I hear about the only person around it
doesn't have TV coverage of the face and
then they got the black up now you're
gonna be the one getting a TV picture is
still yet we are getting a TV picture
10
a break in the beginning avoid the
darkness than light than life and from
life
k man joining the caravan for the long
slow journey through a world of
discovery invention exploration his
marks his milestones stretch out through
the centuries his footsteps echoed down
through the corridors of time time
july 1969 in Florida the footsteps the
caravan couldn't
the corridor shortened as man reached
outside his world into another board
today in Florida they go about their
lives taking only a sideways glance at
the reminders of that milestone
reminders images that vaguely jog her
memory
follow my final of 32 minutes past the
hour the start of our launch window on
the Muslim to land
sometimes still proceeding
satisfactorily
time it plays tricks on it smudges and
blurs the sharp edges of reality but we
turn the trick and someone up our own
reality images sounds to help us
remember the batteries are good the next
time we're going with the 52nd like
little batteries no remaining
person in general apologizing quite the
lunar module which has been rather
inactive doing these latter faces of the
pound also is going on internal power at
this time on the two batteries in the
ass end stage and the four batters of
the reasons they came 1,000,000 of the
love to displace drawn by the magnet of
history in the making
tonight's the prime crew were awakened
415 a.m. eastern daylight and proceeded
to have a physical examination in which
they were declared quite ready
they sat down for the normal astronaut
fair on launch day as far as breakfast
is concerned islands juice stakes
scrambled eggs toast and coffee the
target for the Apollo 11 astronauts the
moon at liftoff will be at a distance of
218,000 96 miles away the astronauts
departed from the reporters after
checking out this suit State Department
4627 a.m. and some 27 minutes later
eight miles away from the fruit borders
of the Kennedy Space Center atop the
launchpad at complex 39 654 am the
commander astronaut Neil Armstrong was
the first to board the spacecraft he was
followed about five minutes later by
mike collins and finally buzz aldrin the
man who's sitting in the middle street
during liftoff was the third astronaut
to come aboard the weather is certainly
go it's a beautiful morning for launch
the moon we expect the temperature about
85 degrees in the Kennedy Space on area
where still go on Apollo 11 at this time
t-minus 25 seconds 20 seconds and
counting
t-minus 15 seconds guidance is internal
12 11 ten nine ignition sequence start
six five four three two one zero all
engine running lifts are we have a
liftoff 32 minutes past the hour liftoff
on Apollo 11 Tower cleared
rabbits you gotta fight the guys about
to turn blue we're breathing again
thanks a lot about the lamb now that's
one small step for man art Apollo 11
armstrong aldrin and collins they and
millions of others reached out and in
their own way touched another plan
the images remind us that it happened
home but not how it really was in the
context of the times George Lowe one of
the architects of the Apollo program
does remember if you think back at the
the period of the sixties weren't very
happy use in general we had well the
ever-deepening involvement in Vietnam we
had riots on the campuses riots and
Watson elsewhere three terrible
assassinating a great deal of of strife
and turmoil in the country and yet all
of this was overcome by one single event
and there was Apollo 11 the decade ended
with it was a fantastic adventure that I
believe help overcome all the bad things
of decade it represented Americans to
ourselves and particularly to the rest
of the world is we'd like to see
ourselves as we hope the rest of the
world like six years
yeah
the equipment of Apollo some of it is
now museum's artifacts from an age of
discovery these strange-looking objects
there there is reminders that after all
it did happen and it happened the way we
remember
the facilities of Apollo now silent and
still in Houston Mission Control the
nerve center of manned flight operations
the chapters of space history first
mercury then gemini than Apollo were
written by the people who SAT these
consoles
and these chapters of history came at us
with breakneck speed Christmas Eve 1968
in the beginning
Apollo 8 the footsteps were quickening
few months later apollo nine long years
of preparation were contracting in two
days hours minutes the first man flight
of the lunar module the spire Apollo 10
the dress rehearsal for the real thing
in five months three missions and in the
seventh month the payoff then the
celebrations
other names Grissom white and Kathy they
remind us that it wasn't all success in
celebration there was failure tragedy
