August 21, 2025 • 35 mins
In this episode, we go behind the curtain of one of humanity’s greatest achievements—the Apollo 11 moon landing. More than half a century later, newly declassified documents, astronaut accounts, and hidden details shed fresh light on the mission that captivated the world. We’ll explore the political motives behind the space race, the intense risks faced by astronauts, and the lesser-known challenges NASA kept quiet at the time. Was the moon landing purely about exploration, or was it also a calculated move in Cold War geopolitics? Join us as we uncover the untold stories of the mission that changed history forever.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to be on infographics. This is the deep dive
where we really peel back the layers of a topic,
pulling out those fascinating details, the insights you just don't
get from a quick summary. Today we're tackling one of
humanity's biggest moments, the Apollo eleven mission. Everyone knows the pictures, right,
the flag, the first steps, But what if we told
(00:31):
you there's these whole other universe of like granular detail,
unexpected problems and really ingenious solutions kind of hidden away
in the mission reports themselves, and you know, the stories
of the people who actually lived it. So our mission
today uncover those incredible layers. We want to move past
those famous snapshots and really explore the nitty gritty data,
(00:52):
the human experiences and just the sheer grit that defines
this whole historic journey. We'll be sharing insights we've gleaned
from diving deep into mission reports. They fixed, unexpected anomalies,
personal accounts to it all reveals the true complexity and
yet the triumphs of getting humans to another world and
crucially getting them back safe. Get ready for some aha moments,
hopefully as we delve into the amazing depth of this event. Okay,
(01:14):
So at its heart, Apollo eleven had one clear, massive
goal land humans on the Moon and bring them back safely.
Sounds simple when you say.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
It fast, doesn't it deceptively simple? Yeah? The execution was
anything but right.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
And to pull it off, they assembled this legendary crew,
each role absolutely vital. Neil Armstrong as commander, Michael Collins
piloting the command module, and Buzz Aldrin Junior as lunar
module pilot. Names everyone knows itched in history exactly, but
today we're diving into their journey and the incredible complex
(01:47):
machinery that carried them.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
And what's really fascinating, you know, is the precision. Right
from the very start, that huge Saturn V rocket, it
didn't just sort of list off. It launched from Kennedy
Space Center, Florida at precisely eight point three zero zero
AM Eastern Standard time, July sixteenth, nineteen sixty nine, down
to the second exactly, not eight point three two in
a few seconds, but eight point three two zero zero.
(02:09):
It wasn't a target window. It was the moment. Speaks
volumes about the calculations needed and those initial phases, things
like the Earth orbit checkout making sure everything worked, and
that big burn the translantor injection, pushing them towards the.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Moon the point of no return almost well.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, committing them to the lunar journey, then transposition and docking,
getting the linar module out, spacecraft injection that long cose
to the Moon. It was all remarkably similar procedure wise
to Apollo ten, the dress rehearsal pretty much. Yeah, so
they benefited hugely from that experience. It allowed for a say,
more confident approach. Yeah, and get this for accuracy, only
(02:45):
one mid course correction needed during that whole three day
trip to the Moon, just one, just one tiny burned
at about twenty seven hours in. It really underscores how
incredibly accurate that initial translunar injection burn was about it
hitting a moving target a quarter million miles away with
that kind of precision. Yeah, mind boggling engineering for the time.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Okay, so they've coasted almost perfectly towards the Moon. What's
next getting into orbit? Right?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
That sounds tricky, It is very tricky. That happened around
seventy six hours into the mission. They fired the engine
to slow down just enough to be captured by the
Moon's gravity. Then a couple of orbits later they did
another burn for circularization, basically turning that initial oval shaped
orbit into a more stable circular.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
One, right prepping for the landing exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And after that the initial checkout of the Lunar Module
systems the LM it was reported as completely satisfactory, which
you know must have been a huge relief for everyone.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I bet billions of dollars years.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Of work white on the system's checks. But then this
is where the human side really comes in. After this
long journey, they had a planned rest period.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Makes sense, get some sleep before the big event, you'd.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Think, But the commander in Lunar Module pilot Armstrong and
Aldron they entered the LM to get ready for descent,
and they basically decided not to take the full rest period.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Really, weren't they exhausted?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Apparently not overly so, as we'll see, they felt remarkably
well adjusted and ready to go, so they opted to
push ahead with the surface operations earlier than planned.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Wow, that says a lot about their focus and probably
their adrenaline levels too.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Oh. Absolutely, that willingness to adapt to deviate from the
meticulously planned timeline when they felt ready. It really speaks
to their mindset. So the next step was the physical
separation the command module piloated by Collins, and the lunar
module with Armstrong and Aldron. They undocked around one hundred
hours into the mission, a delicate moment, very you need
(04:41):
a clean separation. Then the command module pulled away slightly
round one hundred and one point five hours, the LM
fired its descent engine to change its orbit to start
heading down, and then about an hour after that the
powered descent began. This was it the make or.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Break sequence, nail biting part totally.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Now, the guidance system, the descent engine, they were mostly
nominal performing is expected, but and this is where that
human element becomes absolutely critical. It wasn't a completely smooth
automated ride down. Yeah, this brings up that key question
what happens when your super advanced nineteen sixties computer starts
throwing errors right when you need it most. Well, during
those final two and a half minutes, as they were
(05:19):
getting really close, it became clear the automatic guidance system
was taking them towards well, a bad spot, a boulder
field basically around this big sharp rimmed.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Crater, not where you want to land your multi million
dollar space craft, definitely not.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
It was a potentially mission ending hazard. So Armstrong the commander,
he had to take manual control. He took over the stick.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Essentially wow, under that pressure.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And incredible pressure, he flew the LM manually, maneuvering about
eleven hundred feet past the dangerous spot looking for a
safer area. Imagine doing that. Fuel gauge is dropping, dust
kicking up from the engine, obscuring the view. Piloting this
completely new vehicle onto an alien world with seconds to.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
My palms are sweating just thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Right, But the landing when it came was incredibly gentle.
They estimated the contact speed it just one to two
feet per second sideways, zero forward, maybe one foot per
second down, super smooth, no instability at all, and they
landed precisely at zero degrees forty one minutes fifteen seconds
north latitude twenty three degrees twenty six minutes east longitude,
(06:24):
right in the sea of tranquility. That manual override, though,
it just highlights how vital that human judgment, that skill was.
Even with all the automation, it came down to the
pilot's hand and eye.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So they're down safe. What happens immediately after the celebration,
not quite yet.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Duty First, for the first two hours on the surface,
Armstrong and Aldron did this meticulous post landing checkout of
all the LM systems, making sure everything was okay for
their stay and crucially for lifting off again.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Later checking the escape vehicle basic exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Only after all those checks were green did they finally
have their first meet on the moon. Can you imagine?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Incredible, just incredible.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
And then, as we mentioned, they surprised everyone by electing
to start the surface exploration the EVA earlier than planned.
They skipped that scheduled rest.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Which turned out to be a great call, right given
how well they felt.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, it gave him valuable extra time and showed just
how well humans could adapt, even on their very first trip.
It gave insights into their condition, their readiness, which was
really valuable data in itself. All right, stepping out onto
the Moon, this wasn't just opening a door. It involved
careful procedures, dotting the portable life support systems, depressurizing the cabin.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
The big bulky backpacks.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Exactly, And as we just discussed, that planned rest period
they skipped it. They weren't overly tired, and crucially, they
were adjusting really easily to the one to six gravity,
which was kind of a pleasant surprise.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Easier to move around than expected, seems.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
So this adaptation let them start the EVA the moonwalk
earlier than scheduled. Armstrong egressed first around one hundred nine
hours into the mission, and the whole world watch live
on TV thanks to that camera mounted on the LM,
that iconic fuzzy black.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
And white image one small step.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Indeed, Aldron followed him out about twenty minutes later, and
then their exploration began. Aldron specifically he made a point
of evaluating how well he could move, and his reports
were really positive. He found he could move quickly, confidently,
even doing little kangaroo.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Hops looked fun on the footage.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
It did and his important data. It suggested that future
missions could plan for tasks requiring more physical effort, longer walks,
carrying heavier equipment. Even just getting back into the LM
had his own techniques. Armstrong described using a kind of
vertical jump, bending his knees and pushing off to get
his feet onto the latter's third rung. The latter itself
(08:43):
was apparently a bit slippery from the fine lunar dust,
but not dangerously so.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Just got to be careful.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Absolutely. And here's a surprising little detail for the reports,
because those spacesuits the EMUs were so bulky, they had
to be incredibly careful moving around inside the tiny lm
CAAs before the EVA, trying not to bump into switches
and circuit breakers like.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Wearing a Michelin manned suit in a closet.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Pretty much yea, And in fact, one circuit breaker did
get broken because someone brushed against it. A small thing,
but it highlights those very real practical constraints of working
in such an extreme environment.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Okay, so they're out bouncing around. What about the science
That was a huge part of the mission, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Oh? Absolutely, It wasn't just about planting a flag. First,
they collected what's called a contingency sample, basically scoop up
some dirt and rocks near the ladder right away, just
in case they had to leave in a hurry insurance policies.
