July 24, 1969 / Red Planet or Bust!

Apollo 11 rides a fireball back through Earth’s atmosphere before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. Why, after forever changing the course of human history, did we stop going to the Moon, and what, 50 years later, is NASA and the private sector planning for humanity’s next giant leap?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Nine Days in July is a production of I Heart
Radio and Trade Traft Studios in association with High five Content.
Just half an hour after the Saturn five bearing Apollo
eleven lifted off from Cape Kennedy, Vice President Spirou Agnew
sat down with Walter Cronkite, anchorman for the CBS Evening News.
After a brief discussion about the launch, Cronkite said the following,

(00:24):
you know, it's a nature of the American and the
people on the space program, particularly to constantly look beyond
where we are. This is the nature of the man
who wants to go to the Moon. However, Cronkite reminded
the Vice President that he had recently said, I think
the United States should undertake a very ambitious new project
in space. I think we should attempt interplanetary exploration in

(00:47):
a man's sense. At the time Agnew sat down with
America's most beloved newsman, Apollo eleven had just reached dorbent,
it would be four more days before it reached the Moon,
and no one knew if the first lunar mission would
even be successful. Despite that context, the Vice President of
the United States felt that American needed to articulate a
broad objective for the future. It's very easy to forego

(01:11):
the optimistic, long range approach to these things because you
can always find a hundred reasons not to do it
or why it may fail. But with the way science
has advanced in the past fifty years, I don't think
we'd be out of line and saying, for example, we're
going to put a man on Mars by the end

(01:31):
of this century. And when it came to Mars, Agnew's
objective was clear, and I think we should do it
by the end of the century. In nineteen sixty nine,
the year nine seemed a long way off. As of
the time of this recording was already two decades ago,
and we are still decades from landing on Mars. If ever, so,

(01:54):
what happened, Why did everything just stop? Where did we
go wrong? And is there any hope for humanity's space
faring future. About five hours before their planned splashed down,
the crew of Apollo eleven wake and prepare for landing.
Like excited kids waiting to open presents on Christmas morning.

(02:16):
They are up even before Houston attempts to rouse them.
Apollo eleven Good morning. To muse them all, Roger, we
saw you're up to turn around, and we're you're probably
leading your breakfast there about the maroon bugle, all of
fanning by here to give you the morning news. To
hear it. It's the last day of the news, okay.

(02:39):
Apollo eleven remains the prime story with the world awaiting
your landing today at about the eleven am used in
time President Nixon that surprised your wise with a phone
call from San Francisco just before reboarded a plane to
fly out to meet you. President Nixon is flying out
to the aircraft carry you're assigned to retrieve the crew

(03:00):
once they splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. Eric Canada
says it has accepted twenty three hundred reservations for flights
to the Moon and the past five days, it might
be noted that more than one has been made by
men for their mothers in law. The fun stuff out
of the way, now it's time to get down to business.

(03:20):
Remember that last night before they went to sleep, mission
control informed the crew that a sudden storm had moved
into their landing zone. The night before the caps that
was forced to land in the Pacific Ocean. There n
from Hawaii, there were thunder storms, and so Mass had
decided to change to splashdown location just that night before,

(03:42):
two hundred fifty miles closer to Samoa, so the ship
had to steam all not loan to get down. That's
John Wolfram. John was a Navy seal who had already
done one tour in Vietnam and was about to embark
on another. But first he was chosen to be part
of A. Paulo Levin's recovery team. I was the youngest.
I am the team at the town. We'll have lots

(04:02):
more from John, the first person to greet the crew
of Apollo eleven upon their return. In just a minute.
The weather forecast in the landing area right now is
two thousands entered high added ten miles when about zero
eight zero at eighteen knots uh. You'll have about three
to second foot ways and it looks like they'll be

(04:24):
landing about ten minutes before sunrise over okay, Cluck shows
where five and a half hours away from entry interface
point at which Apollo living winner of the RK's atmosphere.
It really gets bigger up there, follow eleven. There the

(04:45):
hornet is on the station, just far enough off the
target point to keep from getting hit a recovery one
are the coppers. They're they're on station. However, as John
wolf From said, the Navy had to race full speed
ahead to the new landing area in order to get
on station on time. The ship assigned to recover the

(05:07):
capsule and crew is the USS Hornet, an Essex class
aircraft carrier that saw action up and down the Pacific
during World War Two. And I guess we're expanding by
for you to whip into the entry attitude. Okay, we
just been thanking a couple of lass manufacturers. Roger might
hid that may never come in there. Jim Lovell told

(05:32):
buzzing the crew to make sure they come in B
E F. That means blunt and forward. That's the heat
shield side astor not humor. I can see the moon
flight and by the window, and it looked at what
I considered to be a correct sign. I follow control
at one fifty minutes Follow eleven systems now eleven thousand,
four hundred sixty three nautical miles, approaching at the velocity

(05:55):
of seventeen thousand three hut per second. We were just
under an our away from the scheduled command module of
service Michul separation. If you had fallen into a coma
just after the first Moon landing in nineteen sixty nine
and awoke in two thousand and nineteen, you could be
forgiven for assuming the mission sparked a long and robust

