Category Praxis Manned Spaceflight Log 1961-2006

Flight Crew

PADALKA, Gennady Ivanovich, 40, Russian Air Force, Russian ISS-9 and Soyuz commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Soyuz TM28 (1998)

FINCKE, Edward Michael, 37, USAF, ISS-9 science officer KUIPERS, Andre, 45, civilian, ESA Soyuz flight engineer

Flight Log

For the ninth main expedition to the ISS, the crew would conduct a programme of 24 US and 42 Russian experiments. Many of these were continuations of experiments delivered before the loss of Columbia, but there were four new investigations. The crew’s flight plan envisaged 130 sessions, or over 200 hours, focusing on science on the station, in addition to the routine housekeeping and maintenance chores. During the first week aboard the station, the new resident crew worked with the outgoing ISS-8 crew and with Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers, who had a package of ESA experi­ments under the Dutch Expedition for Life sciences, Technology and Atmospheric (DELTA) research programme. His research included five physiological experiments, five biology experiments, single investigations in microbiology, physical sciences, and Earth observations, three technology demonstrations and five educational projects. Kuipers completed his programme and returned to Earth with the ISS-8 crew on 30 April aboard TMA3.

Settling down to their own programme, the ISS-9 crew received no visiting crews but did receive the payloads delivered on Progress M1-11, M49 and M50. All the EVAs from this expedition were conducted from the Pirs module using Russian Orlan M suits. After working on suit repairs and servicing for over a month, their first EVA (24 Jun) was abandoned after 14 minutes because of a pressure drop in the main oxygen bottle of the Orlan M suit. Following successful repairs, the crew conducted

their first full EVA on 30 June (5 hours 40 minutes), during which a new circuit breaker was installed on the S0 Truss to power one of the four CMG. During the next excursion (3 Aug for 4 hours 30 minutes), the crew installed reflectors and commun­ication units ready for the first ESA Automatic Transfer Vehicle (ATV, named “Jules Verne”), which is designed to carry seven tons of supplies to the station, boost the station’s orbit, and remove waste materials for atmospheric burn-up. The first flight was planned for 2006 but was subsequently delayed to 2007 or 2008. The final ISS-9 excursion (3 Sep for 5 hours 21 minutes) saw the crew install three antennas to support the ATV docking on the rear port of the Zvezda module, and fit further handrails and tether guides for future EVAs.

On 18 June, Michael Fincke made space history by becoming the first US astronaut to become a father while in space. In Houston, his wife gave birth to their second daughter, with the astronaut listening to the delivery via his wife’s cell phone and a relayed radio link through MCC-Houston. A video of the event was later sent up to the proud father.

The crew spent a significant amount of time in repairing onboard equipment, and Fincke also conducted troubleshooting diagnostics on the American EMU units after the previously reported cooling problems had been traced to water circulation pumps located inside the suits’ integrated backpacks. Fincke removed the pump and videoed it for ground specialists to analyse the problem, but the pictures failed to reveal any

obvious causes of the malfunction. Two new pumps were manifested for delivery on the next Progress mission (M50).

The crew also had ongoing problems with the Elektron oxygen generator that had been playing up for some time. Earlier in the ISS-9 residency, it briefly shut down twice, and by late August it would fail every three days or so and require a manual restart. These shutdowns were found to be centred on the liquid units (BZh in Russian) that held trapped gas inside micro-pumps, despite using purified water. The unit was put into a mode to increase oxygen production, which would raise the internal pressure of the station so that, should the unit need repairing, a lengthy shut-down would be possible without too much risk to the crew. These extensive repairs were conducted during September, with the crew installing an older unused unit, before eventually replacing the units to improve the performance of the Elektron system (although problems still remained as their residency drew to a close).

The crew completed their programme with several other maintenance tasks and returned to Earth with Russian test cosmonaut Yuri Shargin in October.

