July 9, 2025 • 17 mins
A deadly lunar landing sim nearly grounds Apollo 11 before it begins. Rivalries ignite between Neil and Buzz—and history almost ends before it starts.
*
BUZZ - Series Credits
Created by Stephen Kronish
Directed by John Scott Dryden
Written by Stephen Kronish
with Matt Graham & Thompson Evans
Original music - Sacha Puttnam
Editing & Sound Design - Eloise Whitmore
Cast
Buzz Aldrin (older) - John Lithgow
Buzz Aldrin (younger) - Geoffrey Arend
Neil Armstrong - David Menkin
Mike Collins - Taylor Napier
Joan Aldrin - Julee Cerda
Gene Kranz - Philip Desmeules
Chris Kraft - Nathan Osgood
Deke Slayton - Patrick Poletti
Dr. Rachel Ludwig - Jennifer Armour
Walter Cronkite - Kerry Shale
Sir Bernard Lovell - Rufus Wright
Brian Duff - Akie Kotabe
Jan Armstrong - Natasha Arancini
Pat Collins - Valentina Arena
Ensemble - Eric Myers, Laurel Lefkow, Greg Lockett, Christopher Ragland, Adam Sina, Phillipe Bosher, Eric Sirakian & Flynn Ivo
Children - Sadi Mitchell, Hugo Dryden and Uly Zarkovich Huff
Production
Script Editing - Mike Walker
Additional Material & Script Supervision - Alex Lynch
The Technical Consultant - Matthew H. Hersch
Studio Engineers - Mat Clark & Paul Clark
Trailers Producer - Jack Soper
Producer & Casting - Emma Hearn
Executive Producers - Jeremy Fox, John Scott Dryden, Stephen Kronish, Howard Stringer & Jason English
BUZZ is a production of Thoroughbred Studios, Goldhawk Productions & iHeartPodcasts
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Buzz, an audio drama for iHeart Podcasts starring John Lithgow
and Jeffrey Aaron as buzz Aldren. This series is based
on real events, However, certain characters, names, incidents, locations, and
dialogue have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Chapter one, Eagles descending a thirteen hundred feet litteral landing
area in sight Mission control, Houston.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Do you copy?
Speaker 4 (00:31):
We copy?
Speaker 5 (00:32):
Neil all love and looking good for letter landing?
Speaker 6 (00:37):
Mission Control confirm AGS landing coordinates.
Speaker 7 (00:41):
Roger that bun and confirming a.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Decent continuing twelve hundred.
Speaker 6 (00:47):
Feet copy prepare for a lunar touchdown in ninety seconds.
How about those coordinates used in While We're Young.
Speaker 8 (00:59):
We're about the Flights?
Speaker 7 (01:01):
AGS is one zero one three six one four point
zero seven plus zero zero zero nine or eight.
Speaker 9 (01:10):
Houston, your numbers are incorrect. AGS is plus zero zero
five seven to two. You expect us to hit our
landing site with coordinates that are off by a factor
of five?
Speaker 8 (01:22):
How long before he mentioned it? Mentions?
Speaker 10 (01:25):
What that he's five beta kappa and we're not capcom
run that AGS calculation again?
Speaker 9 (01:33):
I already ran it, Houston, AGS is plus zero zero five.
Speaker 6 (01:39):
Seven to two.
Speaker 9 (01:40):
I'll bet my five beta Kappa.
Speaker 10 (01:42):
Key on it.
Speaker 8 (01:43):
Told you you know him well.
Speaker 6 (01:45):
Anyone else want to anti up.
Speaker 7 (01:49):
AGS? Error is acknowledged.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Repeat please whose error ours? Your figures are correct?
Speaker 7 (01:56):
Buzz AGS is zero zero five two.
Speaker 6 (02:01):
Sorry about that, Roger Houston. The air is human to
forgive is mine?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Eagle descending one thousand feet till lunar touchdown, and then we.
Speaker 6 (02:15):
Have an alarm code descent propulsion failure.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Initiate engine restart.
Speaker 6 (02:20):
Losing altitude rapidly eight hundred feet.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
Neil is flight.
Speaker 10 (02:25):
Your descent rate is critical.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I can save it.
Speaker 6 (02:28):
Engine restart is not five hundred feet and falling. Neil
initiate landing aboard now three hundred feet.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I can save it.
Speaker 6 (02:40):
We're no longer possible lunar impact.