(06:18):
era of interstellar exploration At DASA, The truth is, enthusiasm
for the Moon mission started to wane almost immediately. Though
we returned to the Moon five more times, it would
have been six if Apollo thirteen hadn't been forced to abort.
Deploying ever more sophisticated experiments and gaining greater scientific insights,
Apollo's budget was soon slashed, and the entire project was

(06:41):
halted just three years after Neil and Buzz first set
foot on the Moon. While some assumed that the Moon
was just the beginning of America's exploration of space, others,
like those in control of the Federal Purse, felt that
we'd beat the Soviets and won the space race. Why
did we need to keep going back, Andy Aldren, It
was kind of inevitable. We got into race, we won

(07:03):
the race, and so after the race, you've kind of
warmed down a little bit, and then you go look
for the next race. And it wasn't one. What happened
after Apollo was kind of the normalization of space. There
were a few significant last gasps. Rather than let its
left over rockets go to waste, the US built a
space station under the third stage of a Saturn five.
Between nineteen seventy three and seventy four. Sky Lab was

(07:27):
occupied for about twenty four weeks, demonstrating that humans can
live and work in space for long periods of time,
what more leisure. It was not uncommon for the men
of sky Lab who indulge themselves in the fluidity of
movement in zero G. And in July of ninety exactly
six years after Neil, Buzz and Michael went to the Moon,

(07:47):
a command module docked in Earth orbit with a Russian
Soyu spacecraft and three US astronauts and two Soviet cosmonauts
visited each other's spacecraft. With the final goodbye. The astronauts
of Apollo and the cosmonauts US ended their historic meeting
in space, and that was it. After decades of intense rivalry,

(08:09):
the space race was officially over and Apollo was grounded.
It wasn't just the Apollo spacecraft coming down, it was
the curtain the last Apollo mission once he beat the Soviets,
who care Space historian Amy Shearer title Nixon okayed a
space shuttle program, but hecated as the Shuttle to nowhere.

(08:30):
It was just a vehicle that could go up. It
couldn't go very far. It couldn't land anywhere but on
a runway. So we ended up in like NASCAR and space.
We ended up just kind of like running labs. While
I was alive for the sky Lab and Apollo Soyus missions,
I was too young to remember them. I grew up
with a Space Shuttle. I remember seeing the prototype Enterprise
during its international tour in nineteen three, which, as a

(08:52):
colossal Star Trek fan even then, delighted me to no end.
As an adult, I was lucky enough to witness three
Space shut launches and a landing. I loved that ship.
But while the space shuttles did great things, including launching
the Hubble Space Telescope, which gave us an unparalleled look
at our galactic home, and lift off of the Space
Shuttle Discovery with the Hubble Space Telescope our window on

(09:15):
the universe, and building the International Space Station, ensuring we've
had humans living and working in space continuously for more
than two decades. Tonight, I am directing Nasha to develop
a permanently manned space station, and to do it within
a decade. The Space Shuttle was an indisputable technological step backwards.

(09:36):
We went from a spacecraft capable of deep space flight
to one that couldn't even leave lower th orbit. It
was a perfect landing as the Atlantis touched down after
a thirteen day mission delivering supplies to the International Space Station,
a final voyage that brings the Shuttle programming to an end.
And when the last Space Shuttle touched down on July

(09:56):
twenty one, two thousand and eleven, America no longer had
the technology to get to space. To get to and
from the International Space Station, it had to begin buying
seats on Russian spacecraft. Spacecraft distance eight thousand, ninety will
bring autical miles a lot of the nineteen thousand, five

(10:17):
twelve second back in ninety nine. Apollo eleven is nearly home.
Rescue and the aircraft are reported on the station and
Horner helicopters containing with swimmers are reported. Airborne weather still
holding real fun the recovery area, and I signed going
down on Steal darkn as you heard earlier, the crew

(10:41):
will splash down just before sunrise. As they draw nearer
to the Earth, they find themselves shrouded in the darkness
of the Earth's night side. They are now traveling down
the barrel of a forty mile wide entry corridor. In
the command module, Michael swears he can feel the gravity
of his planet pulling him home. The men swallow anti

(11:01):
nausea pills. Assuming everything goes according to plan, they will
soon be bobbing in seas with three to six foot waves.
The men have gone over their entry checklists numerous times already.
They have too much time on their hands, and it's
beginning to create some anxiety. And we're about ten minutes
away from the scheduled separations time. Now it's time to

(11:21):
lose the service module, the largest portion of their spacecraft,
containing most of their power, fuel and rocket engine. They
can't enter the atmosphere if it's still attached. We see
you getting ready for sent Everything wants to find to
find down here, we're awaiting confirmation of separation. When Apollo
eleven launched, it weighs six million pounds. The only thing

(11:44):
left of the once massive Saturn five is the eleven
thousand pound triangular shaped station wagon sized command module. Once detached,
thrusters on the service module fire to push it far
from the crew. They don't want it burning up anywhere
near them. Away confirmed separation. Now from on my ground
reading telemetry, we can confirm separation. And also was mindul

(12:07):
taking good carabous? You want to take you to a
camp in Houston. I used to look at mighty fine
here your player for landing. I appreciate every d gears
down a lock more astronaut humor. We got the modulet
going by a little high coming across now right to left. Buzzes.