Milestones

241st manned space flight

97th Russian manned space flight

90th manned Soyuz mission

4th manned Soyuz TMA mission

37th Russian and 91st flight with EVA operations

8th ISS Soyuz mission (8S)

6th visiting mission (VC-6)

3rd resident caretaker ISS crew (2 person)

Before the next exchange of ISS resident crews occurred in October 2004, the first privately funded, non-government manned space flight took place – the sub-orbital flights of Spaceship One that won the Ansari X-Prize. These flights are covered in the Quest for Space chapter (Chapter 2).

Ask most people “How do you get into space?” and they would reply “by rocket”, not realising the fact that they are already “in space” on planet Earth, travelling in orbit

around the Sun. We are all “astronauts”, it’s just that most of us haven’t left the planet yet. For a lucky few though, leaving the planet has afforded them some of the most spectacular sights and experiences yet known to mankind. But there is more to it than simply “flying into space’’. There are various ways of doing this, depending on your mission and the type of spacecraft you have.

The atmosphere

Exactly where the atmosphere ends and space begins is a subject that has long been debated. Our atmosphere consists of roughly seventy-eight per cent nitrogen, twenty per cent oxygen, one per cent argon and trace amounts of other gases. It is not, however, uniform all the way up and has significant variations in temperature and pressure with increasing altitude. This defines the layers of the atmosphere. Our atmosphere can be divided into five regions of increasing altitude: the troposphere (0-16 km), the stratosphere (16-50 km), the mesosphere (50-80 km), the thermosphere (80-640 km) and the exosphere (640-10,000 km). Humans can survive with varying degrees of ease without assistance in the lower-most region, but require pressurised aircraft compartments or balloons up in the stratosphere. Above that is the realm of “almost space’’. The air here is much too thin to support an air-breathing engine, yet is sufficient to cause atmospheric drag on vehicles travelling through it. Above this, in the thermosphere, is where most of the spacecraft and satellites orbit the Earth, and the method used by most vehicles to travel in this region is by rocket thrust in the vacuum conditions.

The first of what were originally to be seven manned sub-orbital Mercury flights, then reduced to three, could have taken place in March 1961, before Gagarin, had the programme not hit technical problems. Al Shepard decided to name his spacecraft Freedom. Adding the number seven to the name became too irresistible, as the capsule and rocket were both serial number seven and there were seven astronauts. This established a precedent for later manned flights. Shepard simulated the flight inside Freedom on Cape Canaveral’s Pad 5 three times before the first launch attempt on 2 May was thwarted by bad weather.

On 5 May, the astronaut was up at 01: 10 hours and inside Freedom 7 at 05: 20 hours. Compelled to urinate in his spacesuit because of the unforeseen 2 hr 34 min launch holds, the laconic Shepard finally got airborne at 09: 34 hours, uttering the first of 78 statements, practised so many times in the simulator, announcing lift-off. His heartbeat was monitored at 126 beats per min. The period of maximum dynamic pressure reached at T + 58 sec buffeted the vehicle and caused some concern. The launch escape system tower separated at T + 2 min 32 sec, as Shepard was experiencing a maximum 6.3 G force. The Redstone shut down at T + 142 sec and Shepard arced even higher over the Atlantic Ocean, at a maximum speed of 8,262 kph (5,134 mph), reaching a maximum altitude of 185.6 km (115.3 miles).

During his 4 min 45 sec period of weightlessness, Shepard fired his thrusters to orientate the spacecraft in yaw, pitch and roll movements for a period of 40 sec. He only saw the Earth as black and white out of his periscope and not the porthole, and then he moved the craft to a nose down angle of 34° before firing the retros, although they were not needed during this sub-orbital flight. The descent was uneventful, the 0.5 G light coming on at 60,960 m (200,000 ft) and with Shepard enduring 11 G deceleration. The

drogue chute deployed at 6,400m (21,000 ft) and the main chute at 3,048 m (10,000 ft). Freedom hit the sea at a speed of 10.7m/sec (35.1 ft/sec), 475.2 km (295miles) down – range from the Cape at T + 15 min 28 sec, the shortest manned space flight in history. Shepard removed the hatch and was hauled aboard a helicopter from the recovery ship Lake Champlain.