Then with that secured, they collected a more substantial sample,
about forty seven pounds or twenty one kilograms of lunar
(09:44):
rocks and soil for detailed analysis back on Earth. That
was the main geological prize. They also deployed the ESP
the early Apollo Scientific Experiment package. Three main parts to
that on Apollo eleven. A passive seismometer to listen for
moonquakes or meteorite.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Impacts, listening to the Moon's heartbeat.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Kinda yeah, And a laser retro reflector. This is basically
a special mirror array. Scientists on Earth could bounce laser
beams off it to measure the Earth Moon distance with incredible.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Precision, which they still do today, right.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
They do off reflectors left by Apollo eleven, fourteen and fifteen.
And the third experiment was the Solar Wind Composition Experiment,
basically a sheet of foil they unrolled to trap particles
streaming from the Sun. They rolled it back up and
brought it home.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Beyond the experiments, what did they actually see? What did
the landing site look like up close?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Their descriptions paint a great picture. The area right near
the LM was dotted with small craters maybe a foot
or two across, and stream with rocks fragmented debris. They
noted a larger crater, West Crater, about four hundred meters away,
probably the source of much of that.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Debris, so impact craters everywhere pretty much.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
They saw a thirty three meters crater about fifty meters
east a double crater nearby, very similar, they noted to
the landscape surveyor I saw years earlier. But the really
interesting part was their observation about the rocks themselves. How So,
even just looking at them, and later confirmed definitively by
studying the samples, they could tell these crystalline rocks were
fundamentally different from anything found on Earth, were any known meteorite,
(11:15):
their chemistry, the minerals present, it was uniquely.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Lunar, whole new geology exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
They saw evidence of erosion too. Most rocks looked rounded,
almost like they'd been sand blasted over millions of years
by micrometeorite impacts, but crucially zero evidence of water erosion,
no river beds, no smooth pebbles like you find.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
On urge, dry as a bone.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Absolutely, and the specific minerals they identified, like iron troilite, ilminite,
and the complete lack of water bearing minerals, suggested these
rocks formed in an environment with extremely low oxygen, water
and sulfur, totally different conditions than Earth's rock formation. Diving
a bit deeper into those ESET results, the seismometer it
(11:58):
worked beautifully. It picked up a continue when you was
very faint background hum, probably just system noise, but when
the astronauts were moving around on the surface where things
were happening inside the LM, it clearly registered vibrations around
seven to eight hertz.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
They could hear their own footsteps almost in seismic terms.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yes, and fascinatingly, after the ascend stage lifted off, leaving
the descent stage behind, that seven point two herz peak
shifted slightly higher to eight point zero hertz, which makes sense.
The remaining structure was lighter, so its natural resonance frequency
went up. That level of detail is amazing.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Tiny changes matter they do.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
The seismometers also detected over two hundred events that looked
like well, maybe landslides or slumping inside crater walls. These
lasted up to seven minutes for the biggest ones. They
seemed related to the extreme temperature changes between lunar day
and night. Thermal cracking and shifting.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
The Moon adjusting to the heat and cold.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Seems like it. And that laser retro reflector total success
lick observatory back on Earth got bounced signals just a
couple of weeks later, August first, nineteen sixteen. Those ongoing
measurements have been crucial for refining our understanding in the
Moon's orbit, its wobble, even testing theories of gravity. It
connects Apollo eleven directly to decades of continuing science.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Photography was also a huge part of it. Wasn't it
getting those iconic shots, but also scientific documentation absolutely vital.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
They had several cameras, a sixteen millimeter movie camera filming sequences,
a special close up stereo camera for detailed scientific shots
of rocks and soil, and two Hasselblad seventy millimeters still cameras.
The ones it took most of the famous pictures with
different lenses the work courses definitely. The one with the
sixty millimeter lens was particularly important for geology. It had
(13:37):
this grid, a matrix of tiny crosses called a rizo plate,
installed right in front of the film.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
What was that for?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
It imprinted the grid onto every photo back on Earth.
Scientists could use those grid points to precisely measure sizes
and distances in the photos, correcting for any lens distortion.
Really clever way to get quantitative data.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
From pictures, making photos into scientific instruments exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Their procedures were meticulous too. They shot panorama sequences, taking
twelve pictures rotating thirty degrees each time to create a
full three hundred and sixty degree view. Armstrong even took
a partial panorama right from the latter when he first
got out. They did three full panoramas from different spots around.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
The LM, documenting everything.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Trying to and here's a cool visual detail they noticed,
which you could see in the sixteen millimeter film shot
from the ELM window. Wherever they walked, the lunar surface
changed color. It went from light gray to very dark.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Gray, stirring up the dust sort of.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
It was about the albedo, the reflectivity. The undisturbed fine
top soil reflex light fairly well, but when they kicked
it up or walked on it, the disturbed material or
maybe the quartzer stuff underneath, was much less reflective, so
it looked darker. Photometric analysis confirmed this, very similar to
what the surveyor probe saw. They also noticed that where
their boots compressed the soil, it actually got more reflective.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Slightly lighter weird physics of lunar dust.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
It is even choosing the shit. The shutter speed was
a careful balance. They found twelve hundred and fiftieth of
a second was a good general setting, but if they
needed more depth of field or the lighting was tricky,
they'd used slower speeds, which meant they had to hold
that bulky camera incredibly still wearing those thick gloves. Discipline
was key for sharp photos.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Sounds like a lot to manage while you're, you know,
walking on the moon. Oh and hey, if you're enjoying
this deep dive into the nitty gritty of Apollo eleven,
maybe take a second to give us a five star rating.
It really helps other space geeks find the show.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Okay, so surface mission accomplished, Time to go home. The
journey back started with the ascent from the lunar surface.
That was another critical one.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Lifting off the moon had to work perfectly.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Absolutely. They prepped efficiently, and the ascent stage, just the
upper part of the LM, lifted off right on time
at one hundred and twenty four hours and twenty five minutes.
Mission ell lapsed time. A perfect burn of the ascent
engine put them into a precise forty five by nine
mile orbit around.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
The Moon, just high enough to meet up with Collins.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Exactly, and that rendezvous sequence finding and docking with the
Command Module again it went very smoothly, yeah, following the
playbook developed on Apollo ten. They docked successfully at one
hundred and twenty eight hours. Then Armstrong and Aldron transferred
themselves and crucially all those precious moon rocks and film
back into the Command Module.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Columbia, reuniting the crew.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Right after that they jettisoned the LM ascent skate. Its
job was done. Now Columbia, with all three astronauts back inside,
was ready for the next big step, the trans earth
injection burn, firing the main engine to break free of
lunar orbit and head home.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Even with things going mostly right, it's fascinating to look
at the little hardware glitches and performance details. They really
show the complexity around.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Oh, definitely, even seemingly small things mattered. Take the electrical
power system. For the re entry phase. They relied on batteries.
A Poll eleven used batteries with cellophane separators instead of
the older fermion.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Type cellophane in the kitchen drawer.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Huh. Well, A high tech version, yeah, and they performed better,
maintaining a higher voltage output, which meant more reliability for
that critical phase. The main power horses, though, were the
fuel cells in the service module. They generated almost four
hundred kilowad hours of energy over the.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Whole mission, powering everything for over a week.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Right. They did see some fluctuations in the condenser exit temperature,
just like on earlier flights, but it didn't actually affect performance, still,
something they.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Monitored closely, and the guidance and navigation systems the GNC
keeping them pointed the right way.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Overall, it performed really well, but there were little hiccups.