Speaker 7 (02:43):
Eminent Eagle has craft likelihood of cruise survival is zeround.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
If Neil and I had really left the ground, but
we hadn't. We were still in the lunar module simulate
at NASA's headquarters in Houston. There's nothing like a near
death experience, even simulated, to change your priorities.
Speaker 10 (03:10):
Eagle crew and flight engineers stand by to evaluate cause
and effect of DPS malfunction.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
The cause may have been a mystery to everyone but
flight director Gene Krantz, but the effect was staring all
of us in the face. Neil Armstrong, commander of Apollo eleven,
shut down when he should have stepped up.
Speaker 10 (03:33):
Gentlemen, listen up, clench your right hand, stick out your
index finger, and use it to call your wife, your girlfriend,
or your mommy and tell her you're going to be
late tonight. Today we had a setback, but the launch
of Apollo eleven will not be delayed.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
More people saw us on the Moon than just any
single event before or since. We galvanized the world, then
we came home. That's the story you think you know,
this is the story.
Speaker 10 (04:12):
You don't ignition frequent five.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Five four with the quality day here. You ain't going
to plant the one all trap per ram.
Speaker 10 (04:33):
Fil.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
You're listening to buzzz and this is the story of
my greatest achievement. Chapter one.
Speaker 11 (04:57):
Normally, which expects to being the leader of other natives,
can't expect to stay behind in this race of space.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
In the fall of nineteen sixty two, President Kennedy summoned
the best in US as Americans and as human beings.
Speaker 7 (05:14):
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to
go to the moon.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
And this decayed because that challenge is one.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
That we're willing to acampt, one we are willing to postpone,
and one we intend to win.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Then it was dead. Six years later, what should have
been America's decade saw us on the brink of a
second civil war, city streets on fire, with racial violence,
campuses torn apart by the war in Vietnam. Kennedy's challenged
to reach the Moon seemed an impossible dream, a race
(05:55):
we were bound to lose to the enemy in Moscow.
Speaker 10 (06:00):
Intends to militarize space as a platform to hold the
world hostage. We want to explore the final frontier for
the betterment of man. When a flag is planted on
the Moon, it'll be our flag and you will have
put it there.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Anyone who says Apollo eleven was about collecting moon rocks
has their head up their ass. It was the stars
and stripes versus the hammer and sickle, the land of
the free against the home of the enslaved, the white
hatted capitalists and the commies in black. For those of
us who flew fighter jets in Korea and during the
iciest days of the Cold War, Beating the Russians was
(06:41):
what we lived for and would have died for.
Speaker 10 (06:45):
So make your calls, gentlemen, grab dinner, potato chips, fig Newton's,
whatever's in the vending machines, and then it's back to work.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
One man at Mission Control wasn't deployed. Chris Kraft had
been flight director before Gene Krantz took over. Chris was
Jeane's mentor, his surrogate father until the bosses at NASA
kicked Chris upstairs but not out the door.
Speaker 8 (07:14):
Nice speech, Jane, Well, I said what I thought you
would have.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
What went wrong with the landing exercise?
Speaker 10 (07:20):
I simulated a DSL malfunction and Neil missed it.
Speaker 8 (07:24):
Has he missed before? We never ran the simulation before.
What made you run it? Now? All other systems have
been cleared. Why would Neil have missed? Is what the
reviews for? Chris? If you want, you can sit in.
I'm not flight director anymore.
Speaker 10 (07:42):
Well, as long as I am, you're welcome to the table.
I wouldn't be in the job if it.
Speaker 8 (07:46):
Wasn't for you.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
What about Neil and Buzz?
Speaker 8 (07:49):
Have they done their own review.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
I was just in the process of offering some constructive
criticism to my bosom.
Speaker 6 (07:55):
Chum, you fucked up, Neil.
Speaker 11 (07:58):
Your boart was unnecess Mission control overreacted when the code sounded.
Speaker 6 (08:04):
You froze That simulation should have been cake. I would
have pulled us out of it. A kid in flight
school would have pulled us out of it. You know
it goes on record as a crew failure. A crew
failure includes me and I.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Don't fail boys, boys, let's play nice.
Speaker 6 (08:20):
What do you want, Brian?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
The reporters are ready.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
Fuck them.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
It's the last briefing before the launch. Where's my Collins?
They want to talk to the entire crew.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Are you gonna tell them about our little glitch? Are
we still perpetrating the myth of Neil's infallibility?