Milestones

2nd manned space flight

1st US manned space flight

1st to make orientation manoeuvres

1st flight to splashdown in the sea

1st flight to end with the crew aboard

MERCURY REDSTONE 4

None – sub-orbital flight 21 July 1961

Pad 5, Cape Canaveral, Florida 21 July 1961 Atlantic Ocean

Redstone No. 8; capsule no. 11 15 min 37 sec Liberty Bell 7

Second sub-orbital test of Mercury spacecraft with a human occupant, further system qualification towards manned orbital missions

Flight Crew

GRISSOM, Virgil Ivan “Gus”, 35, USAF, pilot

The Space Shuttle was to have been the workhorse of the US space programme, flying over fifty times a year, with 26 launches from two pads at KSC and 26 launches from Complex 6 at Vandenberg AFB in California. It would provide a platform for astronomical research, Earth observation, materials processing, medicine and other applications, leading to a US space station. But it soon became obvious that the Shuttle was not going to be able to meet this objective and its actual launch rates were much less. Additional volume was made available for the crew by flying the Spacelab science laboratory (introduced in 1983), and a mid-deck augmentation module called SpaceHab (from 1993), initially offering commercial locker space and, for space station missions, additional logistics storage facilities. The Shuttle programme has been a great success, especially in terms of space repair and the assembly of the International Space Station, but many missions were under-utilised. Two missions ended with the loss of the vehicle and the deaths of 14 crew. The Shuttle will be retired in 2010, or earlier if there is another accident. Conversely, its career may have to be extended if the final assembly of the International Space Station falls behind schedule.

Military manned space flight

The USA planned the military DynaSoar space plane in the early 1960s and the Manned Orbital Laboratory later in the decade. Neither materialised. However, there have been ten classified military Shuttle missions, including the deployment of reconnaissance satellites. The Soviet Union flew two military Almaz space station missions, aboard Salyut 2 and 3 in 1973-74. The Russian Buran space shuttle was slated to conduct a series of military missions, but the programme collapsed after just one unmanned launch.

1969-004A (Soyuz 4)/1969-005A (Soyuz 5)

14 (Soyuz 4) and 15 (Soyuz 5) January 1969

Pad 31, Site 6 (Soyuz 4), Pad 1, Site 5 (Soyuz 5), Baikonur

Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan

17 (Soyuz 4) and 18 (Soyuz 5) January 1969

Soyuz 4-40 km (25 miles) northwest of Karaganda;

Soyuz 5 – 200 km (124 miles) southwest of Kustanai R7 (11A511); spacecraft serial numbers (7K-0K)

#12 (Soyuz 4) and #13 (Soyuz 5)

2 days 23 hrs 20 min 47 sec (Soyuz 4); 3 days 54 min 15 sec (Soyuz 5)

Amur (Amur – Soyuz 4); Baikal (Baikal – Soyuz 5) Docking of two manned Soyuz spacecraft and the EVA transfer of two crew members from Soyuz 5 to Soyuz 4

Flight Crew

SHATALOV, Vladimir Aleksandrovich, 42, Soviet Air Force, pilot Soyuz 4 VOLYNOV, Boris Valentinovich, 34, Soviet Air Force, commander Soyuz 5 YELISEYEV, Aleksey Stanislovich, 34, civilian, flight engineer Soyuz 5 KHRUNOV, Yevgeny Vasilyevich, 35, civilian, research engineer Soyuz 5

Flight Log

Cosmonaut Vladimir Shatalov was launched alone aboard Soyuz 4 at about 12: 29 hrs local time. Within ten minutes he was in his initial 51.7° inclination orbit, from which he would eventually manoeuvre to a new orbit with a maximum altitude of 222 km (138 miles). The next day, Soyuz 5 entered its initial 51.6° orbit after a launch from the freezing Baikonur at about 12: 05 hrs local time. It carried Boris Volynov and the two cosmonauts who should have flown Soyuz 2 in 1967, Aleksey Yeliseyev and Yevgeny Khrunov. On 16 January, the two craft docked. Soyuz 4 was the active spacecraft both during the automatic approach to a distance of 100 m (328 ft) and for the manual, Shatalov-controlled soft dock, followed by a hard dock minutes later.