earlier 1967 three crawled into the
command module at Cape Kennedy for a
test
there was a flash fire all three died
after the shock in the long painful job
of picking up the pieces learning the
lessons coming together for a common
goal the remains of the launch structure
stands as a reminder that the goal was
reached
these strange shapes what do they mean
these towers of Steel what are they
monuments or leftovers from some earlier
age of discovery in the long history of
man in the slow journey of the caravan
what point do these mark historian
Arthur Schlesinger i have no doubt at
all that if possibility remembers the
20th century for anything
historians 500 years from now looking at
the 20th century it will be because it
will be the $DAY century when man first
began to break his terrestrial bonds and
began the exploration of space so that's
it
as man learn moved on and discarded the
earlier structures he came to these
they're marked for further milestones
reserved for future missions other
reaches to other different boys
historians five centuries from now will
mark this century this place and they
will further note that from the boy life
man
it took eons to reach this point but
once there the centuries and years
compressed in today's hours split
seconds of exploration
yeah
weel the engine airplane they came
slowly at first then with increasing
velocity and then this so huge so
powerful so different that no ordinary
modern name with supplies they reached
backward through antiquity to Roman
mythology and they named it happen
satin his father was heaven his mother
the complex organization the mammoth
machines the incredibly detailed
technical knowledge the dedication
it was all harvest sharpened to a fine
edge and focused
the program developed and matured apollo
17 was launched at night and even the
old hands the hardened veterans of the
space program couldn't help but feel
they are Wonder and excitement
in the excitement of a split second of
exploration man doesn't stop to freeze
the moment in history to look at it and
ask what it means he simply lives it up
but in the Apollo program underway to
the moon they found a way to live out
their strange moments in those strange
spacecraft it maybe the peculiar nature
of Americans to make history and to have
fun in the making
yeah
yeah
hey relax and have fun because they we
were confident of success but the
program teaches lessons confidence is a
transitory thing
Apollo 13 again and by 13 we're looking
at it three days out barreling toward
the moon an explosion no one would see
the problem for some time but they went
to work on it
the people of Apollo coalesced into a
single dedicated unit-linked themselves
with their technology and cheated
tragedy a new chapter in space history
was written in Mission Control Eugene
Krabs was the flight director when the
problem developed throughout this entire
next several days there was one dominant
plot in the minds of all of the flight
controllers will all we teach him that
between God country in your own
capability that you can solve any
problem that may occur in flight and
throughout the entire course of Apollo
13 there was never any death that we'd
get the crew back so there was a very
positive approach and with this kind of
approach you can solve just about any
problem
solve any problem country capability all
fashion words during a time when some
said the old-fashioned virtues were
forgotten
well they weren't forgotten they were
translated into action into programs
which took man soaring above the surface
of the moon away from Earth but always
looking back
these divided thoughts the moon the
earth running through the Apollo program
a sort of theme they went there flying
in a graceful machines but they always
thought back to where they came from
perhaps that's natural the moon is a
strange place for men to be flying to
yeah
yeah
yeah
if it's strange for men for mankind that
strangers still for the individual man
Harrison Schmitt dr. Harrison Schmitt a
geologist he touched the moon and
remembers how it was when Apollo 17 was
making its to send the last flight to
the moon the last time that man walked
on its surface Schmidt remembers how it
was once first feelings are a mixture of
very complex mixture of humility
excitement because of something you
would plan to do was being accomplished
but of a great attention to detail to do
to the detail that you had thought about
and learned about for so many years
prior to the actual event that detail
keeps you occupied with where your hands
are and where your feet are which
wrongly might be you try to remember
well in my at the bottom of the rung and
then as one moves away and test his way
on the surface of the Moon and looks
around
and in my case looked around a very
magnificent Valley you see a rolling
hilly country that is interspersed with