Speaker 5 (08:37):
There are some things they don't need to know, but
if I cancel, they'll get suspicious.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Hi, guys, how's everybody's day?
Speaker 6 (08:45):
Mike?
Speaker 5 (08:46):
What do you do the briefing? Maybe a few jokes
about suborbital rendezvous.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Just do me a favor.
Speaker 6 (08:51):
No questions about why I became an astronaut.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Everyone one at a time, one at a time.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, you over there?
Speaker 5 (09:00):
There hand raised, Yes, sir, Neil. What's it like knowing
the success or failure of Apollo eleven is in your hands?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Apollo eleven is the result of the efforts of four
hundred thousand people, and each one is just as vital
to its success as the mission commander.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
And you in the far corner when you're on top
of that rocket as a launch sequence counts down, how
do you expect to feel?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Define what you mean by feel.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Exhilary, asking Neil about his emotions was like asking a
fish how to sing.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
I wouldn't know how to answer that.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
I almost felt sorry for him. He was so out
of his depth. Next question, on the other hand, talking
aerospace to the reporters was right in my wheelhouse.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
After departing the command module, coming down in the descent
orbit will ignite the descent engine.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
They didn't understand a word, which is why I love
demand module bus.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Can you translate for those of us who don't have
an MIT degree.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
An MIT doctorate? And sorry, boys, translation wouldn't help you.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Any questions for Colonel Mike Collins.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Mike, why did you want to be an astronaut?
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Normally, after a tough day at the office, I'd visit
a saloon called Elroy's, where, if you happen to be
buzz Aldrin, the drinks were free and the women were moonstruck.
But first Gene Krantz brought Neil and me to his office,
where as flight director, he admitted what I already knew
in my gut.
Speaker 10 (10:35):
I triggered the DPS malfunction.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
For what possible purpose.
Speaker 10 (10:39):
It could happen during an actual dissent.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
The odds are statistically nil.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
The odds aren't the issue. The issues your failure to
react after the alarm sounded.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
I didn't fail to react.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
We crashed, didn't we.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
It's the job of mission control to provide timely and
accurate information to the crews coordinates where you're a mistake, Jane,
not ours, And it's the commander's job to push the
simulation as far as it will go, even when mission
control panics and calls for an abort.
Speaker 6 (11:10):
You're not buying that horse shit, are you?
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Jane?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Are you?
Speaker 10 (11:15):
When the review is complete, I'll assessed the data.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
There's nothing left to review.
Speaker 8 (11:20):
Buzz wait, buzz hold up.
Speaker 11 (11:25):
I'm aware of the significance of being commander, and therefore
of being the first man on the moon. It's a
position I've earned and deserve, and I expect that what
happened today will have no impact on my keeping it.
Unless this was a setup designed to justify replacing me.
What makes you think Buzz has resented that I'm commander
(11:46):
since the crew assignments were announced.
Speaker 10 (11:49):
He can resent it all he wants. As flight director,
I'm responsible for the selection.
Speaker 8 (11:54):
Of the crew.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Will I be replaced? Jane?
Speaker 10 (12:00):
Until today, I hadn't considered it, But you are now, Neil.
But I understand you're not wanting to admit failure to us.
I worry about you not admitting it to yourself.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
You think Buzz is any different?
Speaker 8 (12:19):
He would have reacted, Buzz.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Can't be commander. We both know it, and we both
know why.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
What I didn't know was that in a windowless office
at Missigan Control, a chain smoking woman named Rachel Ludwig
who'd soon become part of my life, was making it
her mission to learn more about US astronauts than we
did about ourselves. She wouldn't be putting Neil's head in
the noose, She'd be putting mine. The streets were empty,
(12:59):
When who should pull up to me at a red light,
but Neil he and his Corvette, me and mine gifts
from Chevrolet. The cars were identical, the drivers weren't.
Speaker 6 (13:15):
What do you say, pal first off the line, fastest
down the block, just es you see.
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Anyone else.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Ten bucks or glory?
Speaker 6 (13:28):
I don't need your money.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Within seconds, Neil and I were doing upwards of eighty
in a thirty zone. We'd have wound up behind bars.
If justice was as blind as it's supposed to be.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
We got high speed trexters on Elm and Carlisle.