(12:30):
Words that you just heard were actually classified for years.
The thrusters that were supposed to move the service module
away didn't work properly. The crew is about to begin
their re entry and the service module is diving into
the atmosphere right beside them. Hello, I'm gonna lined up
right down the mid a little bit. Entry corridors now

(12:51):
thirty five thousand, five seventy eight ft per second. We're
a minute in forty five seconds from entry. Blackout will
begin eighteens second after once the ship strikes the atmosphere
and becomes wreathed in plasma calms with mission control will
be impossible. They will be coming down in the blind

(13:12):
over the hill. You're looking mind to find that we're
an entry time black guys. Very shortly, there's a black
guy at am Houston time, four thousand feet above Australia, Columbia,
hits the atmosphere and more than thirty six thousand ft
per second, or ten times faster than a rifle bullet.

(13:35):
We had to be able to use the atmosphere to
slow us all the way down, uh until we got
into a velocity that will allow us to put up
the parish. That was Apollo eight and Apollo thirteen astronaut
Jim Level. Tracy Caldwald Dyson is a current NASA astronaut.
She went to space twice, once on the Space Shuttle
and the second time to live aboard the International Space Station.

(13:58):
To get home from that trip, she had to take
a ride in a Russian soy Use capsule and you
see the the atmosphere that you're about to go through,
and then you fire this one burn. It's a long burn,
and it's directed precisely to put you at the right
angle and at the right spot to pass through the atmosphere.
If Michael didn't calculate the precise right angle, the command

(14:19):
module will be vaporized too shallow, and it will bounce
off the atmosphere and be flung into space. The blackness
the guys were talking about earlier is now gone. Out
their tiny windows. The astronauts now begin to see ravenous
flames as ionized gases created by the heat re entry
begin enveloping the ship. Calms are gone for the next

(14:40):
four minutes. No one on Earth will know what's going
on inside apollow eleven, or indeed whether they successfully made
it through the atmosphere or disintegrated on re entry. Where
three minutes since entry blackout shoot in about three minutes
fifty three seconds after entry, or about eleven minutes lay

(15:02):
back in mission control, Evans at Capcom optimistically attempts to
raise the ship. There is no answer. Inside Columbia, the
astronauts can no longer see the service module. They are
enveloped in incandescent protoplasm. If you could see them right now,
they appear as a blazing comment. The astronauts are falling

(15:27):
through a tunnel of colors orange, yellow, blue, even lavender,
which finally gives way to pure white. Michael feels as
if he's sitting inside of an enormous light bulb. Jim Level.
We could, of course look out the windows and see
the hate shield material. Flaky's all as the flames going
passed us. You never go through grade school thinking you're

(15:48):
going to be in the middle of a fireball, but
that's exactly what happens as you go through the atmosphere.
Your spacecraft is a blating and designed to do that.
Pieces of embers as your window, and you can smell
the charring, so you can feel the g forces building.
What they can't see is that the service module is
being torn into fiery pieces. If any of the dying

(16:10):
vessels fragments collide with the command module, it will almost
certainly kill everyone aboard. Right, we tried going to the

(16:32):
Moon again. Inspired by all that that has come before,
and guided by clear objectives, today we set a new
course for America's space program. We will give NASA new
focus and vision for future exploration. We will build new
ships to carry man forward into the universe, to gain
a new foothold on the Moon, and to prepare for

(16:54):
new journeys to the worlds beyond our own on January
two and four, President H. W. Bush said, we will
undertake extended human missions to the Moon as early as
with the goal of living and working there for increasingly
extended periods of time. We even tested one of the
rockets that was going to get us there, the Cognition

(17:17):
lift off of Harry's one X festing concepts for the
future of new rocket design. On top of the arias
was going to be a new command module named Oriyan,
and blueprints were being drafted for a new lunar module
dubbed Altaire. However, when the Obama administration took over, they
found the program over budget and behind schedule, and they

(17:40):
shut it down. Yes, pursuing this new strategy will require
that we revise the old strategy. In part. This is
because the old strategy, including the constellation program, was not
fulfilling its promise in many ways, and in the organization
like NASA, where lead times for developing technology are so long,
if you suddenly change the general objective of things every

(18:01):
four years, it has a huge impact. We have to
stop pushing the reset button every time there's a change
of power. In Washington, they've been pushing the reset button
on NASA again. And again and again, and it's been
really harmful to the progress of the program. To keep
moving the goal post the entire football stadium. That's destructive.

(18:21):
That was NASA chief historian Bill Berry and Apollo historian
Andrew Chaken. Under Obama, NASA proposed a new mission landing
humans on an asteroid, but that too soon withered on
the vine, and all the while American astronauts kept getting
two and from space on Russian equipment. Then in two
thousand and seventeen, nearly a decade after Constellation was shelved,

(18:44):
NASA announced the Artemis program. Fifty years ago, we went
to the Moon. We called it Apollo. Well many people
don't know is that Apollo had a twin. She was
a woman named Artemis, the goddess of the Moon. As
Tracy calledwell Dyson. She represents our next era of exploration

(19:10):
in space. Artemis encompasses how we're going to get to
the Moon and what we're gonna do when we get there.
NASA's goal is landing the first woman in man on
the Moon. By just four years from now, we are
returning to the Moon as a new generation of explorers,
this time to stay. Artemists is intended to be the