The crew reported a small about one point five degree
pitch deviation during that initial translin or injection burn. It
wasn't one big error, but like an accumulation of tiny
things just.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
By a thousand cuts.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Sort of little drifts in the SIVB stage alignment, errors
in the electronics, maybe slight inaccuracies reading the attitude indicator,
plus a last minute trajectory tweak. But even with all that,
the system had enough margin. They decided the procedure was
fine for future missions.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Built in robustness exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
They also had some difficulty early on the way to
the Moon with the optical navigation using the sex stin
to take star sightings, it was hard to find the
exact substellar point. They had to use angles radioed up
from the ground to avoid the LM blocking the view,
but those weren't quite precise enough, so it took extra
maneuvering to get good star fixes. Time consuming.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
What about the thrusters, the little jets for maneuvering the
Reaction Control system RCS.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, couple of things there. Some valves for one of
the service module thruster quads initially showed they were closed
the barber pole indicator, but the crew cycled them falling
the checklist and got them open. Not ideal, but solvable, okay, manageable.
More concerning, though, was one of the command modules YAW
Thrusters System one minus YAW. It just wasn't responding properly
(18:50):
to automatic firing commands during checkouts. Post flat analysis confirmed
it was producing very low thrust.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
What cause that?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Turned out to be an intermittent circuit, like a bad
connection on a terminal board deep inside the valve electronics.
Imagine trying to diagnose that in flight.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yikes and water always seems to be a thing on
space missions.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
It was. Dissolved gas in the drinking water was a
persistent problem on Apollo made it fizzy unpleasant. For Apollo eleven,
they installed these new dual membrane water gas separators on
the water gun and the food prep unit.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Did they work?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
The crew said they were satisfactory. Gave them gas free water,
which was a big improvement, but there were still fiddly
interface problems. Getting the water pistol to lock onto the
separator wasn't perfect, and keeping the food rehydration bags attached
was tricky little things, but they led to redesigns for
later flights to improve usability. Those human factors details really
matter on a long trip. Now, this brings us back
(19:45):
to maybe the most famous hiccup of the mission. Those
computer alarms during landing. Yeah, e raises that crucial question, right,
what happens when the brain of the operation, the guidance computer,
starts flashing warning signs at the absolute worst possible moment.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, the twelve oh one and twelve oh two alarms,
what did they actually mean?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
They were executive overflow alarms. Basically the computer's main program,
the executive, which schedules, all the different tasks the computer
needs to do, navigation, guidance, calculations, processing data. It was
getting overwhelmed. It couldn't complete all the jobs it was
being asked to do in one processing cycle.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Too much data.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Essentially, yes, too many interrupts demanding its attention. The investigation
found that over ten percent of the computer's processing power
was being chewed up by unexpected signals counter interrupts coming
from the rendezvous radar system.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
But they weren't using the rendezvous radar during landing.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
No, exactly, it wasn't supposed to be active in that way.
The switch controlling it was in a position that allowed
these stray signals, these coupling data units to constantly interrupt
the processor, even though the radar data wasn't needed. It
was like background noise hogging the CPU. But here's the brilliance,
both in the system design and in mission control. The
executive program was designed to be robust. If a job
(21:00):
wasn't finished in one cycle because of these interrupts, it
would simply reschedule it for the next cycle.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So it didn't crash.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
No, it didn't crash. It kept the important stuff like
trajectory calculations running continuously even though these alarms were popping up.
And crucially, the folks and mission control, particularly Steve Bales
and Jack Garman, recognized what was happening almost instantly. They
knew that computer was overloaded, but.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Not failing that famous go no go call exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
They calmly told the grew, we're go on that alarm.
They assessed the situation correctly under immense pressure, allowing the
landing to continue. If they'd hesitated or called an abort,
history might be very different.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Incredible composure, truly.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
And afterwards they fixed it for future missions. The software
update Luminary one B specifically included code to zero out
those data units when the rendezvous radar wasn't actively needed,
preventing those spurious interrupts. A perfect example of learning from
an anomaly and making the system better. Oh and another
little computer related glitch, The liner modules mission timer actually
(22:01):
stopped working shortly after landing, just froze. Then eleven hours
later it started up again on its own. Weird What
caused that probable cause was a cracked solder joint. It
was due to something called cordwood construction used back then,
packing components tightly between circuit boards and filling the gaps
with potting compound. Temperature changes could make the boards and
(22:24):
the compound expand and contract differently, stressing the solder joints
until one cracked. A tiny flaw with a noticeable effect.
Shows how even the smallest details mattered in that extreme environment.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Absolutely fascinating and a reminder to everyone listening. If you
find these deep dives valuable, hitting that five star rating
helps us keep bringing them to you. Beyond the hardware,
the human element, how the crew coped, how they felt,
how they performed, is just as crucial to the story.
Let's talk about sleep, for instance. Sounds basic but vital, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Vital for performance, especially on a long demanding mission. Interestingly,
the crews own subjective estimates of how much sleep they
got were often lower than what the biomedical sensors telemetry suggested, so.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
They felt more tired than maybe the physiologically were.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Seems like it, which is understandable the stress and excitement.
But overall the data showed they slept reasonably well in
the command module during the three day coast to the moon.
Now in the lunar module after the moon walk, they
slept very little.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Adrenaline still pumping or just uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Probably both. Trying to sleep strapped upright in that cramped
LM cabin after walking on the moon not easy, but
they made up for it sleeping well during the transfer
coast on the way home. The key thing was they
were well rested before the EVA, which is a specific
goal of the sleep management plan, and that definitely contributed
to their performance on the surface.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
What about radiation, That's always a concern in space.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Huge concern, especially passing through the Van Allen Belts and
just the general cosmic ray exposure. But the shielding and
trajectory planning worked incredibly well. Their total radiation doses for
the whole mission were remarkably low. Armstrong got point two
five rad Collins point twenty six, Aldrin point two eight.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
How significant is that?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Medically insignificant? Basically yeah, well below any level that would
cause concern. The specific docimmeter measuring Van Allen Belt passage
showed even lower readings, So mission accomplished on radiation safety.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Good news. Any issues with communications, We heard those famous
crackly voices.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, there were some technical challenges during the EVA. The
voice operated relay, the VOX system caused some voice breakup,
particularly on Aldren's transmissions back to Earth. The system wasn't
keying perfectly reliably based on his voice levels.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Well sometimes it cut out a little bit.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah, just marginal performance there. And they also noted this
weird echo effect on the ground. About two point six
seconds after mission control transmitted up to the Moon, they'd
hear their own voices echoed back down.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Why was that.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It was because the uplink voice signal was being immediately
retransmitted back down on the LM's S band downlink signal,
a sort of built in feedback loop in the comm's architecture.
Not a major problem, just an interesting artifact. Thinking about
these little glitches and the bigger near misses like the
landing alarms, it really highlights how incredibly robust the Apollo
(25:14):
program's system for handling anomalies was. It wasn't just reactive,
it was a core part of the process.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
They expected things to go wrong.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
They planned for things to go wrong. They knew they
were pushing the envelope. Anomalies were identified in all sorts
of ways, from ground testing showing unexpected results, from flight
data revealing something odd, from obvious component failures and very
importantly from crew observations, the astronauts seeing or hearing something unusual.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Covering all the bases exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And the analysis varied. Some issues got a limited analysis.
Take that non illuminating segment on the entry monitor display
in Apollo eleven. They looked into it but decided no
corrective action was needed because there were backup instruments and procedures.
