
And they didn't want
it to be their fault
that that goal wasn't met.
NARRATOR: The first
technological challenge
was creating a launch vehicle
powerful enough to
get man to the moon.
The eventual solution
was the Saturn 5.
ASTRONAUT: The Saturn 5
rocket we sent into orbit
is an incredibly complicated
piece of machinery.
NARRATOR: Standing
363 feet tall,
weighing over six
million pounds,
the Saturn 5 still
holds the distinction
as the only vehicle to carry
humans beyond low Earth orbit.
At the point of
Kennedy's promise,
the most powerful rocket engine
could produce 188,000
pounds per thrust.
Wernher von Braun's
team and NASA calculated
they would need nearly
10 times that power
to get man to the moon.
Thus, the F-1 rocket
was conceived.
The F-1 was absolutely
necessary to propel
as large a vehicle as
we needed to design,
to go to the moon
with three men.
NARRATOR: The first
stage of the Saturn 5
consisted of a cluster
of five F-1 rockets
that would produce over 7.5
million pounds of thrust
needed to escape
the Earth's orbit.
It is still today, the most
powerful rocket engine NASA
has ever flown, but its
development had many challenges.
We had a great
deal of trepidation
about being able to do it
and especially when
our major problem
showed up on the F-1 engine,
which was a case of
combustion instability.
NARRATOR: Combustion
instability or, in essence,
an unpredictable possibility
that the rocket could explode.
The lives of those
astronauts depended on
what I said and
that gets to you.
NARRATOR: It took about two
years of trial and error
to finally get the
F-1 engine stabilized.
We never understood it,
but we found a way
to counteract it.
NARRATOR: Once the F-1
engines did their job,
the first stage was dispatched
and the job of the second
stage was to propel
the Apollo spacecraft
even further into space.
As JFK's deadline loomed,
NASA was forced to adopt
drastic, groundbreaking measures
to increase productivity.
Normally we like to fly the
first stage, get it working,
then fly the first and second
stage and get it working,
and then add the third stage,
but we were running out of time.
NASA Headquarters came
up with the notion
of what we call an all up.
We would put the first Saturn
5 all live stages at one time.
NARRATOR: It was a bold move
that had never been done before.
In my judgment, probably
one of the biggest decisions
from a vehicle standpoint that
were made and having done it,
it allowed us to
meet the schedule.
NARRATOR: Manufacturing
a capable launch vehicle
was only part of the challenge.
Creating a way to guide the
Apollo spacecraft was the other.
Much of the computer and
software technology needed
was being invented in real time.
The Apollo Guidance Computer
was the most intricate and
complex control computer
and navigation computer
that existed at the time.
NARRATOR: Apollo's
computer took advantage
of every burgeoning
breakthrough in technology.
It was one of the
first computers to rely
on integrated circuits
or microchips,
which allowed for a more
compact, lighter computer.
Digital computer
development was brand new.
We had to work within
the weight limits
that the Saturn boosters
could put into orbit.
NARRATOR: The Apollo
Guidance Computers
were relatively small,
weighing a mere 70 pounds,
but by today's standards,
very rudimentary.
The amount of memory
in a Saturn rocket
in Apollo capsule is less than
what I got in my cell phone.
Back then, computers were
programmed using punch cards.
They ran one program at a time.
NARRATOR: We take for granted
how our computers today
can easily switch from
one program to another.
Multitasking had to be
invented for Apollo.
This level of
computer programming
was the beginning
of an industry.
There was no field in what we
did in software engineering,
but that's what we were doing
without realizing
that it was a field.
NARRATOR: Before
the Apollo Program,
vehicles were not regularly
controlled by computers.
Airplanes at the time were
pulleys and hydraulics,
you had a pilot that
actually pulled on a lever
and it pulled on a lever and
those actually actuated things.
And so it's the first time
that you have a digital
flight control system
that a human life depended on
and that could successfully
control a platform
as complex as the
Apollo spacecraft were.
NARRATOR: And there was
little margin for error.
It had to be reliable,
it had to not only work,
but it had to work
the first time.
NARRATOR: And in the end,
through the people and the
technology, it all worked.
It's great to look
back on, perhaps,
what is one of the
greatest human achievements
in engineering ever done.
How they were able to do that
with such little computing
capability is amazing.