(19:32):
first step in setting up a long term human presence
on the Moon and perhaps even creating a lunar economy.
And this is all to explore the surface of the
Moon and utilize the resources there. We found an ideal
fuel in the soul when materials on the Moon for
fusion power production. It's called helium three. Apollo seventeen moonwalker

(19:56):
and geologist Harrison Schmidt Iste imp that fuse with itself
produces absolutely no radio activity. It creates energetic particles that
can be converted to electricity at much higher efficiencies than
any other kind of power systems. Artemis is the most
ambitious thing NASA has done since Apollo. It is nearly

(20:18):
done building the SLS, a new rocket even larger and
more powerful than the Saturn five. NASA is building the
Space Launch System, comprising of a cargo hold and exploration
upper stage, a massive course stage, and two extended solid
rocket boosters. Altogether, this is the world's most powerful rocket
and it exceeds the legendary Saturn five of the Apollo

(20:39):
era in numerous ways. The fl F is Space Launch System,
and it is the greatest rocket we've ever built. Yes,
it will be more powerful than the Saturn five. The
Ryan Capsule is the spacecraft that is going to return
humans to the Moon and destinations beyond. Just as the

(21:02):
Command Module is the only part of the Saturn five
to survive the trip, so two is the Orion Capsule
the only thing to survive Constellation. This is their deep
space human rated spacecraft called Orion. The crew module. We're
up to four astronauts will live and work throughout the flight,
and while the original Command Module could hold only three people,
the Orion Capsule has seating for four. Other than the

(21:24):
new lemb which will discuss in just a moment, NASA
has added something to the Apollo architecture, the Gateway. Building
on the lessons learned from the International Space Station, the
key to sustainable lunar missions is establishing an orbiting lunar
outpost that we call Gateway, a small space station. The
Gateway will be placed in orbit around the Moon and
provide the astronauts living quarters and their research lab. The

(21:47):
Apollo missions were inspired by a space race. Artemis is
also a global partnership. We're not a race, We're a partnership.
We're going to explore the Moon for purposes that benefit
mankind to learn more about it and use it as
a platform to then go further. I'm profoundly grateful that

(22:09):
we are setting our sights on the Moon again after
so much time when the Moon seemed to be sideline. However,
Chicken is skeptical, and I just am not convinced that
we can, even with the most talented people that we
have at NASA and elsewhere. It's asking a lot to
do it in just five years. But I'm glad we're

(22:30):
talking about it. I want to see it happen. I
just don't want to see us do it without the
same care and the same diligence, because if we don't
do those things, we're gonna pay the price that they
paid an Apollo with accidents and perhaps even fatal accidents.
And he's not the only one. Space historian Amy Sharer

(22:50):
title feels the same way. Yeah, I feel like we're
in that compleateding where we have to manage expectations with
the reality of how hard space it. That's fine, because
space is hard, but you know, let's let's be realistic
and say we're going to do this, and we're going
to do it in the time that it needs to take.
For her part, Tracy Caldwell Dyson, who's in line to
be the first woman on the moon, thinks NASA is

(23:10):
doing just that. We know things take time, and they
take time because human lives are at stake. Everything in
space takes longer. And then in this day and age
where everything is so instant, we have to take time
or else we're not gonna get there smartly, and then
we could end up parting somebody in the process. One

(23:32):
of the ways NASA is hoping to alleviate time and
stress is by allowing commercial interests to take over human
and cargo flights to the I s s. That way
they can focus on bigger things. There are a group
of billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and some
others who are leading sort of the growth of a
commercial private space industry that has been over the last

(23:55):
decade or so slowly eroding the government's long held but
not lee on space. That's Chris Davenport. I'm a reporter
at the Washington Post, where I write about space and
um also the author of a book called The Space
barns Well. NASA and other global governments have dominated space
exploration given its expense and risk. Private entrepreneurs Chris is

(24:18):
aptly named space Barns are beginning to move in on
their domain, bringing with them new technologies and innovative manufacturing
processes that drive costs down and get the job done faster.
First and foremost elon Musk SpaceX. I mean, they are
the ones who sort of broke down the barriers from
the very beginning and said we are going to enter

(24:39):
this market and try to disrupt the space launch market.
And they've been successful in doing that, and they've gotten
multiple contracts from NASA to the tune of billions of
dollars to fly first cargo and supplies to the International
Space Station, which they've been doing now for a number
of years. And SpaceX along with Boeing have contracts to

(25:01):
fly people to the International Space Station. And then you
have Blue Origin, which was founded by Jeff Bezos. Bezos,
who owns Amazon, is the richest man in the world.
A lot of people don't even realize that Jeff Bezos
has a space company, but he does, and they're building
a whole suite of vehicles. In fact, Blue Origin will
be the lead company designing and building the new lunar

(25:23):
module for the artist project. Let me show you something.
This is Blue Moon. We've been working on this lander
for three years. This is an incredible vehicle and it's
going to the Moon. And you're seeing NASA initially being
I think reluctant, are wary of that, and now more

(25:44):
and more starting to embrace that, saying if we are
going to go back to the Moon or on to Mars,
we're gonna need these companies. One of the biggest things
companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are doing is rebooting
how we make rockets. Since they were first invented, rockets
have been a one and done piece of equipment. And
Ellen looked at that, and Jeff Bezos looked at that