A practical risk based decision.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Don't fix what isn't critically broken if there's a backup.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Right, But then you had issues demanding extensive analysis. The
big one was the structural failure on the unmanned Apollo
six test flight. Parts of the adapter holding the LM
mock up ripped apart during launch due to severe vibrations
the Pogo effect. Fixing that required massive effort, full scale
hardware tests, vibration tests, deep structural analysis across NASA and contractors.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
What did they find.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
It wasn't one single design flaw. It was a combination
of factors. They hadn't fully accounted for, the intense thermal
and pressure environment during launch, affecting the honeycomb structure of
the adapter, Maybe even subtle things like assembly techniques or
quality control. They had to understand all those factors to
fix it properly. That deep dive shows their commitment. Hardware
(26:45):
design issues were definitely a common source of problems. Another
example on Apollo seven, the first man flight, the windows
kept fogging out. Turned out the selent material used around
the windows was outgassing, releasing chemicals in the vacuum of space.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Why didn't they catch that on the ground Because the.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Uring process for the sealant wasn't specified to happen at
the actual operating temperatures they'd see in space, so the
problem only showed up in flight. Little details matter. Operational
procedures could also cause anomalies. The famous one as a
Polt's will of losing its TV.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Camera pointed it at the sun right accidentally.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yes, Pete Conrad inadvertently pointed the camera towards the sun
and the intense light fried the sensitive image sensor oops.
The solution involved multiple things, developing more burn resistant sensors
for later missions, stricter procedures about pointing the camera, and
eventually even adding a remote control from Houston so the
crew didn't have to worry about it during busy EVAs,
(27:38):
and the crucial philosophy was if a failure occurred, especially
a critical one, corrective action was always taken. Even if
they couldn't pinpoint the exact single cause, they'd implement fixes
for every possible cause. Meticulous doesn't even begin to cover it.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
That rigor is probably why they succeeded, But it wasn't
without setbacks, was it? How did they maintain momentum after
something like the Apollo one fire.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yet, you absolutely can't talk about Apaula's triumphs without acknowledging
the profound tragedy of Apollo I. January nineteen sixty seven,
during a routine ground test, Gus Grissom ed White Roger
Chaffee trapped inside the capsule when a fire broke out.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
A horrific event.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It was a spark from freight wiring ignited in the
pure oxygen, high pressure atmosphere they used for ground tests
back then. It became an infernod in seconds, and the
hatch design it was inward opening heavy complex. It took
the ground crew minutes to get it open, but by
then it was far too late. The astronauts died from asphyxiation.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
AH devastating blow to the program in the nation. Absolutely
but that tragedy, as awful as it was, became a catalyst.
It forced a complete top to bottom reevaluation. They redesigned
the hatch to open outwards and seconds. They changed the
cabin atmosphere for ground tests, used fire resistant materials everywhere.
It fundamentally changed NASA's approach to safety. You could argue
(28:55):
those painful lessons saved lives on later missions. It strengthened
their resolve in a.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Way, starting tragedy into progress exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
And then you had moments of incredible bravery and success
like Apollo eight December sixty eight, the first time humans
left Earth orbit and went around the Moon, a hugely bold.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Move, riding that giant Saturn V for the first time
with a.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Crew right and apparently the ride was incredibly rough at first.
Frank Borman described it as feeling like a rat in
the jaws of a terrier. But it worked flawlessly. They
orbited the Moon, saw that stark, black and white landscape
and saw the Earth rise. That iconic photo changed everything.
The suspense back in Houston when they went behind the
Moon waiting for the signal to reappear after the engine
burned to bring them home. Pure attention, followed by elation,
(29:40):
a massive confidence boost for Apollo eleven.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
And that crew ingenuity kept popping up Apollo twelve, Aldrin
famously jammed a felt tip pen into the console to
push in a circuit breaker that had broken off, allowing
them to arm the ascent engine to leave the Moon.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Seriously fixed it with a.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Pen, apparently so that adaptability, that quick thinking under pressure
was just part of the astronaut DNA thinking about hidden aspects.
There's this persistent story, often fueled by declassified documents, that
NASA secretly used classified spy satellites run by the NRO
or CIA to get super high resolution photos of the
(30:20):
Moon before Apollo eleven. You hear it in conspiracy theory sometimes.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Right, the idea that they had much better.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Pictures they never released exactly, But the reality when you
actually read those declassified documents carefully is a bit different.
What they show is that NASA explored the possibility. They
determined that if their own Lunar Orbiter Probe images weren't
good enough to find safe landing sites, then they could
potentially collaborate with the NRO to build and fly a
dedicated high res mapping satellite.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
So as a contingency plan.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Precisely, it was an option on the table. However, NASA
ultimately concluded that the images they already had from Lunar
Orbiter were sufficient for site selection.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
They were good enough, so the spy satellite mission for
NASA never.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Happened, correct because it wasn't needed. Therefore, those supposed missing
classified high res photos simply don't exist because the mission
to take them for NASA was never flown. It's a
subtle but crucial distinction between exploring a capability and actually using.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
It, separating speculation from fact exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
It highlights how easily possibilities can morph into assumed realities
if you don't look at the full context. A good
lesson in interpreting historical documents really.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
That actually leads nicely into another, maybe less glamorous, but
huge challenge. Just dealing with the sheer volume of data
and NASA generated, not just from a poll eleven but
the whole program, and trying to archive.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
At all an immense task. We're talking miles and miles
of magnetic tapes, films, documents, right.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Most of it ended up in the National Archives or
other facilities, but finding specific things can be incredibly difficult.
There was this fascinating, almost detective like effort a few
years ago by enthusiasts and former NASA folks to find
the original telemetry tapes of the Apollo eleven moon walk, the.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Raw data tapes. Why were they so.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Important because they potentially held the highest quality recording of
the TV broadcast before it was converted for standard broadcast transmission,
which degraded the quality somewhat. They hoped to find these
original one inch tapes and restore the footage.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
So like finding the original film negative versus a copy exactly.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
They spent thousands of hours digging through old records, memos, databases,
even visiting storage warehouses, but the records were often incredibly vague,
tapes labeled just magnetic tape with no mission or content, identified.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
A needle in a mountain of haystacks.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Pretty much and adding to the difficulty. Policies back then
sometimes allowed different NASA centers or contractors to manage their
own records, leading to decentralization and lost information. Eventually, they
did track down some two inch videotapes at the Applied
Physics Lab that seemed promising.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Do they have the lost footage?
Speaker 1 (32:54):
They managed to track down and restore one of the
rare working Ampex VR six six sixty lucy machineanes needed
to play these old tapes, a feat in itself, but
when they played them, most were blank or contain unrelated
TV shows. I know it appears so due to common
practice back then of recycling expensive magnetic tapes. They were
likely degaussed and reused for later missions or other projects
(33:17):
to save money. So the original highest quality telemetry recordings
of the moonwalk are almost certainly lost to history. That's
heartbreaking in a way, it is, but it really underscores
the monumental challenge of preserving historical data, especially from complex,
fast moving programs like Apollo. It makes you truly appreciate
every piece of documented history we do have access to
(33:38):
today thanks to the efforts of archivists hatchtag Tag Tag Outro. Wow,
what a journey that was divvinged up into Apollo eleven
here on. Beyond infographics, It's just so clear, isn't it.
Behind that incredible achievement, that iconic image, there's this incredibly
rich tapestry of engineering, yes, but also human resilience, unexpected
problems popping up constantly, and just brilliant on them fly solutions.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
It really wasn't just one giant leap, It was millions
of tiny, calculated steps, often taken under immense pressure.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Absolutely, we saw that determination, didn't we Pushing through computer alarms,
physically fixing broken switches with pens, learning from every single setback,
big or small, and meticulously documenting it all. Those mission reports,
they're not dry. They are packed with drama and ingenuity.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
A testament to a whole generation's focus and skill.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
So what's the takeaway for you listening? I think it's
a powerful reminder that really understanding any major event means
looking past the easy summaries, the infographics. It's down in
the details, the anomalies, the candid reports. That's where the
true story and often the most valuable lessons are hiding.
It makes me wonder, doesn't it? What other huge moments
(34:47):
in history have this kind of hidden depth waiting to
be explored if we just look beyond the headlines, What
crucial details are we missing and how we understand our
world just because we haven't dug a little deeper. Something
to think about. Thank you so much for joining us
on this deep dive with Beyond Infographics. If you enjoyed
exploring the details of Apollo eleven with us. Please do
(35:08):
consider giving us that five star rating, or maybe share
the show with someone else who loves this stuff. It
really does help us keep bringing these stories to light.
Until next time, keep digging deeper.