Speaker 8 (13:53):
Turn off the siren.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
You see those guys, that's buzzing'.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Neil let him be. I beat him by an hour.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Flushed with victory, I made a pit stop at the
apartment of an able and very willing brunette named Lauren.
Being with women other than my wife was just another perk,
like personalized parking admission control. Doesn't mean I didn't love Joan.
I just loved being buzz more Hi, honey, to replace
(14:33):
the full time husband she deserved. I'd got her a
monkey the kids named Popo. Where have you been?
Speaker 6 (14:40):
We had a DPS malfunction. Neil didn't pick up on it, so, ah,
what's that smell?
Speaker 5 (14:48):
It's popo.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
What's wrong with him? What's wrong?
Speaker 5 (14:53):
He's a monkey?
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I mean this afternoon he ripped off his diaper and
threw shit all over the living room.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
The drapes are ruined, the sofa is a wreck.
Speaker 8 (15:02):
You wanted to read decoration?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Come on for Christmas. He was a joke. He stopped
being funny at Easter. Next week's the fourth of July.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
That kids love him, The kids.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Never look at him. It's all on me, buzz. I'm
through with it, honestly, all of it.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
All of what.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I want him gone given to the zoo. I don't
care enough.
Speaker 6 (15:24):
I'm not talking about the monkey. You said all of it?
What's all of it? Come here, Joe, come here?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Oh how was Alroy's.
Speaker 8 (15:44):
I wasn't at al Roy's.
Speaker 6 (15:46):
I told you we had a DPS malfunction and all
of us were working on it.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
I called Pat Collins.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Mike got home three hours ago. So don't treat me
like an idiot.
Speaker 6 (15:57):
Baby, No, buzz, no, Yes.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
That's my girl.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
So if you're going to be out there making the
most of your celebrity, at least show some discretions.
Speaker 8 (16:12):
I don't have to hear about it for my friends.
Oh well, that was my favorite shirt.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Somewhere else saw it later.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
We were stars of a new magnitude. Our faces were
on magazine covers and cereal boxes, the blue eyed, pimple
free personifications of all American values. Did I recognize the
hypocrisy as I sat in a pew on Sundays with
my wife and kids? Sure, but it didn't bother me.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Buzz, starring John Lithgow and Jeffrey Errand, is created by
Stephen Cronish and directed by John Scott Dryden. Episode one
is written by Stephen Cronish. Original music is by Sasha Putnam,
editing and sound design by Elouise Whitmore. The producer is
Emma Hearn. The executive producers are Jeremy Fox, John Scott Dryden,
(17:31):
Stephen Cronish, Howard Stringer and Jason English. Buzz is a
production of Thoroughbred Studios, Goldhop Productions and iHeart Podcasts.
Buzz, an audio drama for iHeart Podcasts starring John Lithgow
and Jeffrey Aaron as buzz Aldren. This series is based
on real events, However, certain characters, names, incidents, locations, and
dialogue have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Chapter one, Eagles descending a thirteen hundred feet litteral landing
area in sight Mission control, Houston.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Do you copy?
Speaker 4 (00:31):
We copy?
Speaker 5 (00:32):
Neil all love and looking good for letter landing?
Speaker 6 (00:37):
Mission Control confirm AGS landing coordinates.
Speaker 7 (00:41):
Roger that bun and confirming a.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Decent continuing twelve hundred.
Speaker 6 (00:47):
Feet copy prepare for a lunar touchdown in ninety seconds.
How about those coordinates used in While We're Young.
Speaker 8 (00:59):
We're about the Flights?
Speaker 7 (01:01):
AGS is one zero one three six one four point
zero seven plus zero zero zero nine or eight.
Speaker 9 (01:10):
Houston, your numbers are incorrect. AGS is plus zero zero
five seven to two. You expect us to hit our
landing site with coordinates that are off by a factor
of five?
Speaker 8 (01:22):
How long before he mentioned it? Mentions?
Speaker 10 (01:25):
What that he's five beta kappa and we're not capcom
run that AGS calculation again?
Speaker 9 (01:33):
I already ran it, Houston, AGS is plus zero zero five.
Speaker 6 (01:39):
Seven to two.
Speaker 9 (01:40):
I'll bet my five beta Kappa.
Speaker 10 (01:42):
Key on it.
Speaker 8 (01:43):
Told you you know him well.
Speaker 6 (01:45):
Anyone else want to anti up.
Speaker 7 (01:49):
AGS? Error is acknowledged.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Repeat please whose error ours? Your figures are correct?
