Original subtitles

You go to continue power detent.

You go to continue power detent.

Program alarm.

Leave us a reading on the 1202 program alarm.

Listen.

The Eagle has landed.

Just for me clean on tape, say I'm Neil Armstrong, spacecraft commander, Apollo 11.

I'm Neil Armstrong, commander, Apollo 11.

Would you prefer Buzz or Edwin?

I'm Edwin E.

Aldrin, Jr., lunar module pilot on a mission Apollo 11.

Just look right at me and say I'm Michael Collins, command module pilot.

I'm Michael Collins, command module pilot.

I'm Buzz.

I'm Apollo 11.

The accomplishment that you expect to achieve

is often compared to that of Columbus.

How do you feel about such comparisons?

Columbus wasn't sure where he was going.

I very much hope that we won't terminate at some place that we didn't expect to,

some planet that we hadn't planned to visit.

The crew of Apollo 11 is unique.

Thanks very much, Buzz Aldrin.

I wasn't finished.

Oh, oh, okay, okay.

Let's back up.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Additionally, they are unusual.

Do you want to start over?

No, I don't want to start over.

Do you?

And they also have another minor distinction.

They perhaps have been asked more questions than almost anybody in the world.

Why are you going?

Why are we sending men and not machines?

Do you expect to be able to sleep?

Do you feel that the public is putting too much hope on this landing?

And it's not an easy chore for them to perform.

They're not naturally talkative men.

I don't know about you, but I'm staggered

about going to the moon, aren't you, fellas?

Do you think NASA made a mistake not planning for capability of rescuing you in

case of... Your mission has been given an 80% chance of success.

What four events in the flight... In order, if you can.

Do you consider the most dangerous?

Do you think that we ought to use if a little

more instead of, say, when you land on the moon?

This is CBS News color coverage of Man on the Moon.

The epic journey of Apollo 11.

Sponsored by Kellogg's.

Kellogg's puts more in your morning.

Hear from CBS News correspondent, Walter Cronkite.

Good morning.

The astronauts are on board now.

Next stop for them, the moon.

The three astronauts are now in their tiny spacecraft on top of this enormous rocket.

They have about 160 cubic feet in there, which is

about the size of the interior of a small automobile.

There is time, if only briefly in this busy morning, to think of those three men.

..

And the burdens and the hopes that they carry on behalf of all mankind.

We are go for Apollo 11.

All the second stage tanks now pressurized.

Power transfer is complete.

Paul Allen, the lock stream wishes you good luck and Godspeed.

You get a feeling that people think of these men as

not just superior men, but as different creatures.

We really don't have the language to describe this thing.

What are the words you use?

How do you say, high as the sky anymore?

Or the sky's the limit?

I mean, what does it mean?

Right-o, flight, how are you?

Looking good, flight.

GNC?

Flight, here you come.

Looking good, flight.

Roger.

Booster flight, how are you?

Way to go, flight.

Mark.

Mark.

Mode one, Charlie.

Go.

And ignition.

Houston, thrust is go.

All engines, you're looking good.

Tower's gone.

Roger, tower.

Neil Armstrong confirming both the engine skirt

separation and the launch escape tower separation.

Houston, be advised the visual is go today.

Yeah, they finally gave me a window to look out.

Apollo 11, go on all sources.

Apollo 11, this is Houston.

You are confirmed to go for orbit.

So, this first always dramatic and dangerous launch phase has passed.

And Apollo 11 is on the way.

This is the flight from which man will first set foot on the moon.

We almost glibly tossed that line away.

Now, man on the moon, but by golly, just think it over.

CBS News color coverage of the launch day of Apollo 11 will continue in a moment.

How does zero-g feel?

Your head feel funny, anybody, or anything like that?

Uh, well, just feel like we're going around this side now.

I don't even feel that.

I feel a horizon come out.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Stand by for sunrise.

Hey, we got those rivers with us.

Haven't seen too many of those.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

Jesus Christ, look at that horizon.

Goddamnit.

Are you in that filter?

I'm real.

Forgot.

I'll take care of that.

Hmm.

Sure, I will.

I have lots of half the class.

Anybody seen a half the class floating by?

Seems to be going very far.

It's standing in my direction.

Everybody looks at the floating half the class.

I feel the tan floating we're trying here, too.

Is anybody missing a ballpoint soon?

Is it ballpoint, or is it just...

Here it is.

It's a ballpoint.

Coming south, here.

I've looked everywhere over that half the class.

Planet?

Yeah.

Here you are.

Thoroughly checked out by the crew.

The third stage fires again.

Its speed now tearing it free from the grip of Earth's gravity.

This is Apollo Control.