Welcome to be on infographics. This is the deep dive
where we really peel back the layers of a topic,
pulling out those fascinating details, the insights you just don't
get from a quick summary. Today we're tackling one of
humanity's biggest moments, the Apollo eleven mission. Everyone knows the pictures, right,
the flag, the first steps, But what if we told
(00:31):
you there's these whole other universe of like granular detail,
unexpected problems and really ingenious solutions kind of hidden away
in the mission reports themselves, and you know, the stories
of the people who actually lived it. So our mission
today uncover those incredible layers. We want to move past
those famous snapshots and really explore the nitty gritty data,
(00:52):
the human experiences and just the sheer grit that defines
this whole historic journey. We'll be sharing insights we've gleaned
from diving deep into mission reports. They fixed, unexpected anomalies,
personal accounts to it all reveals the true complexity and
yet the triumphs of getting humans to another world and
crucially getting them back safe. Get ready for some aha moments,
hopefully as we delve into the amazing depth of this event. Okay,
(01:14):
So at its heart, Apollo eleven had one clear, massive
goal land humans on the Moon and bring them back safely.
Sounds simple when you say.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
It fast, doesn't it deceptively simple? Yeah? The execution was
anything but right.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
And to pull it off, they assembled this legendary crew,
each role absolutely vital. Neil Armstrong as commander, Michael Collins
piloting the command module, and Buzz Aldrin Junior as lunar
module pilot. Names everyone knows itched in history exactly, but
today we're diving into their journey and the incredible complex
(01:47):
machinery that carried them.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
And what's really fascinating, you know, is the precision. Right
from the very start, that huge Saturn V rocket, it
didn't just sort of list off. It launched from Kennedy
Space Center, Florida at precisely eight point three zero zero
AM Eastern Standard time, July sixteenth, nineteen sixty nine, down
to the second exactly, not eight point three two in
a few seconds, but eight point three two zero zero.
(02:09):
It wasn't a target window. It was the moment. Speaks
volumes about the calculations needed and those initial phases, things
like the Earth orbit checkout making sure everything worked, and
that big burn the translantor injection, pushing them towards the.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Moon the point of no return almost well.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, committing them to the lunar journey, then transposition and docking,
getting the linar module out, spacecraft injection that long cose
to the Moon. It was all remarkably similar procedure wise
to Apollo ten, the dress rehearsal pretty much. Yeah, so
they benefited hugely from that experience. It allowed for a say,
more confident approach. Yeah, and get this for accuracy, only
(02:45):
one mid course correction needed during that whole three day
trip to the Moon, just one, just one tiny burned
at about twenty seven hours in. It really underscores how
incredibly accurate that initial translunar injection burn was about it
hitting a moving target a quarter million miles away with
that kind of precision. Yeah, mind boggling engineering for the time.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Okay, so they've coasted almost perfectly towards the Moon. What's
next getting into orbit? Right?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
That sounds tricky, It is very tricky. That happened around
seventy six hours into the mission. They fired the engine
to slow down just enough to be captured by the
Moon's gravity. Then a couple of orbits later they did
another burn for circularization, basically turning that initial oval shaped
orbit into a more stable circular.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
One, right prepping for the landing exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And after that the initial checkout of the Lunar Module
systems the LM it was reported as completely satisfactory, which
you know must have been a huge relief for everyone.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
I bet billions of dollars years.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Of work white on the system's checks. But then this
is where the human side really comes in. After this
long journey, they had a planned rest period.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Makes sense, get some sleep before the big event, you'd.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Think, But the commander in Lunar Module pilot Armstrong and
Aldron they entered the LM to get ready for descent,
and they basically decided not to take the full rest period.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
Really, weren't they exhausted?
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Apparently not overly so, as we'll see, they felt remarkably
well adjusted and ready to go, so they opted to
push ahead with the surface operations earlier than planned.
Speaker 1 (04:16):
Wow, that says a lot about their focus and probably
their adrenaline levels too.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Oh. Absolutely, that willingness to adapt to deviate from the
meticulously planned timeline when they felt ready. It really speaks
to their mindset. So the next step was the physical
separation the command module piloated by Collins, and the lunar
module with Armstrong and Aldron. They undocked around one hundred
hours into the mission, a delicate moment, very you need
(04:41):
a clean separation. Then the command module pulled away slightly
round one hundred and one point five hours, the LM
fired its descent engine to change its orbit to start
heading down, and then about an hour after that the
powered descent began. This was it the make or.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Break sequence, nail biting part totally.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Now, the guidance system, the descent engine, they were mostly
nominal performing is expected, but and this is where that
human element becomes absolutely critical. It wasn't a completely smooth
automated ride down. Yeah, this brings up that key question
what happens when your super advanced nineteen sixties computer starts
throwing errors right when you need it most. Well, during
those final two and a half minutes, as they were
(05:19):
getting really close, it became clear the automatic guidance system
was taking them towards well, a bad spot, a boulder
field basically around this big sharp rimmed.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Crater, not where you want to land your multi million
dollar space craft, definitely not.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
It was a potentially mission ending hazard. So Armstrong the commander,
he had to take manual control. He took over the stick.
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Essentially wow, under that pressure.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And incredible pressure, he flew the LM manually, maneuvering about
eleven hundred feet past the dangerous spot looking for a
safer area. Imagine doing that. Fuel gauge is dropping, dust
kicking up from the engine, obscuring the view. Piloting this
completely new vehicle onto an alien world with seconds to.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
My palms are sweating just thinking about it.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
Right, But the landing when it came was incredibly gentle.
They estimated the contact speed it just one to two
feet per second sideways, zero forward, maybe one foot per
second down, super smooth, no instability at all, and they
landed precisely at zero degrees forty one minutes fifteen seconds
north latitude twenty three degrees twenty six minutes east longitude,
(06:24):
right in the sea of tranquility. That manual override, though,
it just highlights how vital that human judgment, that skill was.
Even with all the automation, it came down to the
pilot's hand and eye.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So they're down safe. What happens immediately after the celebration,
not quite yet.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Duty First, for the first two hours on the surface,
Armstrong and Aldron did this meticulous post landing checkout of
all the LM systems, making sure everything was okay for
their stay and crucially for lifting off again.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Later checking the escape vehicle basic exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
Only after all those checks were green did they finally
have their first meet on the moon. Can you imagine?
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Incredible, just incredible.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
And then, as we mentioned, they surprised everyone by electing
to start the surface exploration the EVA earlier than planned.
They skipped that scheduled rest.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Which turned out to be a great call, right given
how well they felt.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
Yeah, it gave him valuable extra time and showed just
how well humans could adapt, even on their very first trip.
It gave insights into their condition, their readiness, which was
really valuable data in itself. All right, stepping out onto
the Moon, this wasn't just opening a door. It involved
careful procedures, dotting the portable life support systems, depressurizing the cabin.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
The big bulky backpacks.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Exactly, And as we just discussed, that planned rest period
they skipped it. They weren't overly tired, and crucially, they
were adjusting really easily to the one to six gravity,
which was kind of a pleasant surprise.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Easier to move around than expected, seems.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
So this adaptation let them start the EVA the moonwalk
earlier than scheduled. Armstrong egressed first around one hundred nine
hours into the mission, and the whole world watch live
on TV thanks to that camera mounted on the LM,
that iconic fuzzy black.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
And white image one small step.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Indeed, Aldron followed him out about twenty minutes later, and
then their exploration began. Aldron specifically he made a point
of evaluating how well he could move, and his reports
were really positive. He found he could move quickly, confidently,
even doing little kangaroo.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Hops looked fun on the footage.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
It did and his important data. It suggested that future
missions could plan for tasks requiring more physical effort, longer walks,
carrying heavier equipment. Even just getting back into the LM
had his own techniques. Armstrong described using a kind of
vertical jump, bending his knees and pushing off to get
his feet onto the latter's third rung. The latter itself
(08:43):
was apparently a bit slippery from the fine lunar dust,
but not dangerously so.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Just got to be careful.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Absolutely. And here's a surprising little detail for the reports,
because those spacesuits the EMUs were so bulky, they had
to be incredibly careful moving around inside the tiny lm
CAAs before the EVA, trying not to bump into switches
and circuit breakers like.
