What if Apollo 11 got stuck on the moon.
For all the celebrations surrounding the first manned lunar landing of Apollo 11
1969 what is forgotten today is just how close they and the other Apollo missions
flew to the edge of disaster.
Apollo 11 came within seconds of aborting the landing because they had overshot the
landing area and we're running low on fuel.
This was only one of several issues with the Apollo missions that arose that
could have led to the loss of the mission and the crew, though as it turned out
only Apollo 13 came close to this actually happening.
This does obviously excludes the Apollo one accident where
the crew died because of the fire as they rehearsed the launch on January
27th 1967.
Apollo 12 was struck by lightning twice during the launch and
although it knocked out several electrical systems the main navigation
systems continue to work and the rest of mission proceeded successfully.
On Apollo 16 the engine backup system malfunctioned on the command module as
it orbited to moon which resulted in the flight being one day shorter but Mission
Control determined that they could work around the fault instead of aborting the mission.
Even Apollo 11 was just a test flight, it was building upon the previous missions
result and achievement. It was to be the first attempt at a manned landing and
was driven as much by the desire to achieve President Kennedy's directive to
put a man on the moon before the end of a decade as it was to beat the perceived
threat of the Soviets getting there first, US national pride was a steak if
either of these a failed.
As Apollo 11 was to be the first landing NASA wanted to make sure that it would
be as event free as possible, so they chose to land on the largest flattest part
of the moon they could find, officially known as "Site 2" which
was 10 mile wrong elliptical area in the northern sea of tranquility.
The idea was the flight computer on board the lander would guide it down
from 50,000 feet to 500 feet above the surface when Armstrong would
then take over the controls for the final landing.
However Armstrong became aware early on that things were not
going to plan and then they'd already flown over the landing site and were
heading to a boulder-strewn area known as West crater about the size of a football
field.
He assumed control from the computer and manually flew over West
crater and another small crater before landing on the outer edge of "Site 2"
about four miles from it's intended target and uttering the immortal words
"Houston, Tranquility Base here – the Eagle has landed."
As he was making the final descent, Mission Control estimated that
they had just 25 seconds of fuel left at the time they landed.
Although this was later revised to 45 seconds after the mission.
NASA rules required that mission be aborted if they were less than
20 seconds of fuel left because if they didn't there was a danger but
they might not be able to perform an emergency ascent.
To abort the mission they would have to start an emergency ascent
protocol which would separate the ascent module from the lander which
they would fly back to the command module.
It would take between two and four seconds for the emergency
abort to complete any ascent engine to fire. All the time they would still be
traveling alongside the descent stage, if they didn't get far enough away from the
descent stage then there was the danger of any remaining rocket fuel exploding
when it crashed into the surface and the flying debris could hit and damage the
escaping module.
The other great danger of the mission was but no one really knew if the ascent
module would be able to take off as it not being tested on the moon up until the
mission.
If this was the case then the crew would be stuck on the moon. It's not known
if the crew had suicide pills with them in case they were stranded because there
would be no chance of any rescue.
NASA did not have any standby rockets or landers ready.
30 years after the first landing a previously secret memo was discovered at
the American National Archives showing what NASA planning to do in the
case of such an event.
In the event of a worst-case scenario NASA planned to cut communications
with the stranded crew and they will be left to die as they ran out of oxygen
or committed suicide, something but the crew later said they
had no knowledge of.
Just two days before the Apollo 11 mission Nixon's speech writer William Safire
was tasked with creating for condolence speech that will be delivered by the
president in the event of such a tragedy occurring.
Unlike the Apollo one disaster, there would be no way for NASA to examine the scene
close up in detail to determine what happened if the lander of crashed on the
lunar surface.
NASA had discussed using one of the four remaining Ranger probes
which had six TV cameras on board. The Rangers didn't fly over the moon taking
video instead they picked areas to image and then transmitted the images back to
earth as it approached and crashed into the lunar surface.
Ultimately this idea was dropped in favor of using a Hasselblad film camera
on board the command module taking images at a low altitude of 10 miles above the
surface.
This would give a resolution of down to one foot, enough to see what happened to
the lander and if the crew were outside. Although the commander taking the images
would have just 10 seconds to locate and photo the scene from 10 miles above and
traveling at orbital speed around the moon.