(26:05):
and said, you know, we're never going to lower the
cost of space. We keep throwing away the most expensive
part of the hardware. Imagine if after flying from Los
Angeles to New York, United Airlines threw away the seven
thirty seven that brought you there. That's essentially what we're
doing in space right now. So they are working on
building rockets that deliver their payloads to orbit and then

(26:29):
fly back down to Earth and land on land or
land on a ship at sea. During the Cold War,
space exploration was driven by intense political and ideological rivalries.
Today space has become ego driven. Davenport once asked Elon
Musk about his rivalry with Bezos, and Musk told him
if I had a button that I could press and

(26:51):
make Jeff Bezos Blue Origin go away, I would not
press that button. And I think that's because he understands
how important it is to have competition and to be
driven by rivals. Competition is the best rocket fuel. But
Elon Musk is not satisfied with merely shuttling cargo and
people to the International Space Station. He and NASA have

(27:12):
their eyes set much higher. The reason for creating SpaceX
was to accelerate humanity becoming a space bearing civilization to
a point where we could potentially become a multiplanet species.
All of Humanity's eggs are in one basket, and should
something happen to the Earth, you know, like if an

(27:32):
asteroid would hit the Earth, we're toast. We're going the
way of the dinosaur. And his goal was to sort
of have a backup um, the way you would back
up your hard drive, but for humanity, and that's Mars,
to make it a place where humanity could go and
to extend the light of consciousness well into the future
and sort of as an insurance plan. Eleven th Back

(28:03):
in mission control, Ron Evans is still trying to raise Neil,
buzzing Michael in the command module. If Columbia survived re entry,
they should have regained contact again by now, even through
ray standing by. Be nice to get that confirmation and

(28:25):
minutes gone by now since they scheduling opening to the mains.
On the USS Hornet spotters scan the sky with binoculars.
Give us the word. We're getting nothing from a mission
control or from the spaceship, reports Sonic Colon. One of
the sailors cries out he thinks he sees something falling

(28:47):
through the clouds aboard his helicopter. Rescue swimmer John Wolfer
sees it too. We looked up from the helicopter. You
can see the capsule burning back to the atmosphere. A
momentary eventual of high attack has now disappeared behind cloud
and FLO elevens and standing by for your desty reading
over FULO eleven east and your destry reading plays over

(29:14):
at that was new They've made it dog they are,
and they're obviously all right shoots have deployed eleven cos
right on. Well, you take that to Some of the

(29:36):
more sensational moments are when the parachutes open up and
it feels like it brings the whole copsle to a
slam stop, and then it spins, and then it sways
back and forth, and the whole time you're just hoping
that you keep your cookies and should be on main shoots.
It is like one of the craziest ride you've ever
had in your life. Eight minutes after first hitting the atmosphere,

(29:58):
the command modules slowed enough for three large red and
white parachutes to open. They had to deploy at just
the right time. If they opened too late, the capsule
would hit the water too violently too early, and they'd
likely drift off course far from rescue. For the crew
of Apollo eleven, the view outside their windows went from
the inky blackness of space to the nucleus of a

(30:19):
fireball and is now the dazzling azure blue of the
earth sky. We're cast four minutes and with that, mission
control's work is done. With the shoots deployed, tactical operational
command transfers from mission control to the U S s Hornet,

(30:46):
I have an Eric, I have a three part flashed down.
They're back from the Moon. As for not time strong
Aldrin and Collins landing in the Pacific Ocean southwest of Hay,

(31:08):
Apollo eleven splashes down eight hundred and twenty five nautical
miles southwest of Honolulu, about thirteen nautical miles from the
recovery show inside the capsule, Mike Collins is astonished at
how blue the ocean looks Imagine after nine days of
monochrome black and then gray and then black again, what
dropping into a violet ocean must look like their eyes.

(31:30):
Jim Lovell splash down for me was very exhilarated. I
could feel the bobby of the ocean and the spacecraft,
and suddenly I realized that, my gosh a home. Everything
worked out now if the Navy would be very careful
and not to let the spacecraft sake on us, but

(31:52):
we were safe. In Houston. Buzzes son Andy is watching
the news on splash down day. We had a lot
of people over at the house, and hind everyone that
was associated with my dad or mom seemed to show up.
Andy wishes he was aboard the U. S. S. Hornet,
not so much because he wants to be among the
first to greet his dad, but rather because he's eleven
years old and aircraft carriers are cool. There was sort

(32:15):
of a collective sigh of relief when it was all done.
His mother, Joan, can finally relax. Her husband and his
two shipmates survived the greatest feat humans ever attempted, and
would soon be on their way home as conquering heroes.
At this moment in time, Joan has no idea of
the challenges and heartaches to come, but if she had,

(32:36):
she would surely have taken some strength in the fact
that she had just faced the most profoundly difficult nine
days of her life and come out on the other
side a hero to her children. My mother was incredibly
effective at not letting us know what happened. I didn't
sense her anxiety at all. It just reflects the incredible
strength that my mom showed throughout this whole process. After

(32:59):
the splashdown, Janet Armstrong stood on her front yard and
in front of the gathered press, thanked everyone in America
for their thoughts and prayers. The entire experience, she said,
was quite simply out of this world and when the