Speaker 1 (09:04):
Wearing a Michelin manned suit in a closet.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Pretty much yea, And in fact, one circuit breaker did
get broken because someone brushed against it. A small thing,
but it highlights those very real practical constraints of working
in such an extreme environment.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Okay, so they're out bouncing around. What about the science
That was a huge part of the mission, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Oh? Absolutely, It wasn't just about planting a flag. First,
they collected what's called a contingency sample, basically scoop up
some dirt and rocks near the ladder right away, just
in case they had to leave in a hurry insurance policies.
Then with that secured, they collected a more substantial sample,
about forty seven pounds or twenty one kilograms of lunar
(09:44):
rocks and soil for detailed analysis back on Earth. That
was the main geological prize. They also deployed the ESP
the early Apollo Scientific Experiment package. Three main parts to
that on Apollo eleven. A passive seismometer to listen for
moonquakes or meteorite.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Impacts, listening to the Moon's heartbeat.
Speaker 2 (10:01):
Kinda yeah, And a laser retro reflector. This is basically
a special mirror array. Scientists on Earth could bounce laser
beams off it to measure the Earth Moon distance with incredible.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Precision, which they still do today, right.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
They do off reflectors left by Apollo eleven, fourteen and fifteen.
And the third experiment was the Solar Wind Composition Experiment,
basically a sheet of foil they unrolled to trap particles
streaming from the Sun. They rolled it back up and
brought it home.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
Beyond the experiments, what did they actually see? What did
the landing site look like up close?
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Their descriptions paint a great picture. The area right near
the LM was dotted with small craters maybe a foot
or two across, and stream with rocks fragmented debris. They
noted a larger crater, West Crater, about four hundred meters away,
probably the source of much of that.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Debris, so impact craters everywhere pretty much.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
They saw a thirty three meters crater about fifty meters
east a double crater nearby, very similar, they noted to
the landscape surveyor I saw years earlier. But the really
interesting part was their observation about the rocks themselves. How So,
even just looking at them, and later confirmed definitively by
studying the samples, they could tell these crystalline rocks were
fundamentally different from anything found on Earth, were any known meteorite,
(11:15):
their chemistry, the minerals present, it was uniquely.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Lunar, whole new geology exactly.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
They saw evidence of erosion too. Most rocks looked rounded,
almost like they'd been sand blasted over millions of years
by micrometeorite impacts, but crucially zero evidence of water erosion,
no river beds, no smooth pebbles like you find.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
On urge, dry as a bone.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Absolutely, and the specific minerals they identified, like iron troilite, ilminite,
and the complete lack of water bearing minerals, suggested these
rocks formed in an environment with extremely low oxygen, water
and sulfur, totally different conditions than Earth's rock formation. Diving
a bit deeper into those ESET results, the seismometer it
(11:58):
worked beautifully. It picked up a continue when you was
very faint background hum, probably just system noise, but when
the astronauts were moving around on the surface where things
were happening inside the LM, it clearly registered vibrations around
seven to eight hertz.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
They could hear their own footsteps almost in seismic terms.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yes, and fascinatingly, after the ascend stage lifted off, leaving
the descent stage behind, that seven point two herz peak
shifted slightly higher to eight point zero hertz, which makes sense.
The remaining structure was lighter, so its natural resonance frequency
went up. That level of detail is amazing.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Tiny changes matter they do.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
The seismometers also detected over two hundred events that looked
like well, maybe landslides or slumping inside crater walls. These
lasted up to seven minutes for the biggest ones. They
seemed related to the extreme temperature changes between lunar day
and night. Thermal cracking and shifting.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
The Moon adjusting to the heat and cold.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Seems like it. And that laser retro reflector total success
lick observatory back on Earth got bounced signals just a
couple of weeks later, August first, nineteen sixteen. Those ongoing
measurements have been crucial for refining our understanding in the
Moon's orbit, its wobble, even testing theories of gravity. It
connects Apollo eleven directly to decades of continuing science.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Photography was also a huge part of it. Wasn't it
getting those iconic shots, but also scientific documentation absolutely vital.
Speaker 2 (13:16):
They had several cameras, a sixteen millimeter movie camera filming sequences,
a special close up stereo camera for detailed scientific shots
of rocks and soil, and two Hasselblad seventy millimeters still cameras.
The ones it took most of the famous pictures with
different lenses the work courses definitely. The one with the
sixty millimeter lens was particularly important for geology. It had
(13:37):
this grid, a matrix of tiny crosses called a rizo plate,
installed right in front of the film.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
What was that for?
Speaker 2 (13:44):
It imprinted the grid onto every photo back on Earth.
Scientists could use those grid points to precisely measure sizes
and distances in the photos, correcting for any lens distortion.
Really clever way to get quantitative data.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
From pictures, making photos into scientific instruments exactly.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Their procedures were meticulous too. They shot panorama sequences, taking
twelve pictures rotating thirty degrees each time to create a
full three hundred and sixty degree view. Armstrong even took
a partial panorama right from the latter when he first
got out. They did three full panoramas from different spots around.
Speaker 1 (14:16):
The LM, documenting everything.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Trying to and here's a cool visual detail they noticed,
which you could see in the sixteen millimeter film shot
from the ELM window. Wherever they walked, the lunar surface
changed color. It went from light gray to very dark.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Gray, stirring up the dust sort of.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
It was about the albedo, the reflectivity. The undisturbed fine
top soil reflex light fairly well, but when they kicked
it up or walked on it, the disturbed material or
maybe the quartzer stuff underneath, was much less reflective, so
it looked darker. Photometric analysis confirmed this, very similar to
what the surveyor probe saw. They also noticed that where
their boots compressed the soil, it actually got more reflective.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Slightly lighter weird physics of lunar dust.
Speaker 2 (14:58):
It is even choosing the shit. The shutter speed was
a careful balance. They found twelve hundred and fiftieth of
a second was a good general setting, but if they
needed more depth of field or the lighting was tricky,
they'd used slower speeds, which meant they had to hold
that bulky camera incredibly still wearing those thick gloves. Discipline
was key for sharp photos.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
Sounds like a lot to manage while you're, you know,
walking on the moon. Oh and hey, if you're enjoying
this deep dive into the nitty gritty of Apollo eleven,
maybe take a second to give us a five star rating.
It really helps other space geeks find the show.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Okay, so surface mission accomplished, Time to go home. The
journey back started with the ascent from the lunar surface.
That was another critical one.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Lifting off the moon had to work perfectly.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Absolutely. They prepped efficiently, and the ascent stage, just the
upper part of the LM, lifted off right on time
at one hundred and twenty four hours and twenty five minutes.
Mission ell lapsed time. A perfect burn of the ascent
engine put them into a precise forty five by nine
mile orbit around.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
The Moon, just high enough to meet up with Collins.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Exactly, and that rendezvous sequence finding and docking with the
Command Module again it went very smoothly, yeah, following the
playbook developed on Apollo ten. They docked successfully at one
hundred and twenty eight hours. Then Armstrong and Aldron transferred
themselves and crucially all those precious moon rocks and film
back into the Command Module.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Columbia, reuniting the crew.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Right after that they jettisoned the LM ascent skate. Its
job was done. Now Columbia, with all three astronauts back inside,
was ready for the next big step, the trans earth
injection burn, firing the main engine to break free of
lunar orbit and head home.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Even with things going mostly right, it's fascinating to look
at the little hardware glitches and performance details. They really
show the complexity around.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Oh, definitely, even seemingly small things mattered. Take the electrical
power system. For the re entry phase. They relied on batteries.
A Poll eleven used batteries with cellophane separators instead of
the older fermion.
Speaker 1 (16:54):
Type cellophane in the kitchen drawer.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
Huh. Well, A high tech version, yeah, and they performed better,
maintaining a higher voltage output, which meant more reliability for
that critical phase. The main power horses, though, were the
fuel cells in the service module. They generated almost four
hundred kilowad hours of energy over the.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Whole mission, powering everything for over a week.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Right. They did see some fluctuations in the condenser exit temperature,
just like on earlier flights, but it didn't actually affect performance, still,
something they.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Monitored closely, and the guidance and navigation systems the GNC
keeping them pointed the right way.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
Overall, it performed really well, but there were little hiccups.