some blocky fields of rocks that you
know because you've studied the
photographs you saw them as you
descended surround large craters that
have been formed in that rolling
countryside
rolling dark Hills merge in the distance
a few kilometers away with the very
smooth but very bright colored slopes of
the Massey six and they rise with a
Majesty to rocky tops that are almost
beyond description because there's
nothing like it if we have seen on earth
yeah
the Sea of Tranquility sadly real taurus
literal they were once strange names on
the map of the moon but the men of
Apollo gave reality to the names by
being there and showing us the places
they explored 60 miles of its surface
and their travels took them two craters
foothills to explore to observe and to
sample the hardrock proof the bottom
enshrined in the Smithsonian Institution
in Washington DC for 78.8 grams of micro
beretta under glass for mirror
Earthlings to see and whisper about
other rocks from the moon 840 pounds are
being studied and talked about by
scientists in laboratories around the
world not only rocks tens of thousands
of photographs those strange exotic
features of the Moon and telemetry data
on tape wax figures the studies will go
on for years and the answers will come
slowly answers to questions about the
moon and the solar system the science of
Apollo is not really concerned with
samples from past milestones yesterday's
missions in a special room in Houston
men sit at consoles and command
instruments on the moon to send them two
days .
and they receive it today within eight
seconds of the command science that's
the key and technology and something
else in the drama of the moment you stop
to think of the essential element the
one thing that made it happen people
came to this program government people
university people contractor people they
brought to Apollo skills and knowledge
and determination this source of human
intellectual energy was marshaled
focused challenged what came out of the
oven was not just a very successful
program but a rich national resource of
vast proportions
crystals from the moon the symbols of
the science of Apollo behind it causing
it was the spirit of Apollo I was
rolling on a boom one day marry hey
that's right when they're much to my
surprise a parable that's true that when
we saw something of this spirit we
shared in the adventure the excitement
the euphoria of being there we shared it
with a man who bounced across the
surface of the Moon Side that have a big
hit and the surprise of discovery we
were there to all of us watching Mike
arias explorers ok we're headed that way
to get the songs during the break
therefore without it going back and the
meaning the significance of an occasion
that to pain was flashed into our living
rooms on a 19-inch window on the
universe we hope that this will be a
symbol of what r . R with the periods of
the Apollo program heart and a simple of
mankind that we can live in harmony in
the future
yeah
that was also pride
they put up the flag and posed for
pictures as any visitor to a foreign
place might do
the flag of each mission stood there as
a reminder that we have been there but
there was the realization that in truth
it belonged to all the people there are
no boundaries on the moon
yeah
the focus was the moon that's what it
was all about but by reaching up there
we in a sense came back here as one
stands and scans a 360 degree panorama
of his own one of the first objects in
the dark corner sky that you see is a
bright and beautiful bluish globe that
we call earth this globe represented to
all of us I think not only home but a
very fragile place that we have come
back and felt that needed not only
protection but understanding they first
went there in nineteen sixty-nine they
last left there in late $MONTH 1972
between the beginning and the conclusion
they came to feel too definitely
perceive what it was all about to come
to a perspective on the meaning of it
all
poor Archibald MacLeish said it better
than most to see the earth as it truly
is small and blue and beautiful in that
eternal silence where it floats is to
see ourselves as riders on the earth
together
brothers who know now they are truly
browse
yeah
the excitement of the mission the
tension and drama of the splashdown they
remain only in our memories and in time
they'll be replaced in the future by
other missions other memories the
moments of Apollo may be over but the
understanding and the discovery they go
on and the full meaning the real meaning
may yet be in the future too but for now
for the breath the images and the sounds
provide me enough to each in his own way
and to each in his own time
yeah
yeah
yeah
history about the only person around it
doesn't have TV coverage of the things
and it man you got the black up now and
you're gonna be the TV picture they'll
yes we are going
looking out
one all
family