Luckily no major tragedies occured with remaining apollo mission and neither
NASA's final plan nor the President's speech were needed.
1969 what is forgotten today is just how close they and the other Apollo missions
flew to the edge of disaster.
Apollo 11 came within seconds of aborting the landing because they had overshot the
landing area and we're running low on fuel.
This was only one of several issues with the Apollo missions that arose that
could have led to the loss of the mission and the crew, though as it turned out
only Apollo 13 came close to this actually happening.
This does obviously excludes the Apollo one accident where
the crew died because of the fire as they rehearsed the launch on January
27th 1967.
Apollo 12 was struck by lightning twice during the launch and
although it knocked out several electrical systems the main navigation
systems continue to work and the rest of mission proceeded successfully.
On Apollo 16 the engine backup system malfunctioned on the command module as
it orbited to moon which resulted in the flight being one day shorter but Mission
Control determined that they could work around the fault instead of aborting the mission.
Even Apollo 11 was just a test flight, it was building upon the previous missions
result and achievement. It was to be the first attempt at a manned landing and
was driven as much by the desire to achieve President Kennedy's directive to
put a man on the moon before the end of a decade as it was to beat the perceived
threat of the Soviets getting there first, US national pride was a steak if
either of these a failed.
As Apollo 11 was to be the first landing NASA wanted to make sure that it would
be as event free as possible, so they chose to land on the largest flattest part
of the moon they could find, officially known as "Site 2" which
was 10 mile wrong elliptical area in the northern sea of tranquility.
The idea was the flight computer on board the lander would guide it down
from 50,000 feet to 500 feet above the surface when Armstrong would
then take over the controls for the final landing.
However Armstrong became aware early on that things were not
going to plan and then they'd already flown over the landing site and were
heading to a boulder-strewn area known as West crater about the size of a football
field.
He assumed control from the computer and manually flew over West
crater and another small crater before landing on the outer edge of "Site 2"
about four miles from it's intended target and uttering the immortal words
"Houston, Tranquility Base here – the Eagle has landed."
As he was making the final descent, Mission Control estimated that
they had just 25 seconds of fuel left at the time they landed.
Although this was later revised to 45 seconds after the mission.
NASA rules required that mission be aborted if they were less than
20 seconds of fuel left because if they didn't there was a danger but
they might not be able to perform an emergency ascent.
To abort the mission they would have to start an emergency ascent
protocol which would separate the ascent module from the lander which
they would fly back to the command module.
It would take between two and four seconds for the emergency
abort to complete any ascent engine to fire. All the time they would still be
traveling alongside the descent stage, if they didn't get far enough away from the
descent stage then there was the danger of any remaining rocket fuel exploding
when it crashed into the surface and the flying debris could hit and damage the
escaping module.
The other great danger of the mission was but no one really knew if the ascent
module would be able to take off as it not being tested on the moon up until the
mission.
If this was the case then the crew would be stuck on the moon. It's not known
if the crew had suicide pills with them in case they were stranded because there
would be no chance of any rescue.
NASA did not have any standby rockets or landers ready.
30 years after the first landing a previously secret memo was discovered at
the American National Archives showing what NASA planning to do in the
case of such an event.
In the event of a worst-case scenario NASA planned to cut communications
with the stranded crew and they will be left to die as they ran out of oxygen
or committed suicide, something but the crew later said they
had no knowledge of.
Just two days before the Apollo 11 mission Nixon's speech writer William Safire
was tasked with creating for condolence speech that will be delivered by the
president in the event of such a tragedy occurring.
Unlike the Apollo one disaster, there would be no way for NASA to examine the scene
close up in detail to determine what happened if the lander of crashed on the
lunar surface.
NASA had discussed using one of the four remaining Ranger probes
which had six TV cameras on board. The Rangers didn't fly over the moon taking
video instead they picked areas to image and then transmitted the images back to
earth as it approached and crashed into the lunar surface.
Ultimately this idea was dropped in favor of using a Hasselblad film camera
on board the command module taking images at a low altitude of 10 miles above the
surface.
This would give a resolution of down to one foot, enough to see what happened to
the lander and if the crew were outside. Although the commander taking the images
would have just 10 seconds to locate and photo the scene from 10 miles above and
traveling at orbital speed around the moon.
Luckily no major tragedies occured with remaining apollo mission and neither
NASA's final plan nor the President's speech were needed.
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