THE TIME OF APOLLO

a has a message that we to send to you in the beginning God created the Earth and the Earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep and the spirit of God face of the waters and God said let there be light and there was light and God saw the light there it was good and God divided the light from the darkness and God called the light day and the Darkness he called and the evening and the morning were the first day in the beginning the void the darkness then light then life and from Life came 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 echo down through the corridors of time time July 1969 in Florida the footsteps the Caravan quickened the corridors shortened as man reached outside his world into another void today in Florida they go about their lives taking only a sideways glance at the reminders of that Milestone reminders images that vaguely jog our memory this Apollo s launch controls aiming toward a plan liftoff time of 32 minutes past the hour the start of our launch window on this the mission to land men on the moon the countdown still proceeding very satisfa at this time time it plays tricks on us smudges and blurs the sharp edges of reality but we turn the trick and summon up our own reality images to help us remember dur the power flight the batteries all look good the next time we go internal will be at the 50c Mark with those batteries and they will remain of course on internal power during the flight the L module which has been rather inactive during these phases of the account also is going on internal power at this time on the two batteries in the asent stage and the four BS at the desent stage they came 1 million of them to this place drawn by the magnet of history in the making the astronauts the prime crew were awakened at 4:15 a.m. eastern daylight and proceeded to have a physical examination in which they were declared flight ready they sat down for the normal astronaut Fair on launch day as far as breakfast is concerned orange juice steak scrambled eggs toast and coffee the target for the Apollo 11 astronauts the moon at liftoff will be at a distance of 28,9 Mi away the astronauts departed from their crew quarters uh after checking out their suits theyve departed from the crew Quarters at 6:27 a.m. and some 27 minutes later 8 m away from the crew Quarters at the Kennedy Space Center at top the Launchpad at complex 39 6:54 a.m. the commander astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first to aboard the spacecraft he was followed about 5 minutes later by Mike Collins and finally Buzz Alvin the man who's sitting in the middle seat during liftoff was the third astronaut to come aboard the weather is certainly go it's a beautiful morning for a launch to the Moon we expect a temperature of about 85° in the kenned Space Center area we still go on Apollo 11 at this time tan has 25 seconds 20 seconds and counting t- man has 15 seconds guidance is internal 12 11 10 9 ignition sequence starts 6 5 4 3 2 1 zero all engine running liftoff we have a liftoff 32 minutes past the hour liftoff on Apollo 11 Tower cleared Tranquility base here the eagle has landed you got a bunch of guys about to turn blue we're breathing again thanks a lot I'm going step off the lamb now that's one small step for me man one for Apollo 11 Armstrong Aldren and Collins they and millions of others reached out and in their own way touched another planet the images remind us that it happened but not how it really was in the context of the times George low one of the architects of the Apollo program if you think back at the the period of the 60s they weren't very happy years in general we had uh well the ever deepening involvement in Vietnam we had uh riots on the campuses RI in wat elsewhere three terrible assassinations a great deal of of strife and turmoil in the country and yet all of this was overcome by one single event and that was Apollo 11 uh the decade ended with it it was a fantastic Adventure that I believe helped overcome all of the bad things of the decade it uh uh represented Americans to ourselves and particularly to the rest of the world as we like to see ourselves and as we hope the rest of the world likes to see us the equipment of Apollo some of it is now in museums artifacts from an age of Discovery these Strang looking objects they're there as 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 Mann flight operations the chapters of space history first Mercury then Gemini then Apollo were written by the people who sat at 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 a few months later Apollo 9 the long years of preparation were Contracting into days hours minutes the first man Flight of the lunar module the spider Apollo 10 the dress rehearsal for the real thing in five months three missions and in the seventh month the payoff then the celebrations the images and the sound fade in our memories but some things we can't forget names Apollo 11 Armstrong Aldren and Collins other names Grom white and chaffy they remind us that it wasn't all success and celebration there was failure and tragedy early in 1967 the three crawled into the Command Module at Cape Kennedy for a test there was a flash fire all three died after the shock came the long painful job of picking up the pieces learning the lessons coming together for a common goal the remains of the long structure stand 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 slesinger I have no doubt at all that if posterity remembers the 20th century for anything historian 500 years from now looking at the 20th century it will be because it will be the century when man first began to break his terrestrial bonds and began the exploration of space so that's it as man learned 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 voids historians five centuries from now will mark this Century this place and they will further note that from the void life man it took eon to reach this point but once there the centuries and years compressed into days hours