(33:40):
capsule hit the ocean water. I think mars Alden was
supposed to flip a lever the jets in those parachutes,
but his hand got knocked up to lever because of
the jolt, and the wind carried the capsule upset. Now,
the last thing you want to be attached to in
the water is a parachute. One of two things is
going to happen. I the parachute will fill with water

(34:01):
and drag you wonder, or it will catch the wind
like a sail and begin dragging you away. As soon
as Columbia hit the water, Buzz was supposed to trip
a circuit breaker, jettisoning the shoots and allowing Michael to
deploy inflatable balloons to keep the capsule upright, but the
impact was so violent that his hand was knocked off
the switch, and by the time he was able to
find it again, the gum drop was already inverted, with

(34:24):
each of the men hanging upside down in their seats. Earlier,
Michael Bett Neil a beer that they'd stay upright. He
just lost that bed. They flipped some splitches I think
Mark Collins did that would inflate these blooms. And they
took the whole a minister that capsule the upright. As
they hang upside down with the balloons inflating, Michael thinks,
how wrongly oriented everything looks back in a world with

(34:47):
gravity for the first time in nine days, tops and
bottoms are real things again. Got in position and I'm standing.
Then they go, and as I'm looking down at that capsule,
I realized the world was watching, so I didn't want
to make any mistakes. John Wolfram jumps from the hovering

(35:13):
helicopter and swims over to Columbia. It's lower half charred
and blackened from re entering. The capsule is still warnder
to touch. John attaches a sea anchor, basically a large
cloth bucket designed to fill with water and keep the
vessel more or less where it is that I was
supposed to get a thumbs up in the astronauts. I

(35:34):
saw them grinning back at me. I relayed that to
the National helicopter that was circund above and let him
mold the Okay, right, we're going. There's two more frogmen.
They jumped in and together we put this floatation bladder

(35:57):
around the capsule, and then after that was completed, they
dropped down a wrapped if we implanted in and then
we got trashed right in front of the hatch store
where the ash nuts would come out. Next come the
bigs biological isolation garments. Do you swimmer with? The biological

(36:18):
isolation garments is in the next to the space crap.
That's Lieutenant Clancy Handelberg of Chippewa falls within a const
NASA is concerned that the astronauts may have brought something
harmful back with them from the Moon. Because of this,
the rescue divers are all wearing protective gear, and they
brought biggs for the Apollo eleven crew to put on
as well. The fear of alien pathogens is in the

(36:40):
forefront of everyone's minds. Nine is the same year that
Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain came out about the deadly
outbreak of an extraterrestrial micro organism. Neil opens the command
module hatch so twenty five year old Lieutenant Haddleberg can
hand them their suits. If there are moonbugs, they were
just released into our atmosphere and ocean, so much for

(37:02):
that plan is now transferring to the crew. Haddleberg reseals
the hatch inside Columbia Neil, Buzz and Michael stand unsteadily.
After a week and a half in space, Earth normal
gravity feels well aliens. The men swallow several more anti
nausea meds. The last thing they want to do is
throw up inside their biohazard suits. A big sama now

(37:26):
spraying the hatch area and the top deck and around
the hatch. Command modger with it, even in stamina. While
the crew changes, Lieutenant Haddleberg uses a large brush to
scrub the exterior of Columbia with a sudsy decontaminant, just
in case it's covered in spacebugs. First, after they downed them,

(37:46):
they came out into the raft, Haddelberg washed them all down.
Once all the astronauts are decontaminated, they climb aboard the raft.
They are splashed by waves, and even though they're covered
head to toe, they can feel the fresh and cold.
Michael wants nothing more than to rip off his suit,
splash cold water all over his face, and inhale the

(38:07):
fresh sea air. They are burning up inside those suits.
Hold on recovery is one by one. Neil, Buzz and
Michael are lifted into a hovering helicopter. As the helicopter
with the Apollo eleven crew begins making its way back
to the Hornet. John Wolfrem and the rest of the

(38:28):
Navy seals decided to grab a little memento of the occasion.
When no one was looking. We stripped off huns with
that gold coil that was burned off from coming back
through the atmosphere and put it down our website for souvenirs.
We knew that once the castle got out board the
usas Hornet Marine super Garden, so we got our souvenirs first.

(38:51):
Aboard the helicopter, Michael and Buzz stand precariously on unsteady legs.
Now that gravity is once again a factor, their body
fluids are moving in very different ways than they have
for the past week and a half. When the helicopter
touches down on the Hornet, the flight elevator descends to
the hangar deck, where the men are escorted to a
mobile quarantine chamber, a modified airstream trailer. Their face plates

(39:14):
are so fogg up they can hardly see anything, but
they can hear a band playing. They will remain in
this trailer until they reach the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in
Houston three days from now at which point they will
be transferred to a larger quarantine facility for the next
three weeks. Back in Houston, flight controllers begin lighting cigars
and waving small American flags above them. All glowing on

(39:37):
the main display screen are the words John F. Kennedy
uttered the Congress nearly ten years earlier. I believe that
this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before
this decade is out of landing a man on the
Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. And so
this nation has locked inside the trailer with Neil, Buzz

(39:58):
and Michael are two NASA representatives, including a flight surgeon,
who gives each of the men a quick physical. Next,
they enjoy a quick but much needed shower while they
wait for the celebration outside to begin. The men are
shown several videos covering their landing and moonwalk. Buzz said
that they were sitting there watching these tapes and it
suddenly dawned on him that he and Neil and Mike