The whole event had been seen on television via a camera on Soyuz 4, and was accompanied by ribald comments from the crew, much to the chagrin of ground control. The Soviets claimed that they had achieved an “experimental space station”, but at 12,926 kg (28,502 lb), the combined weight of the two spacecraft was lighter than a single Apollo. The first docking between two manned spacecraft was followed by an even more eventful space transfer, which was made externally because the docking mechanism prevented an internal transfer and there were no internal hatches.

First, Yeliseyev and Khrunov floated into the Soyuz 5 Orbital Module, donned spacesuits and depressurised the module, leaving Volynov alone in the flight cabin. Wearing upgraded spacesuits to that worn by Leonov with a lifeline tether and a small breathing air pack strapped to the legs, Khrunov opened the Orbital Module hatch and floated towards the depressurised Orbital Module of Soyuz 4, followed closely by Yeliseyev and both watched by a television camera (which unfortunately returned very poor pictures of the historic event).

The first EVA to involve two spacewalkers ended after 37 minutes. After sealing the outer hatch and re-pressurising the OM, the hatch to the Descent Module was opened and Shatalov welcomed his new crew, receiving some post and reports on the launch of Soyuz 4. The event that should have occurred between Soyuz 1 and 2 two years earlier had been achieved, ahead of the USA which was, coincidentally, planning a similar EVA exercise for Apollo 9 in March 1969.

The combined spacecraft undocked on 16 January after 4 hours 33 minutes 49 seconds together. The crews conducted separate experiments in geography, geology, navigation, medicine and radio communications before Soyuz 4 came home on 17 January, carrying two crewmen who had been launched in another craft. They came down 40 km (25 miles) northwest of Karaganda, in bitter temperatures of —35°, with a flight time of 2 days 23 hours 20 minutes 47 seconds. Yeliseyev and Khrunov, the hitchhikers, had clocked up a space time of just 1 day 23 hours 45 minutes. The deserted Volynov, who reached a maximum altitude of 237 km (147 miles) in Soyuz 5, came home on 18 January, 200 km (124 miles) southwest of Kustanai, with a flight time of 3 days 0 hours 54 minutes 15 seconds.

The re-entry of Soyuz 5 almost ended in disaster as the Propulsion Module failed to separate cleanly from the Descent Module. This caused the spacecraft to begin its entry the wrong way round, with the sealed inner hatch facing forward instead of the heat shield. Volynov, who was not wearing a pressure suit, heard the separation charges fire but also saw the PM still attached out of the side window. Smelling the burning rubber of the hatch gasket, Volynov thought he would not survive re-entry. As the G forces increased, the PM suddenly separated by atmospheric friction, causing the DM to swing around to the correct orientation for re-entry. Volynov realised he would indeed survive re-entry after all but then found, like Komarov on Soyuz 1, that his main parachute had tangled. This time it untangled, but the landing was so hard, despite the soft-landing rockets working, that he broke several teeth in his upper jaw. He had landed 600 km from the intended landing site due to the difficulties in separating the components. He got out of the capsule shaken, but able to walk to a nearby peasant hut to await the rescue team. It took some time for him to fully recover from the ordeal.

