Moonshot: The Inside Story of Mankind's Greatest Adventure by Dan Parry Page A
Authors: Dan Parry
Tags: United States, General, science, History, Technology & Engineering, Astrophysics & Space Science, Astronomy, Aeronautics & Astronautics
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to land long he needed as much reliable information as he could get.
Then the yellow master alarm started to flash, a tone sounded in Neil's headset and the computer's yellow PROG light lit up. The computer would help diagnose the problem, allowing Armstrong and Aldrin to decide what action to take based on lessons learned during training. 'It's a 1202,' Neil told Houston after glancing at the computer display. It was a code neither he nor Buzz had ever seen during training, so now they had two problems. The computer could be signalling an immediate need for action, yet incapacitated by uncertainty they could do nothing but wait for advice from home.
The seconds slowly ticked by. Neil was prepared to abort at any moment should it suddenly become obvious that they were in serious trouble. As commander of the mission his decision was final, and if the situation demanded it he would take action, whether Houston had replied in time or not. Conscious that the situation could rapidly deteriorate, Armstrong quickly assessed the performance of the spacecraft's systems. He urgently needed to know whether the alarm required them to immediately abort the flight. In the absence of information, 18 seconds after calling for assistance he was forced to repeat his request, and for the first time anxiety could be heard in his voice.
'Give us a reading on the 1202 program alarm.'
A further five seconds later, Houston finally replied: 'Roger. We're go on that alarm.' Using the jargon of Mission Control, the ground assured Neil that the alarm could be switched off and that it was safe to continue the flight.
Mission Control tried to pass on additional information but the haunting sound of static interrupted the transmission, and for a while communication was intermittent. There were many moments when Neil and Buzz simply didn't know how closely the flight controllers were able to follow the data that was automatically sent back from the spacecraft. This was something they had never practised for. Training simulations had either gone well or something had gone wrong; the question of things-kind-of-being- OK-but-it's-hard-to-be-sure had never arisen, and the astronauts found it distracting. The computer alarm was even worse. It continued to signal a warning, and for Neil and Buzz it seemed that they had a genuine problem. Houston was three days away, and confronted by an error in their timing, broken communications and recurring alarms, Armstrong and Aldrin were relying on pure piloting skills. It was hard to be sure about where they were going to come down, but then it didn't really matter as long as they came down safely. Apollo 11 was no longer confined to the science of computers and trajectories, it was about the art of flying.
Lying on its back, Eagle gradually pitched upright towards a vertical position, giving Neil a clear view of the ground ahead. The computer was guiding the spacecraft directly towards a huge crater beside a field of boulders, any one of which could smash the lunar module's landing gear or the engine bell. At less than 1,000 feet Neil took partial control of the spacecraft. Using a hand controller, he cut the descent rate and focused on flying forward, skimming over the dangers below without a word to Mission Control. In Houston the flight controllers were all but paralysed by the tension as it became clear that Neil was delaying the landing. Each man knew that the spacecraft was approaching an altitude just a few hundred feet above the surface that was known to be a point of no return, a part of the flight path referred to as the dead-man's box. Attempting an abort at this point was fraught with danger. Neil now had to land, safely and quickly, before his fuel ran out.
No TV pictures were being transmitted from the spacecraft so all the flight controllers had to go on was their telemetry. But this didn't explain why Armstrong was taking so long to come down, nor did Buzz's emotionless reading of the instruments.
'3½
Then the yellow master alarm started to flash, a tone sounded in Neil's headset and the computer's yellow PROG light lit up. The computer would help diagnose the problem, allowing Armstrong and Aldrin to decide what action to take based on lessons learned during training. 'It's a 1202,' Neil told Houston after glancing at the computer display. It was a code neither he nor Buzz had ever seen during training, so now they had two problems. The computer could be signalling an immediate need for action, yet incapacitated by uncertainty they could do nothing but wait for advice from home.
The seconds slowly ticked by. Neil was prepared to abort at any moment should it suddenly become obvious that they were in serious trouble. As commander of the mission his decision was final, and if the situation demanded it he would take action, whether Houston had replied in time or not. Conscious that the situation could rapidly deteriorate, Armstrong quickly assessed the performance of the spacecraft's systems. He urgently needed to know whether the alarm required them to immediately abort the flight. In the absence of information, 18 seconds after calling for assistance he was forced to repeat his request, and for the first time anxiety could be heard in his voice.
'Give us a reading on the 1202 program alarm.'
A further five seconds later, Houston finally replied: 'Roger. We're go on that alarm.' Using the jargon of Mission Control, the ground assured Neil that the alarm could be switched off and that it was safe to continue the flight.
Mission Control tried to pass on additional information but the haunting sound of static interrupted the transmission, and for a while communication was intermittent. There were many moments when Neil and Buzz simply didn't know how closely the flight controllers were able to follow the data that was automatically sent back from the spacecraft. This was something they had never practised for. Training simulations had either gone well or something had gone wrong; the question of things-kind-of-being- OK-but-it's-hard-to-be-sure had never arisen, and the astronauts found it distracting. The computer alarm was even worse. It continued to signal a warning, and for Neil and Buzz it seemed that they had a genuine problem. Houston was three days away, and confronted by an error in their timing, broken communications and recurring alarms, Armstrong and Aldrin were relying on pure piloting skills. It was hard to be sure about where they were going to come down, but then it didn't really matter as long as they came down safely. Apollo 11 was no longer confined to the science of computers and trajectories, it was about the art of flying.
Lying on its back, Eagle gradually pitched upright towards a vertical position, giving Neil a clear view of the ground ahead. The computer was guiding the spacecraft directly towards a huge crater beside a field of boulders, any one of which could smash the lunar module's landing gear or the engine bell. At less than 1,000 feet Neil took partial control of the spacecraft. Using a hand controller, he cut the descent rate and focused on flying forward, skimming over the dangers below without a word to Mission Control. In Houston the flight controllers were all but paralysed by the tension as it became clear that Neil was delaying the landing. Each man knew that the spacecraft was approaching an altitude just a few hundred feet above the surface that was known to be a point of no return, a part of the flight path referred to as the dead-man's box. Attempting an abort at this point was fraught with danger. Neil now had to land, safely and quickly, before his fuel ran out.
No TV pictures were being transmitted from the spacecraft so all the flight controllers had to go on was their telemetry. But this didn't explain why Armstrong was taking so long to come down, nor did Buzz's emotionless reading of the instruments.
'3½
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