Meanwhile, at home

Jan Armstrong remained on North American Rockwell’s boat until TLI, which she

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refused to mark with champagne, preferring instead to defer celebration until the crew was safely home, then she returned to Patrick Air Force Base for a flight to Houston. After TLI, Pat Collins went onto her front lawn to give her first in-flight interview and, adhering to the wives’ formula, told the reporters she was “thrilled, proud and pleased’’.

wide variety of issues for different flight controllers – sometimes in parallel, in an attempt to overload flight director Gene Kranz. On the fourth session the LM crashed onto the Moon. Even travelling at the speed of light, it takes a radio signal 1.3 seconds to cross the space between Earth and the Moon. As a consequence of this transmission delay, the flight control team’s abort call had been made too late, leaving insufficient time for the crew to follow through. On the next session, Koos made the guidance system malfunction while the flight controllers were analysing another issue, resulting in another crash – not because the situation had been intrinsically unrecoverable, but because the flight controllers on this occasion had been distracted. Before the end of the day they had suffered another two crashes. As Kranz wrote of this first day, “We were learning the hard way about the ‘dead man’s box’, the seconds-critical relationship of velocity, time and altitude where the spacecraft will always hit the surface before Mission Control can react, and call an abort.’’ Christopher C. Kraft, Director of Flight Operations at the Manned Spacecraft Center, George M. Low, Manager of the Apollo Spacecraft Program Office, and Deke Slayton, Director of Flight Crew Operations, all listened in to the flight director’s loop over their office ‘squawk boxes’. Afterwards Kraft called Kranz. ‘‘Chris,’’ Kranz said, ‘‘you have had these types of days. It is just a matter of time and training, we will work it out.’’ In fact, because the ‘dead man’s box’ was dependent on several variables, it proved difficult to determine just when the LM entered it. All that could be done was to explore the parameters and gain a feel for it. It was concluded that in the final phase of the descent it was impracticable for Mission Control to call an abort and hence, after the locus of decision-making had switched to the LM, the flight controllers became spectators.

Although everyone was eager to explore problems that might arise late in the descent, Koos sometimes presented a flight controller with an earlier issue, with a view to seducing him into making an incorrect selection from several remedial options. Often, after provoking an abort call, Koos would point out that the abort had not been justified and that the flight could have continued. Other times, after the team had either spent too long analysing an issue, or had decided to press on regardless and crashed, Koos would point out precisely where they should have aborted. In one run in late June, just as the LM was manoeuvring to a ‘viewing’ orientation at an altitude of 7,500 feet, Koos caused a thrusters to continue firing, making the vehicle unstable. Although Armstrong knew he should abort before the tumbling caused the spacecraft to crash, he deliberately waited. Aldrin stared at his commander in amazement, then urged him to abort, but Armstrong continued to wait – he wished to know how long it would take Mission Control to call the abort; it came too late, and they crashed.

Meanwhile, Collins was training solo for CSM operations. Although his task was less demanding in the sense that the trail had been blazed by previous crews, there was nevertheless a great deal to learn. A simulator at the Langley Research Center had full-scale replicas of the CSM and LM slung on wires in a hangar, to enable CMPs to rehearse the retrieval of the LM from the upper stage of the Saturn V following the translunar injection manoeuvre. With missions being launched at 2- monthly intervals, by the time a crew gained priority in the simulators there was

Mike Collins in the gondola of a centrifuge.

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precious little time to become proficient. Fortunately, as a result of his early training to fly as CMP on Apollo 8, Collins was already familiar with the basics. By March he had first call on one of the two simulators at the Cape, although he had to yield to the Apollo 10 crew whenever their simulator was unavailable. The jumble of boxes attached to the spacecraft to provide the requisite external views had prompted John Young, his Apollo 10 counterpart, to describe it as a “train wreck”. ft took a team of several hundred engineers to maintain the facility, which used a mainframe computer to drive the instrument displays. Time was so precious that the simulators were made available around the clock, with ‘lesser’ crews coming in at night. Collins simulated not only the nominal flight plan but also a host of contingencies, including rescuing the crew of a LM stranded in a low, unstable lunar orbit. ff the LM’s radar were to become inoperative, he would track its flashing beacon optically, but, as the Gemini missions had demonstrated, visual tracking against a sunlit surface was difficult. And, of course, Collins had to learn how to perform the post-transearth injection functions, including atmospheric re-entry, on his own – just in case he had to return home alone.

By the end of May, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were routinely spending 14 hours per day in the simulators at the Cape during the week – often in ‘integrated’ sessions with the two simulators hooked up to Mission Control – and flying home to Houston at weekends. As Jan Armstrong recalled of this period, ‘‘Neil used to come home with his face drawn white, and f was worried about him.’’ Of course, as commander, Armstrong bore the greatest psychological load. ‘‘The worst period was in early June. Their morale was down. They were worried about whether there was enough time for them to learn the things they needed to learn, to do the things they had to do, if this mission was to work.’’

On 11 June, having digested the lessons of Apollo 10, NASA announced that Apollo 11 would indeed attempt a lunar landing. Prior to departing Washington to visit Paris, France, NASA Administrator Thomas O. Paine had instructed Apollo Program Director Samuel C. Phillips, that if Phillips had any reservations ‘‘about the men, about the equipment, about the launch pad facilities’’ for Apollo 11, then he must ‘‘defer the whole thing to August’’. At noon on 12 June Phillips chaired a flight readiness review, which was conducted by telephone conference. He began by announcing, ‘‘f’m fully prepared to delay if something is not ready, or if we’re pushing these men too hard; if we’re doing that, we will reschedule for August.’’ Lee B. James, the Saturn V Manager at the Marshall Space Flight Center, Rocco A. Petrone, the Launch Director at the Kennedy Space Center, and Gene Kranz, as chief of the flight control division in Houston, agreed that hardware preparations were proceeding to plan. Charles E. Berry, Director of Medical Research and Operations in Houston, was concerned about the crew. fn view of the intense pace of training, he would welcome additional time. However, Deke Slayton, who was at the Cape and had spent several days with the astronauts reviewing their training and state of readiness, said Armstrong had told him that while the schedule was tight and they were tired, they would have time to rest and recuperate when the pace slackened in early July. Berry accepted this, George Low concurred, and the scheduled launch date was reaffirmed. Later that day, Phillips called Armstrong, who expressed his

satisfaction. “The turning point”, Armstrong’s wife observed, “came [on 12 June] with the decision to go. After that, everything seemed to go better. They knew they were going, and this seemed to take the weight off their shoulders.’’