Speaker 7 (01:56):
Buzz AGS is zero zero five two.
Speaker 6 (02:01):
Sorry about that, Roger Houston. The air is human to
forgive is mine?
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Eagle descending one thousand feet till lunar touchdown, and then we.
Speaker 6 (02:15):
Have an alarm code descent propulsion failure.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Initiate engine restart.
Speaker 6 (02:20):
Losing altitude rapidly eight hundred feet.
Speaker 5 (02:24):
Neil is flight.
Speaker 10 (02:25):
Your descent rate is critical.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I can save it.
Speaker 6 (02:28):
Engine restart is not five hundred feet and falling. Neil
initiate landing aboard now three hundred feet.
Speaker 3 (02:36):
I can save it.
Speaker 6 (02:40):
We're no longer possible lunar impact.
Speaker 7 (02:43):
Eminent Eagle has craft likelihood of cruise survival is zeround.
Speaker 4 (02:54):
If Neil and I had really left the ground, but
we hadn't. We were still in the lunar module simulate
at NASA's headquarters in Houston. There's nothing like a near
death experience, even simulated, to change your priorities.
Speaker 10 (03:10):
Eagle crew and flight engineers stand by to evaluate cause
and effect of DPS malfunction.
Speaker 4 (03:17):
The cause may have been a mystery to everyone but
flight director Gene Krantz, but the effect was staring all
of us in the face. Neil Armstrong, commander of Apollo eleven,
shut down when he should have stepped up.
Speaker 10 (03:33):
Gentlemen, listen up, clench your right hand, stick out your
index finger, and use it to call your wife, your girlfriend,
or your mommy and tell her you're going to be
late tonight. Today we had a setback, but the launch
of Apollo eleven will not be delayed.
Speaker 4 (03:57):
More people saw us on the Moon than just any
single event before or since. We galvanized the world, then
we came home. That's the story you think you know,
this is the story.
Speaker 10 (04:12):
You don't ignition frequent five.
Speaker 5 (04:18):
Five four with the quality day here. You ain't going
to plant the one all trap per ram.
Speaker 10 (04:33):
Fil.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
You're listening to buzzz and this is the story of
my greatest achievement. Chapter one.
Speaker 11 (04:57):
Normally, which expects to being the leader of other natives,
can't expect to stay behind in this race of space.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
In the fall of nineteen sixty two, President Kennedy summoned
the best in US as Americans and as human beings.
Speaker 7 (05:14):
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to
go to the moon.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
And this decayed because that challenge is one.
Speaker 5 (05:23):
That we're willing to acampt, one we are willing to postpone,
and one we intend to win.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Then it was dead. Six years later, what should have
been America's decade saw us on the brink of a
second civil war, city streets on fire, with racial violence,
campuses torn apart by the war in Vietnam. Kennedy's challenged
to reach the Moon seemed an impossible dream, a race
(05:55):
we were bound to lose to the enemy in Moscow.
Speaker 10 (06:00):
Intends to militarize space as a platform to hold the
world hostage. We want to explore the final frontier for
the betterment of man. When a flag is planted on
the Moon, it'll be our flag and you will have
put it there.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Anyone who says Apollo eleven was about collecting moon rocks
has their head up their ass. It was the stars
and stripes versus the hammer and sickle, the land of
the free against the home of the enslaved, the white
hatted capitalists and the commies in black. For those of
us who flew fighter jets in Korea and during the
iciest days of the Cold War, Beating the Russians was
(06:41):
what we lived for and would have died for.
Speaker 10 (06:45):
So make your calls, gentlemen, grab dinner, potato chips, fig Newton's,
whatever's in the vending machines, and then it's back to work.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
One man at Mission Control wasn't deployed. Chris Kraft had
been flight director before Gene Krantz took over. Chris was
Jeane's mentor, his surrogate father until the bosses at NASA
kicked Chris upstairs but not out the door.
Speaker 8 (07:14):
Nice speech, Jane, Well, I said what I thought you
would have.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
What went wrong with the landing exercise?
Speaker 10 (07:20):
I simulated a DSL malfunction and Neil missed it.
Speaker 8 (07:24):
Has he missed before? We never ran the simulation before.
What made you run it? Now? All other systems have
been cleared. Why would Neil have missed? Is what the
reviews for? Chris? If you want, you can sit in.
I'm not flight director anymore.