The crew reported a small about one point five degree
pitch deviation during that initial translin or injection burn. It
wasn't one big error, but like an accumulation of tiny
things just.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
By a thousand cuts.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Sort of little drifts in the SIVB stage alignment, errors
in the electronics, maybe slight inaccuracies reading the attitude indicator,
plus a last minute trajectory tweak. But even with all that,
the system had enough margin. They decided the procedure was
fine for future missions.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Built in robustness exactly.
Speaker 2 (18:06):
They also had some difficulty early on the way to
the Moon with the optical navigation using the sex stin
to take star sightings, it was hard to find the
exact substellar point. They had to use angles radioed up
from the ground to avoid the LM blocking the view,
but those weren't quite precise enough, so it took extra
maneuvering to get good star fixes. Time consuming.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
What about the thrusters, the little jets for maneuvering the
Reaction Control system RCS.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, couple of things there. Some valves for one of
the service module thruster quads initially showed they were closed
the barber pole indicator, but the crew cycled them falling
the checklist and got them open. Not ideal, but solvable, okay, manageable.
More concerning, though, was one of the command modules YAW
Thrusters System one minus YAW. It just wasn't responding properly
(18:50):
to automatic firing commands during checkouts. Post flat analysis confirmed
it was producing very low thrust.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
What cause that?
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Turned out to be an intermittent circuit, like a bad
connection on a terminal board deep inside the valve electronics.
Imagine trying to diagnose that in flight.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yikes and water always seems to be a thing on
space missions.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
It was. Dissolved gas in the drinking water was a
persistent problem on Apollo made it fizzy unpleasant. For Apollo eleven,
they installed these new dual membrane water gas separators on
the water gun and the food prep unit.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Did they work?
Speaker 2 (19:23):
The crew said they were satisfactory. Gave them gas free water,
which was a big improvement, but there were still fiddly
interface problems. Getting the water pistol to lock onto the
separator wasn't perfect, and keeping the food rehydration bags attached
was tricky little things, but they led to redesigns for
later flights to improve usability. Those human factors details really
matter on a long trip. Now, this brings us back
(19:45):
to maybe the most famous hiccup of the mission. Those
computer alarms during landing. Yeah, e raises that crucial question, right,
what happens when the brain of the operation, the guidance computer,
starts flashing warning signs at the absolute worst possible moment.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, the twelve oh one and twelve oh two alarms,
what did they actually mean?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
They were executive overflow alarms. Basically the computer's main program,
the executive, which schedules, all the different tasks the computer
needs to do, navigation, guidance, calculations, processing data. It was
getting overwhelmed. It couldn't complete all the jobs it was
being asked to do in one processing cycle.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Too much data.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Essentially, yes, too many interrupts demanding its attention. The investigation
found that over ten percent of the computer's processing power
was being chewed up by unexpected signals counter interrupts coming
from the rendezvous radar system.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
But they weren't using the rendezvous radar during landing.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
No, exactly, it wasn't supposed to be active in that way.
The switch controlling it was in a position that allowed
these stray signals, these coupling data units to constantly interrupt
the processor, even though the radar data wasn't needed. It
was like background noise hogging the CPU. But here's the brilliance,
both in the system design and in mission control. The
executive program was designed to be robust. If a job
(21:00):
wasn't finished in one cycle because of these interrupts, it
would simply reschedule it for the next cycle.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
So it didn't crash.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
No, it didn't crash. It kept the important stuff like
trajectory calculations running continuously even though these alarms were popping up.
And crucially, the folks and mission control, particularly Steve Bales
and Jack Garman, recognized what was happening almost instantly. They
knew that computer was overloaded, but.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Not failing that famous go no go call exactly.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
They calmly told the grew, we're go on that alarm.
They assessed the situation correctly under immense pressure, allowing the
landing to continue. If they'd hesitated or called an abort,
history might be very different.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
Incredible composure, truly.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
And afterwards they fixed it for future missions. The software
update Luminary one B specifically included code to zero out
those data units when the rendezvous radar wasn't actively needed,
preventing those spurious interrupts. A perfect example of learning from
an anomaly and making the system better. Oh and another
little computer related glitch, The liner modules mission timer actually
(22:01):
stopped working shortly after landing, just froze. Then eleven hours
later it started up again on its own. Weird What
caused that probable cause was a cracked solder joint. It
was due to something called cordwood construction used back then,
packing components tightly between circuit boards and filling the gaps
with potting compound. Temperature changes could make the boards and
(22:24):
the compound expand and contract differently, stressing the solder joints
until one cracked. A tiny flaw with a noticeable effect.
Shows how even the smallest details mattered in that extreme environment.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
Absolutely fascinating and a reminder to everyone listening. If you
find these deep dives valuable, hitting that five star rating
helps us keep bringing them to you. Beyond the hardware,
the human element, how the crew coped, how they felt,
how they performed, is just as crucial to the story.
Let's talk about sleep, for instance. Sounds basic but vital, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Vital for performance, especially on a long demanding mission. Interestingly,
the crews own subjective estimates of how much sleep they
got were often lower than what the biomedical sensors telemetry suggested, so.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
They felt more tired than maybe the physiologically were.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
Seems like it, which is understandable the stress and excitement.
But overall the data showed they slept reasonably well in
the command module during the three day coast to the moon.
Now in the lunar module after the moon walk, they
slept very little.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Adrenaline still pumping or just uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
Probably both. Trying to sleep strapped upright in that cramped
LM cabin after walking on the moon not easy, but
they made up for it sleeping well during the transfer
coast on the way home. The key thing was they
were well rested before the EVA, which is a specific
goal of the sleep management plan, and that definitely contributed
to their performance on the surface.
Speaker 1 (23:47):
What about radiation, That's always a concern in space.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Huge concern, especially passing through the Van Allen Belts and
just the general cosmic ray exposure. But the shielding and
trajectory planning worked incredibly well. Their total radiation doses for
the whole mission were remarkably low. Armstrong got point two
five rad Collins point twenty six, Aldrin point two eight.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
How significant is that?
Speaker 2 (24:09):
Medically insignificant? Basically yeah, well below any level that would
cause concern. The specific docimmeter measuring Van Allen Belt passage
showed even lower readings, So mission accomplished on radiation safety.
Speaker 1 (24:20):
Good news. Any issues with communications, We heard those famous
crackly voices.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah, there were some technical challenges during the EVA. The
voice operated relay, the VOX system caused some voice breakup,
particularly on Aldren's transmissions back to Earth. The system wasn't
keying perfectly reliably based on his voice levels.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
Well sometimes it cut out a little bit.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yeah, just marginal performance there. And they also noted this
weird echo effect on the ground. About two point six
seconds after mission control transmitted up to the Moon, they'd
hear their own voices echoed back down.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
Why was that.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It was because the uplink voice signal was being immediately
retransmitted back down on the LM's S band downlink signal,
a sort of built in feedback loop in the comm's architecture.
Not a major problem, just an interesting artifact. Thinking about
these little glitches and the bigger near misses like the
landing alarms, it really highlights how incredibly robust the Apollo
(25:14):
program's system for handling anomalies was. It wasn't just reactive,
it was a core part of the process.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
They expected things to go wrong.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
They planned for things to go wrong. They knew they
were pushing the envelope. Anomalies were identified in all sorts
of ways, from ground testing showing unexpected results, from flight
data revealing something odd, from obvious component failures and very
importantly from crew observations, the astronauts seeing or hearing something unusual.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
Covering all the bases exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And the analysis varied. Some issues got a limited analysis.
Take that non illuminating segment on the entry monitor display
in Apollo eleven. They looked into it but decided no
corrective action was needed because there were backup instruments and procedures.