(40:23):
were removed from that. He turned to Neil and he said, Neil,
we missed the whole thing. The mood on the USS
hornet is jubilant. The mobile quarantine trailer is surrounded by
euphoric sailors and NASA personnel from the midst of the melee.
President Richard Nixon appears and greets the astronauts through a
large window. This is the greatest week and the history

(40:45):
of the world since the creation, because as a result
of what happened in this week, the world is bigger infinitely,
as a result of what you've done, the world has
never been closer together before. And we just thank you
for that, and I own I hope that all of
us in government, all of us in America, that as
a result of what you've done, we could do our

(41:06):
job a little better. We can reach for the stars,
just as you have raised so far from the stars.
The astronauts will later be treated to a state dinner
and Michael will finally get that Martini he's been craving.
In our first episode, I mentioned that humankind has always
been driven by an innate desire to explore. There are

(41:28):
times in human history when people have struck out beyond
the known universe, has gone over the next hill into
the next valley, got on a boat and cross the ocean.
And the Apollo program was one of those times when
people really and truly were exploring and pushing the boundaries
of human understanding and investigating new places that no one

(41:49):
had ever seen before. Once client, the unexplored hill on
the horizon now becomes familiar territory. But that's the thing
about exploration, isn't it. There's always another mountain, there's always
another horizon calling to us. Going to the Moon is
super important, but the ultimate goal is to go to Mars.
I think Mars is the next logical destination. I think

(42:14):
the Moon is absolutely in the critical path to get
to Mars. The next real advance of space flight is
to go back to the Moon. And then used the
architecture of going to the Moon and expanded to go
to Mars. And I'm positive that man, one day we'll
go to Bars. Why because it's there. Robert Zubran was

(42:36):
five years old when spot Nick flew, and while to
the adults it may have been terrifying, to me as
a small kid, it was exhilarating. It meant that these
stories that I was already reading about this space faring
future science fiction, we're going to be true, and I
wanted to be part of it. Robert is an aerospace engineer,

(42:57):
the president of the Mars Society and the author of
the The case for Mars. I was seventeen when we
landed on the Moon. And if anybody had told me
then that I'd be sixty seven and we wouldn't be
on the Moon, and in fact on Mars, I would
have thought they were crazy. Apollo was the last to
rob the people that won World War Two and a
political class that could work together to accomplish great ends,

(43:20):
whether it was World War Two, the Interstate Highway system,
the development in nuclear energy, or Apollo. What great accomplishments
has the US government achieved since three Without a goal,
you don't achieve anything, and the human spaceflight program has
been drifting for almost fifty years. Apollo inspired Americans, showing

(43:43):
them that they were capable of doing great things. It
motivated tens of thousands of people to go into engineering,
and was the bedrock on which our modern computerized and
technological world is based. But for Zubrin, we are living
off of Apollo's favors. Just days after Apollo eleven returned
to Earth, Verni von Braun, the architect of the Saturn five,

(44:06):
began drawing up plans for a Mars mission for Robert
and many in the space industry. We should have listened
to von Braun. We never should have abandoned the Moon,
but rather used it as an outward bound school where
we could learn to live off planet, honing our skills
for our next trek into the unknown Mars. For Zubrin,

(44:27):
there are three reasons to go to Mars. For the science,
for the challenge, and for the future the science. There's
profound science to be discovered by going to Mars. Mars
was once a warm and wet planet. The early Mars
was very similar to the early Earth. I mean, I'm
convinced that there was once life on Mars and there
probably still is. Second is the challenge. I believe that

(44:51):
civilizations are like individuals. We grow when we challenge ourselves,
we stagnate when we do not. And then finally, there's
the future. If we do what we can do in
our time, which has established that first human foothold on Mars,
then you know, five years from now there will be
new branches of human civilization. And we're talking about new nations,

(45:12):
new cultures, new languages, new literatures, new traditions, new contributions
to technology and invention and social thought, new heroes, new
tales of great deeds that will be used to inspire
people that will go further. And if you have it
in your power to create something brand and wonderful, then

(45:32):
you should. Robert believes this so strongly that he thinks
NASA should skip the Moon and divert all of its
energies to Mars. We're not going to fully inspire the
next generation of youth by replicating a feat done by
their grandparents generation. We're going to inspire them by going
to a new world to do what has been done before,

(45:52):
to see what hasn't been seen before, to discover what
was never known before. That's why we're gonna to Mars,
and that's why this fool inspire of the next generation.
And yet I hear some of you asking what about
our problems back here on Earth. As we discussed on
the outside of this podcast, the America of nineteen sixty
nine bears an uncomfortable resemblance to the America of two

(46:13):
thousand and nineteen. For every York Pennsylvania, there's a Ferguson Missouri.
For every Vietnam, there's Afghanistan. For every Cold War, there's
Russian meddling in our elections. For every looming impeachment of
Richard Nixon, there's a looming impeachment of Donald Trump. For
every protest in favor of civil liberties, voting rights, and

(46:33):
equal pay, there's well, you know, and now we're setting
our sights on the moon and beyond. Are we fools
to try this again? The criticisms leveled by civil rights
leaders who protested all of the money spent on Apollo
at the expense of the nation's most vulnerable remain both
valid and omnipresent. Today, fifty years on, not much appears