Milestones

29th and 30th manned space flights 11th and 12th Soviet manned space flights 3rd and 4th Soyuz manned space flight 1st docking between two manned spacecraft 1st crew transfer

1st landing by crew launched in another spacecraft

1st “spacecraft” with four crew

2nd Soviet and 7th flight with EVA operations

Flight Crew

MCDIVITT, James Alton, 39, USAF, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 4 (1965)

SCOTT, David Randolph, 36, USAF, command module pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 8 (1966)

SCHWEICKART, Russell Louis “Rusty”, 33, lunar module pilot

Flight Log

If Apollo 11 was going to make the first manned landing on the Moon, Apollo 9 would have to be a spectacular success. And so it was. The main objective of the mission was to test-fly the Lunar Module in Earth orbit. Bad colds delayed the launch of the all-up Apollo stack from 28 February to 3 March, at 11: 00 hrs local time. Once in orbit, command module pilot Dave Scott separated from the S-IVB stage and performed the first transposition and docking manoeuvre to extract the LM, which had been nick­named Spider because of its arachnid-like appearance. The Command Module was called Gumdrop after the appearance of the CM when it was covered in blue wrappings as it was transported across the US. The individual names were chosen because of the need to identify the communications sources during the joint flight, a procedure that continued to the end of the Apollo lunar programme in 1972.

Interestingly, the S-IVB stage was restarted twice for the injection into solar orbit, but with slightly less speed than planned. Had the burn been for a manned trans-lunar injection, a Moon-landing mission could have been aborted. Meanwhile, in Earth orbit, Jim McDivitt commanded the SPS engine to fire four times, changing the altitude parameters of the 32.6° inclination orbit and testing the structural dynamics of the joint spacecraft. The maximum altitude achieved during the mission was 200 km (124 miles). On the third day, dressed in full space gear, McDivitt and Rusty

Schweickart entered Spider for the first checkout, while it was still attached to Gumdrop. This included a 367-second firing of the descent engine, which for the final 59 seconds was manually throttled by McDivitt, the first such manoeuvre in space history.

The SPS engine was fired again to fine-tune the orbit for the joint Spider – Gumdrop rendezvous and docking mission, but space sickness hit Schweickart, cancelling his EVA wearing the fully independent Apollo Portable Life Support System (PLSS) spacesuit, during which he planned an external transfer from the porch of the LM to the Command Module. However, he did recover enough to perform a 37-minute EVA standing on the porch on 7 March. The EVA resulted in some classic photographs. On 8 March came the big test. Spider was separated from

Gumdrop and fired its descent engine twice, ending up 19.2km (12 miles) higher. Then, for the first time, the LM ascent engine was fired, after separation of the descent stage, placing it 120 km (75 miles) behind and 16 km (10 miles) below Gumdrop, to simulate lunar ascent and the rendezvous and docking manoeuvre.

Six hours later, Spider and Gumdrop were together, but not before McDivitt’s eye-straining final docking, which resulted in the recommendation that on future flights this should be performed by the CMP. The ascent stage of Spider was separated as its engine fired again, to place it in a high-Earth orbit as the crew in Gumdrop wound down the mission with detailed Earth observations and photography. Re-entry was delayed one orbit because of fears of high seas in the splashdown area, giving Apollo 9 another first – the first extended US manned space flight. After a 3.6m/sec (12 ft/sec) burn of the SPS, reducing the speed by 353 kph (219 mph), enough to induce re-entry, Apollo 9 splashed down safely at 23.25° north 68° west at T + 10 days 1 hour 0 minutes 54 seconds, some 5 km (3 miles) from USS Guadalcanal. Only one more test remained before the Moon landing.

Milestones

31st manned space flight 19th US manned space flight 3rd manned Apollo CSM flight 1st manned Apollo LM flight

1st manned flight in spacecraft unable to return to Earth

1st manual engine throttling

6th US and 8th flight with EVA operations

Flight Crew

STAFFORD, Thomas Patten Jr., 38, USAF, commander, 3rd mission Previous missions: Gemini 6 (1965); Gemini 9 (1966)

YOUNG, John Watts Jr., 38, USN, command module pilot, 3rd mission Previous missions: Gemini 3 (1965); Gemini 10 (1966)