A practical risk based decision.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Don't fix what isn't critically broken if there's a backup.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Right, But then you had issues demanding extensive analysis. The
big one was the structural failure on the unmanned Apollo
six test flight. Parts of the adapter holding the LM
mock up ripped apart during launch due to severe vibrations
the Pogo effect. Fixing that required massive effort, full scale
hardware tests, vibration tests, deep structural analysis across NASA and contractors.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
What did they find.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
It wasn't one single design flaw. It was a combination
of factors. They hadn't fully accounted for, the intense thermal
and pressure environment during launch, affecting the honeycomb structure of
the adapter, Maybe even subtle things like assembly techniques or
quality control. They had to understand all those factors to
fix it properly. That deep dive shows their commitment. Hardware
(26:45):
design issues were definitely a common source of problems. Another
example on Apollo seven, the first man flight, the windows
kept fogging out. Turned out the selent material used around
the windows was outgassing, releasing chemicals in the vacuum of space.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Why didn't they catch that on the ground Because the.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
Uring process for the sealant wasn't specified to happen at
the actual operating temperatures they'd see in space, so the
problem only showed up in flight. Little details matter. Operational
procedures could also cause anomalies. The famous one as a
Polt's will of losing its TV.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Camera pointed it at the sun right accidentally.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Yes, Pete Conrad inadvertently pointed the camera towards the sun
and the intense light fried the sensitive image sensor oops.
The solution involved multiple things, developing more burn resistant sensors
for later missions, stricter procedures about pointing the camera, and
eventually even adding a remote control from Houston so the
crew didn't have to worry about it during busy EVAs,
(27:38):
and the crucial philosophy was if a failure occurred, especially
a critical one, corrective action was always taken. Even if
they couldn't pinpoint the exact single cause, they'd implement fixes
for every possible cause. Meticulous doesn't even begin to cover it.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
That rigor is probably why they succeeded, But it wasn't
without setbacks, was it? How did they maintain momentum after
something like the Apollo one fire.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yet, you absolutely can't talk about Apaula's triumphs without acknowledging
the profound tragedy of Apollo I. January nineteen sixty seven,
during a routine ground test, Gus Grissom ed White Roger
Chaffee trapped inside the capsule when a fire broke out.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
A horrific event.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
It was a spark from freight wiring ignited in the
pure oxygen, high pressure atmosphere they used for ground tests
back then. It became an infernod in seconds, and the
hatch design it was inward opening heavy complex. It took
the ground crew minutes to get it open, but by
then it was far too late. The astronauts died from asphyxiation.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
AH devastating blow to the program in the nation. Absolutely
but that tragedy, as awful as it was, became a catalyst.
It forced a complete top to bottom reevaluation. They redesigned
the hatch to open outwards and seconds. They changed the
cabin atmosphere for ground tests, used fire resistant materials everywhere.
It fundamentally changed NASA's approach to safety. You could argue
(28:55):
those painful lessons saved lives on later missions. It strengthened
their resolve in a.
Speaker 2 (29:00):
Way, starting tragedy into progress exactly.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
And then you had moments of incredible bravery and success
like Apollo eight December sixty eight, the first time humans
left Earth orbit and went around the Moon, a hugely bold.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
Move, riding that giant Saturn V for the first time
with a.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Crew right and apparently the ride was incredibly rough at first.
Frank Borman described it as feeling like a rat in
the jaws of a terrier. But it worked flawlessly. They
orbited the Moon, saw that stark, black and white landscape
and saw the Earth rise. That iconic photo changed everything.
The suspense back in Houston when they went behind the
Moon waiting for the signal to reappear after the engine
burned to bring them home. Pure attention, followed by elation,
(29:40):
a massive confidence boost for Apollo eleven.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
And that crew ingenuity kept popping up Apollo twelve, Aldrin
famously jammed a felt tip pen into the console to
push in a circuit breaker that had broken off, allowing
them to arm the ascent engine to leave the Moon.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Seriously fixed it with a.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Pen, apparently so that adaptability, that quick thinking under pressure
was just part of the astronaut DNA thinking about hidden aspects.
There's this persistent story, often fueled by declassified documents, that
NASA secretly used classified spy satellites run by the NRO
or CIA to get super high resolution photos of the
(30:20):
Moon before Apollo eleven. You hear it in conspiracy theory sometimes.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Right, the idea that they had much better.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
Pictures they never released exactly, But the reality when you
actually read those declassified documents carefully is a bit different.
What they show is that NASA explored the possibility. They
determined that if their own Lunar Orbiter Probe images weren't
good enough to find safe landing sites, then they could
potentially collaborate with the NRO to build and fly a
dedicated high res mapping satellite.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
So as a contingency plan.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
Precisely, it was an option on the table. However, NASA
ultimately concluded that the images they already had from Lunar
Orbiter were sufficient for site selection.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
They were good enough, so the spy satellite mission for
NASA never.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Happened, correct because it wasn't needed. Therefore, those supposed missing
classified high res photos simply don't exist because the mission
to take them for NASA was never flown. It's a
subtle but crucial distinction between exploring a capability and actually using.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
It, separating speculation from fact exactly.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
It highlights how easily possibilities can morph into assumed realities
if you don't look at the full context. A good
lesson in interpreting historical documents really.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
That actually leads nicely into another, maybe less glamorous, but
huge challenge. Just dealing with the sheer volume of data
and NASA generated, not just from a poll eleven but
the whole program, and trying to archive.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
At all an immense task. We're talking miles and miles
of magnetic tapes, films, documents, right.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
Most of it ended up in the National Archives or
other facilities, but finding specific things can be incredibly difficult.
There was this fascinating, almost detective like effort a few
years ago by enthusiasts and former NASA folks to find
the original telemetry tapes of the Apollo eleven moon walk, the.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
Raw data tapes. Why were they so.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Important because they potentially held the highest quality recording of
the TV broadcast before it was converted for standard broadcast transmission,
which degraded the quality somewhat. They hoped to find these
original one inch tapes and restore the footage.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
So like finding the original film negative versus a copy exactly.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
They spent thousands of hours digging through old records, memos, databases,
even visiting storage warehouses, but the records were often incredibly vague,
tapes labeled just magnetic tape with no mission or content, identified.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
A needle in a mountain of haystacks.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
Pretty much and adding to the difficulty. Policies back then
sometimes allowed different NASA centers or contractors to manage their
own records, leading to decentralization and lost information. Eventually, they
did track down some two inch videotapes at the Applied
Physics Lab that seemed promising.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
Do they have the lost footage?
Speaker 1 (32:54):
They managed to track down and restore one of the
rare working Ampex VR six six sixty lucy machineanes needed
to play these old tapes, a feat in itself, but
when they played them, most were blank or contain unrelated
TV shows. I know it appears so due to common
practice back then of recycling expensive magnetic tapes. They were
likely degaussed and reused for later missions or other projects
(33:17):
to save money. So the original highest quality telemetry recordings
of the moonwalk are almost certainly lost to history. That's
heartbreaking in a way, it is, but it really underscores
the monumental challenge of preserving historical data, especially from complex,
fast moving programs like Apollo. It makes you truly appreciate
every piece of documented history we do have access to
(33:38):
today thanks to the efforts of archivists hatchtag Tag Tag Outro. Wow,
what a journey that was divvinged up into Apollo eleven
here on. Beyond infographics, It's just so clear, isn't it.
Behind that incredible achievement, that iconic image, there's this incredibly
rich tapestry of engineering, yes, but also human resilience, unexpected
problems popping up constantly, and just brilliant on them fly solutions.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
It really wasn't just one giant leap, It was millions
of tiny, calculated steps, often taken under immense pressure.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
Absolutely, we saw that determination, didn't we Pushing through computer alarms,
physically fixing broken switches with pens, learning from every single setback,
big or small, and meticulously documenting it all. Those mission reports,
they're not dry. They are packed with drama and ingenuity.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
A testament to a whole generation's focus and skill.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
So what's the takeaway for you listening? I think it's
a powerful reminder that really understanding any major event means
looking past the easy summaries, the infographics. It's down in
the details, the anomalies, the candid reports. That's where the
true story and often the most valuable lessons are hiding.
It makes me wonder, doesn't it? What other huge moments
(34:47):
in history have this kind of hidden depth waiting to
be explored if we just look beyond the headlines, What
crucial details are we missing and how we understand our
world just because we haven't dug a little deeper. Something
to think about. Thank you so much for joining us
on this deep dive with Beyond Infographics. If you enjoyed
exploring the details of Apollo eleven with us. Please do
(35:08):
consider giving us that five star rating, or maybe share
the show with someone else who loves this stuff. It
really does help us keep bringing these stories to light.
Until next time, keep digging deeper.
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