split seconds of exploration the wheel the engine the airplane they came slowly at first then with increasing velocity and then this so huge so powerful so different that no ordinary modern name would suffice they reached backward through Antiquity to Roman mythology and they named it Saturn Saturn his father was Heaven his mother earth the complex organization the Mammoth Machines the incredibly detailed technical knowledge the dedication it was all harnessed 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 the awe and wonder and excitement in the excitement of the 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 out but in the Apollo program on their way to the Moon they found a way to live out their strange moments in those strange spacecraft it may be the peculiar nature of Americans to make history and to have fun in the making they relaxed and had fun because they we were confident of success but the program teaches lessons confidence is a transitory thing Apollo 13 problem here can say again please had a problem stand by 13 we're looking at it 3 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 link themselves with their technology and cheated tragedy a new chapter in space history was written in Mission Control Eugene CR was the flight director when the problem developed uh throughout this entire uh next several days there was one dominant thought uh in the minds of all of the flight contrs uh we teach them that that between God country and your own capability uh that you can solve any problem that may occur in Flight uh throughout the entire course of Apollo 13 there was never any doubt 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 that comes up solve any problem country capability oldfashioned words during a time when some said the old fashion 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 on it these divided thoughts the moon the Earth run through the Apollo program a sort of theme they went there flying in their 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 if it's strange for men for mankind it's stranger Still For The Individual man Harrison Schmidt Dr Harrison Schmidt a geologist he touched the moon and remembers how it was when Apollo 17 was making its descent the last flight to the Moon the last time that man walked on its surface Schmidt remembers how it was one's first feelings are a mixture a very complex mixture of humility excitement because of something you had planned to do was being accomplished but of a great attention to detail to 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 rung they might be you try to remember well am I 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 and you saw them as you descended surround large craters that have been formed in that rolling Countryside these rolling dark Hills merge in the distance a few kilometers away with the very smooth but very bright colored slopes of the massifs and they rise with a Majesty to Rocky Tops that are almost Beyond description because there's nothing like that that we have seen on Earth the Sea of Tranquility hadly r tus litol 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 M of its surface and their travels took them to Craters Foothills to explore to observe and to sample Hard Rock proof of Apollo enshrined in the Smithsonian institution in Washington DC 478 8.8 G of micro breta underglass for mere earthlings to see and Whisper about other rocks from the Moon 840 lbs are being studied and talked about by scientists in Laboratories around the world not only rocks tens of thousands of photographs of those strange exotic features of the Moon and Telemetry data on tape facts figures the studies will go on for years and the aners will come slowly answers to questions about the moon and the solar system the science of Apollo is not merely 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 today's daughter and they receive it today within 8 Seconds of the command science that's the key and technology and something else in the drama of the moment few stopped 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 effort 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 the moon one day mon of December may may may the mon that's right May is the year to mon when much to my surprise a the eyes that's the truth you do that in West Tas and you get we saw something of this Spirit we shared in the adventure the excitement the Euphoria of being there we shared it with a men who bounced across the surface of the Moon look at the size of that piggy it is a piggy is it and the surprise of Discovery we were there too all of us watching vicarious explorers okay we're headed that way you get the tongs John yep car The Rake look at the size of that rock can't believe got it I can't even let's go back I am and the meaning the significance of an occasion that too came to us flashed into our living rooms on our 19in window on the universe countries throughout the world we hope that this will be a symbol of what our feelings are what the feelings of the Apollo program are and the symbol of mankind that we can live in peace and Harmony in the future there was also Pride they put up the flag and then posed for pictures as any visitor to a foreign place might do the flag of each Mission stood there as a reminder that we had been there but there was the realization that in truth it belonged to all the people there are no boundaries on the moon 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° Panorama of his own one of the first objects in the dark lunar 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 1969 they last left there in late 1972 between the beginning and the conclusion they came to feel to dimly perceive what it was all about to come to a perspective on the meaning of it all poet archabal mcash has 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 Brothers 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 present the images and the sounds provide meaning enough to each in his own way and to each in his own time