(46:56):
to have changed. And yet I'm reminded of the words
of NASA's Bill Dunford, who said, why should we worry
about what's going on outside the cave? We have so
many problems here inside the cave. Why should we waste
time trying to figure out agriculture. We have so much
work to do hunting and gathering. Why should we spend
so much effort messing about in boats? We have so

(47:18):
many issues right here on land. Why should we fiddle
with those computers. There's so much calculating that still needs
to be done with these pencils. Why should we explore space?
We have so many problems right here on Earth? It's
all about how we prioritize our future. After all, NASA's
entire fifty year budget is roughly equal to what this

(47:41):
country spends on its military in just one year. Historically,
NASA's grandest steps have stimulated our economy, supercharged our innovation,
created astonishing spinoff technologies, broadened our science, inspired new generations
with new opportunities, and remind at us to look up
from our domestic squabbles and take in the cosmic perspective.

(48:05):
Asking if space exploration is a sensible use of our
money is a reasonable and rational question, but it cannot
be the only question. We must also ask what everything
we've learned and everything we've derived been possible without it?
Would our revolutions in computing and communications, in medicine and transportation,

(48:25):
in astrophysics and planetary sciences come about without Apollo? Would
we understand our own planet, including the peril it's in
right now because of our thoughtlessness, if we had not
dared to step off world. Beyond the political victories and
the scientific insights, the Space program gave a mangled America hope,

(48:46):
hope that a better future is within reach. Throughout our history,
from the Mayflower to the modern refugee crisis. Humans have
left the safe or the familiar to undertake a bold
mission to a new world old, and we can do
it again. Before Explorer George Mallory departed to scale matt Everest,

(49:07):
he was asked why he was undertaking such a difficult
and perilous quest, because it is there. He answered, well,
space is there, and we're going to climb it, and
the moon and the planet Sada and new hopes for
knowledge and peace of THEA. And therefore, as we set sail,
we asked God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous

(49:30):
and greatest adventure on which man has ever invoked. During
the cruise voyage back to the United States, aboard the
U S. S. Hornet, Michael excused himself and left his colleagues.
The Columbia had been connected to the mobile quarantine facility
by an air tight tunnel, and Michael claimed aboard alone,

(49:51):
taking it all in one last time. The Apollo eleven
mission lasted one and nine hours, eighteen minutes and thirty
five and in that time the ship traveled nearly one
million miles. Michael pulled a pen from his pocket and,
in an act understood by anyone who has ever wanted
to ensure that they are remembered for something they did

(50:13):
or saw, scribbled the following graffiti on one of the
command modules Equipment Bay Panels Apollo eleven alias Columbia, the
best ship to come down the line. God bless her
Michael Collins, Command Module Pilot. That note and the vessel
it adorns now rest in the lobby of the Smithsonian's

(50:36):
Air and Space Museum in Washington, d C. A tangible
testament to nine extraordinary days in July. This podcast is
a production of I Heart Radio and Trade Traft Studios,
executive producers Astroea and Scott Bernstein, in association with High
Five Content and executive brucer Andrew Jacobs. This spectacular series

(51:01):
was his brilliant idea, amazing research and prorection assistance by
associate producers Brian Schasso and Natalie Robomed. Our incredible editor
is Bill Lance. Original music by Henry ben Wa, Licensing
rights and clearances by Deborah Correa. Special thanks also to
consultant Gina Delvac Studio space generously provided by Gabby and

(51:24):
Helen Phibbs, the experts who contributed to this final episode
where Andy Aldred Navy seal John Wolfram, journalist Chris Davenport,
author of the Space Barons, NASA Chief historian Bill Berry,
Andrew Chaikin, the author of A Man on the Moon,
Robert Zubrin, the author of The Case for Space and
The Case for Mars. Space historian Amy Shearer title the

(51:47):
author of Fighting for Space out later this month, Apollo thirteens,
Jim Lovell, Apollo seventeens, Harris and Schmidt, and current NASA
astronaut Tracy Calledwell Dyson. In addition to the works just mentioned,
the following books were essential in shaping this series. Carrying
the Fire by Michael Collins, Magnificent Desolation by Buzz Aldren,

(52:08):
Failure Is Not An Option by Gene Krantz, First Man
by James Hansen, and Two Sides of the Move by
Alexei Leonov and David Scott. This podcast would have been
impossible without the profound assistance of so many people at NASA,
people like Bert Ulrich, Sandra Johnson, Brandy Dean, Gregory Wiseman,

(52:29):
and Stephanie Sherrolds. NASA's Apollo eleven Flight Journal, compiled by
David Woods, Ken mctaggard and Frank O'Brien was absolutely indispensable,
and of course, the incredible technological wizardry of consulting producer
Ben Feist, who is responsible for organizing and cleaning the
eleven thousand hours of mission audio you heard selections from

(52:51):
in this podcast. Lastly, I want to acknowledge I Heart's
own Noel Brown, Tristan McNeil, Crystal Waters, and David Wasserman
for their unbroken and tireless assistance. We hope you enjoyed
this podcast. If you did, please help us spread it
far and wide, tell your friends, leave ratings and reviews,

(53:12):
and chat about it on social media. You can subscribe
to nine Days in July wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Brandon Phibbs. Thank you so much for listening