Speaker 10 (07:42):
Well, as long as I am, you're welcome to the table.
I wouldn't be in the job if it.
Speaker 8 (07:46):
Wasn't for you.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
What about Neil and Buzz?
Speaker 8 (07:49):
Have they done their own review.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
I was just in the process of offering some constructive
criticism to my bosom.
Speaker 6 (07:55):
Chum, you fucked up, Neil.
Speaker 11 (07:58):
Your boart was unnecess Mission control overreacted when the code sounded.
Speaker 6 (08:04):
You froze That simulation should have been cake. I would
have pulled us out of it. A kid in flight
school would have pulled us out of it. You know
it goes on record as a crew failure. A crew
failure includes me and I.
Speaker 5 (08:16):
Don't fail boys, boys, let's play nice.
Speaker 6 (08:20):
What do you want, Brian?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
The reporters are ready.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
Fuck them.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
It's the last briefing before the launch. Where's my Collins?
They want to talk to the entire crew.
Speaker 6 (08:31):
Are you gonna tell them about our little glitch? Are
we still perpetrating the myth of Neil's infallibility?
Speaker 5 (08:37):
There are some things they don't need to know, but
if I cancel, they'll get suspicious.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Hi, guys, how's everybody's day?
Speaker 6 (08:45):
Mike?
Speaker 5 (08:46):
What do you do the briefing? Maybe a few jokes
about suborbital rendezvous.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Just do me a favor.
Speaker 6 (08:51):
No questions about why I became an astronaut.
Speaker 5 (08:57):
Everyone one at a time, one at a time.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yeah, you over there?
Speaker 5 (09:00):
There hand raised, Yes, sir, Neil. What's it like knowing
the success or failure of Apollo eleven is in your hands?
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Apollo eleven is the result of the efforts of four
hundred thousand people, and each one is just as vital
to its success as the mission commander.
Speaker 5 (09:15):
And you in the far corner when you're on top
of that rocket as a launch sequence counts down, how
do you expect to feel?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
Define what you mean by feel.
Speaker 4 (09:27):
Exhilary, asking Neil about his emotions was like asking a
fish how to sing.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
I wouldn't know how to answer that.
Speaker 4 (09:34):
I almost felt sorry for him. He was so out
of his depth. Next question, on the other hand, talking
aerospace to the reporters was right in my wheelhouse.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
After departing the command module, coming down in the descent
orbit will ignite the descent engine.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
They didn't understand a word, which is why I love
demand module bus.
Speaker 3 (09:55):
Can you translate for those of us who don't have
an MIT degree.
Speaker 6 (09:58):
An MIT doctorate? And sorry, boys, translation wouldn't help you.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
Any questions for Colonel Mike Collins.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Mike, why did you want to be an astronaut?
Speaker 4 (10:13):
Normally, after a tough day at the office, I'd visit
a saloon called Elroy's, where, if you happen to be
buzz Aldrin, the drinks were free and the women were moonstruck.
But first Gene Krantz brought Neil and me to his office,
where as flight director, he admitted what I already knew
in my gut.
Speaker 10 (10:35):
I triggered the DPS malfunction.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
For what possible purpose.
Speaker 10 (10:39):
It could happen during an actual dissent.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
The odds are statistically nil.
Speaker 6 (10:44):
The odds aren't the issue. The issues your failure to
react after the alarm sounded.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
I didn't fail to react.
Speaker 6 (10:51):
We crashed, didn't we.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
It's the job of mission control to provide timely and
accurate information to the crews coordinates where you're a mistake, Jane,
not ours, And it's the commander's job to push the
simulation as far as it will go, even when mission
control panics and calls for an abort.
Speaker 6 (11:10):
You're not buying that horse shit, are you?
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Jane?
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Are you?
Speaker 10 (11:15):
When the review is complete, I'll assessed the data.
Speaker 6 (11:18):
There's nothing left to review.
Speaker 8 (11:20):
Buzz wait, buzz hold up.
Speaker 11 (11:25):
I'm aware of the significance of being commander, and therefore
of being the first man on the moon. It's a
position I've earned and deserve, and I expect that what
happened today will have no impact on my keeping it.
Unless this was a setup designed to justify replacing me.
What makes you think Buzz has resented that I'm commander
(11:46):
since the crew assignments were announced.
Speaker 10 (11:49):
He can resent it all he wants. As flight director,
I'm responsible for the selection.