CERNAN, Eugene Andrew, 34, USN, lunar module pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 9 (1966)

Flight Log

The riskiest space flight yet, Apollo 10 was to simulate a Moon landing in the final test before Apollo 11. Had development of the Lunar Module not been delayed, it is quite possible that Apollo 10 would have made the first real landing, making its commander Tom Stafford and LMP Eugene Cernan the first men on the Moon. Apollo 10 left new launch pad 39B at the Kennedy Space Center at 12: 49 hrs local time on 18 May 1969 and placed the S-IVB and Apollo stack in a 32.5°, 184 km (114 miles) apogee Earth­parking orbit. Then the orbital speed was increased from 7,800 m/sec to 11,171 m/sec (25,593 ft/sec to 36,651 ft/sec) by the S-IVB’s engine.

Soon after, Apollo 10 became Charlie Brown and Snoopy (named after the popular Peanuts cartoon characters created by Charles L. Schultz). For the mission, Charlie Brown exchanged his WWI flying ace goggles and scarf for a space helmet, while Snoopy the beagle was a symbol of quality performance. As the LM was extracted from the spent stage, it was seen live on the first colour television show from space. Happy TV shows were beamed from the light-hearted crew en route to the Moon, which needed only one SPS mid-course manoeuvre, rather than the planned

four, such was the accuracy of the flight profile. At about T + 76 hours, Apollo 10 reached lunar orbit, which was circularised at 110 km (68 miles). Some 14 hours later, the risky, untried part of the mission began.

Snoopy undocked and flew in station-keeping mode for a while before firing its descent engine for a brief 27.4 seconds, simulating a lunar landing and taking Stafford and Cernan to within 15.52 km (10 miles) of the lunar surface. Amid high excitement, the crew described the scene of boulders bigger than houses and a magnificent Earthrise, as Snoopy flew over the Sea of Tranquillity – Apollo 11’s target – testing the all-important LM radar. The descent engine was fired again, twice, before staging. Because a switch had been left in the wrong position in Snoopy’s cockpit, the staging, achieved at the second attempt, placed the ascent stage in an uncontrollable gyration, which at least led the LMP Cernan volubly to consider his fate.

Control regained, Stafford fired the ascent engine for 15 seconds, to simulate the rise from the lunar surface to rendezvous with Charlie Brown – and the lonely John Young. Careful RCS thruster firings gently nudged the LM towards the CM and at T + 106 hours, docking was achieved. After 31 lunar orbits, in 61 hours 31 minutes, Apollo 10 leapt from the Moon, and three days later flew into Earth’s atmosphere at a record manned speed of 39,897 kph (24,792 mph), landing at T + 8 days 0 hours 3 minutes 23 seconds, at 165° west 5°south, some 6.4 km (4 miles) from the USS Princetown.

Milestones

32nd manned space flight

20th US manned space flight

4th Apollo manned flight

4th Apollo CSM manned flight

2nd Apollo LM manned flight

1st flight by experienced multi-crew

1st flight by two manned craft in lunar orbit

1st crewman to fly solo in lunar orbit (Young)

2nd manned flight to and orbit of the Moon

Fastest Apollo re-entry speed from lunar distance – 39,897 kph

Flight Crew

ARMSTRONG, Neil Alden, 38, civilian, commander, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 8 (1966)

COLLINS, Michael, 38, USAF, command module pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 10 (1966)

ALDRIN, Edwin Eugene “Buzz”, 39, USAF, lunar module pilot, 2nd mission Previous mission: Gemini 12 (1966)

Flight Log

Commander Neil Armstrong reckoned that the chances of total success for the first attempt to land on the Moon on Apollo 11 were 50: 50. Six hundred million people all over the world watched on television as Apollo 11 began its journey at 09: 32 hrs local time from the Kennedy Space Center. Eleven minutes 46 seconds later, Armstrong and his crew of Mike Collins and Buzz Aldrin were over the first hurdle – 184 km (114 miles) above the Earth in a 32.7° inclination orbit. The mission was starting quietly and it continued this way, with the rather sombre crew keeping comments to a minimum. The trans-lunar injection burn, lasting 5 minutes 47 seconds, was a success, as was the transposition and docking manoeuvre by Collins.