Speaker 8 (11:54):
Of the crew.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Will I be replaced? Jane?
Speaker 10 (12:00):
Until today, I hadn't considered it, But you are now, Neil.
But I understand you're not wanting to admit failure to us.
I worry about you not admitting it to yourself.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
You think Buzz is any different?
Speaker 8 (12:19):
He would have reacted, Buzz.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Can't be commander. We both know it, and we both
know why.
Speaker 4 (12:31):
What I didn't know was that in a windowless office
at Missigan Control, a chain smoking woman named Rachel Ludwig
who'd soon become part of my life, was making it
her mission to learn more about US astronauts than we
did about ourselves. She wouldn't be putting Neil's head in
the noose, She'd be putting mine. The streets were empty,
(12:59):
When who should pull up to me at a red light,
but Neil he and his Corvette, me and mine gifts
from Chevrolet. The cars were identical, the drivers weren't.
Speaker 6 (13:15):
What do you say, pal first off the line, fastest
down the block, just es you see.
Speaker 7 (13:22):
Anyone else.
Speaker 3 (13:25):
Ten bucks or glory?
Speaker 6 (13:28):
I don't need your money.
Speaker 4 (13:35):
Within seconds, Neil and I were doing upwards of eighty
in a thirty zone. We'd have wound up behind bars.
If justice was as blind as it's supposed to be.
Speaker 5 (13:50):
We got high speed trexters on Elm and Carlisle.
Speaker 8 (13:53):
Turn off the siren.
Speaker 6 (13:56):
You see those guys, that's buzzing'.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
Neil let him be. I beat him by an hour.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Flushed with victory, I made a pit stop at the
apartment of an able and very willing brunette named Lauren.
Being with women other than my wife was just another perk,
like personalized parking admission control. Doesn't mean I didn't love Joan.
I just loved being buzz more Hi, honey, to replace
(14:33):
the full time husband she deserved. I'd got her a
monkey the kids named Popo. Where have you been?
Speaker 6 (14:40):
We had a DPS malfunction. Neil didn't pick up on it, so, ah,
what's that smell?
Speaker 5 (14:48):
It's popo.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
What's wrong with him? What's wrong?
Speaker 5 (14:53):
He's a monkey?
Speaker 3 (14:54):
I mean this afternoon he ripped off his diaper and
threw shit all over the living room.
Speaker 5 (14:58):
The drapes are ruined, the sofa is a wreck.
Speaker 8 (15:02):
You wanted to read decoration?
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Come on for Christmas. He was a joke. He stopped
being funny at Easter. Next week's the fourth of July.
Speaker 6 (15:11):
That kids love him, The kids.
Speaker 3 (15:12):
Never look at him. It's all on me, buzz. I'm
through with it, honestly, all of it.
Speaker 4 (15:18):
All of what.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I want him gone given to the zoo. I don't
care enough.
Speaker 6 (15:24):
I'm not talking about the monkey. You said all of it?
What's all of it? Come here, Joe, come here?
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Oh how was Alroy's.
Speaker 8 (15:44):
I wasn't at al Roy's.
Speaker 6 (15:46):
I told you we had a DPS malfunction and all
of us were working on it.
Speaker 5 (15:50):
I called Pat Collins.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Mike got home three hours ago. So don't treat me
like an idiot.
Speaker 6 (15:57):
Baby, No, buzz, no, Yes.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
That's my girl.
Speaker 6 (16:07):
So if you're going to be out there making the
most of your celebrity, at least show some discretions.
Speaker 8 (16:12):
I don't have to hear about it for my friends.
Oh well, that was my favorite shirt.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
Somewhere else saw it later.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
We were stars of a new magnitude. Our faces were
on magazine covers and cereal boxes, the blue eyed, pimple
free personifications of all American values. Did I recognize the
hypocrisy as I sat in a pew on Sundays with
my wife and kids? Sure, but it didn't bother me.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Buzz, starring John Lithgow and Jeffrey Errand, is created by
Stephen Cronish and directed by John Scott Dryden. Episode one
is written by Stephen Cronish. Original music is by Sasha Putnam,
editing and sound design by Elouise Whitmore. The producer is
Emma Hearn. The executive producers are Jeremy Fox, John Scott Dryden,
(17:31):
Stephen Cronish, Howard Stringer and Jason English. Buzz is a
production of Thoroughbred Studios, Goldhop Productions and iHeart Podcasts.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.