Some TV broadcasts were made and the avidly-followed mission continued with Armstrong and Aldrin, in their spacesuits, checking out the LM, which had been named Eagle. Apollo 11 achieved lunar orbit with a 347-second SPS burn at T + 75 hours 50 minutes. The orbit was circularised by a second SPS “tweak” at 110 km (68 miles). The climax approached as Eagle separated from the Command Module Columbia at T + 100 hours 12 minutes. One hour 20 minutes later, with Eagle on the far side of the Moon, the descent engine fired for 30 seconds to begin descent orbit insertion (DOI). Fifty-seven minutes later, both Eagle and Columbia emerged from

the far side, with Eagle now approaching its 14.56 km (9 miles) low point or perilune, when the powered descent initiation burn (PDI) was to begin.

The 756.3-second long burn seemed interminable to the waiting world, but to the crew it went so fast that neither could recall very much about it, other than the computer alarms that nearly aborted the landing. An overloaded computer was protesting, but ground controller Stephen Bales reported that all was well. The mission was given a go to land, but with seconds left Armstrong could see that the autopilot was taking Eagle into a boulder-strewn crater. He took partial control and amid clouds of dust, landed with between 15 and 20 seconds of fuel left, at T + 102 hours 45 minutes. The time in the UK was 21: 18 hrs on 20 July.

The landing site, named Tranquillity Base by Armstrong, was about 6.4 km (4 miles) downrange of the planned touchdown point, at 0°41’15" north 23°0’26" east. Having reached the Moon, Armstrong could start to think about what his first words would be when he stepped upon it. Although in the Gemini programme the pilot went for the walks, on Apollo, because of the design of the Lunar Module hatch which opened towards the LMP thus trapping him, the commander would go out first, which was regarded as a logical thing to do anyway given the prestigious nature of the event. Armstrong’s right boot touched the lunar dust at T + 109 hours 42 minutes, 03: 56 hrs British time on 21 July. As he stepped onto the lunar surface, Armstrong said: “That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.’’ Armstrong was

joined by Aldrin, who took the TV camera and placed it on a tripod some distance away so that both astronauts could be seen, looking like ghosts on the black and white TV.

The flag was raised and the short moonwalk was interrupted by a gushing President Nixon. The astronauts rushed to finish the deployment of EASEP experi­ments but Armstrong did find time to take some classic photographs of Aldrin, the first person to make two spacewalks. Although he had the camera briefly, to take pictures of his boot print and a panorama of the surface, Aldrin did not take a formal still of the first man on the Moon, although he did happen to feature in one of the panoramas with his back to camera and standing in the shadow of the Lunar Module. The moonwalk lasted 2 hours 31 minutes 40 seconds, during which Armstrong was on the surface for 2 hours 14 minutes and Aldrin for 1 hour 33 minutes.

After 21 hours 36 minutes on the Moon, the critical ascent engine burn began, firing for 435 seconds to place Eagle’s ascent stage in orbit for its rendezvous with Collins. The SPS engine fired for 2 minutes 29 seconds and after 59 hours 30 minutes in lunar orbit, Columbia was en route for its landing at 169°west 13°north, coming down near the USS Hornet at T + 8 days 3 hours 18 minutes 35 seconds. The epic mission was over, rather ironically overshadowed by the antics of the late President Kennedy’s younger brother Edward, who was involved in a fatal traffic accident at Chappaquidick.

Milestones

33rd manned space flight 21st US manned space flight 5th Apollo manned space flight 5th Apollo CSM manned flight 3rd Apollo LM manned flight 1st manned landing on the Moon 1st walk on the Moon

3rd manned flight to and orbit of the Moon 7th US and 9th flight with EVA operations