We expect the translunar injection burn at 2 hours 44 minutes.

We confirm ignition, and the thrust is go.

We're waiting for word of the separation

from the command module going off on its own.

While coasting outward, the command service module separates.

And docks for access to the lunar module.

And the empty third stage is left behind.

This is Houston.

Here to go for separation.

I see some robots as well.

This next major function now is the command module posting out 50 feet away.

Thrust in.

Subtraction.

The command module will turn around.

180 degrees.

The command module will touch around and come back.

And with the nose in, come in and dock with the lunar module.

It's a very, very delicate control task.

Get up.

It really looks nice, doesn't it?

We're closing, and it leaves really fast.

Stand by, we're closing.

We understand that you are docked.

That's permanent.

With the lunar module attached to their nose, they'll

be on the way on their three-day voyage to the moon.

And into the pages of history.

Houston, Apollo 11.

Lem looks to be in pretty fine shape.

Not all we can see from here.

And Apollo 11, Houston.

All your systems look real good to us.

We'll keep you posted.

We have seen something spectacular today.

Something we'll be telling our grandchildren about.

Something our great-grandchildren will undoubtedly

be undertaking themselves on an excursion basis.

This is Walter Cronkite, CBS News, at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Washington, U.P.I.

Has called for putting a man on Mars by the year 2000.

But Democratic leaders replied that priority must go to needs on Earth.

Laredo, Texas.

Immigration officials in Nuevo Laredo announced that hippies will be refused

tourist cards to enter Mexico unless they take a bath and get haircuts.

London.

The House of Lords was assured that a midget American submarine would not,

quote, damage or assault, unquote, the Loch Ness Monster.

Apollo 11's distance now 112,386 nautical miles.

Velocity 4,906 feet per second.

See that sight?

Why don't you give us a TV picture of that one?

All right.

Yes, Joe.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Apollo 11, this is Houston.

Over.

Go ahead, Houston.

Roger.

I've got the morning news here.

Over.

In Corby, England, an Irishman named John Coyle has won the World Porridge Eating

Championship by consuming 23 bowls of instant oatmeal.

I'd like to enter Aldrin in an oatmeal eating contest next time.

You're pretty good at that.

I'm still aging.

He's on his 19th bowl.

Roger.

It almost seems that Neil Armstrong's life was intended to work out this way.

Before the moon, there was flying.

Armstrong was, needless to say, a hot pilot in the Navy.

He survived the only forced landing in the history of the space program.

And when a lunar training vehicle went out of control, forcing him to bail out for

the second time in his life, a friend concluded he

was either the best or the luckiest pilot around.

Anyone else paying attention would have concluded

nothing could stop him from flying to the moon.

Even more serious than Armstrong is Buzz Aldrin.

He is, by general agreement, the most brilliant of the astronauts.

Though some of his colleagues have been known to comment they wished he didn't

feel it necessary to demonstrate his scholarship so often.

Typically, Aldrin trained for weeks under water for his Gemini 12 spacewalk,

determined that it would be the best ever attempted.

It was.

But Aldrin can be as cool in appraising

himself as he is in his relations with others.

Mike Collins has done everything Neil Armstrong and

Buzz Aldrin have done, but somehow it's not the same.

The son of a general, the nephew of another, he graduated

from West Point but did not like the military discipline.

He bailed out of a jet that was on fire, but can't remember anything spectacular.

Collins says he loves flying, but you get the feeling he could quit tomorrow.

In his only other flight, Gemini 10, a combination of

circumstances forced him to cut short his spacewalk.

While the others talk flying, he prefers to discuss books, wine or roses.

A man who has known all three astronauts says if he were forced down on a remote

island, he would want it to be with Mike Collins for the quality of his personality.

Another said he would prefer Buzz Aldrin because with his intelligence,

he would soon be converting sea water to fresh

water and otherwise logically attacking the problem.

But both agree that they would hope it would be with

Neil Armstrong, because somehow he would get them home.

This Apollo controller, Dr. Hawkins, reports

all indications are that the crew is sleeping.

The flight

director has made a decision to not put in a call to the crew and wake them.

Houston, you're reading Apollo 11.

Roger, 11.

We're reading you loud and clear now.

Go over.

Yeah, it's a break behind the ship.

Roger.

Very marked three-dimensional aspect of having

some sort of coming from behind the moon land.

And it looks as though I guess what's given it that effect is the Earthshine.

And of course, I can see the sky is lit all the way around the moon.

Limb of it where there's no Earthshine nor sunshine.

Houston, it's been a real change for us.

Now we're able to see stars again and recognize

constellations for the first time on the trip.

And the sky is full of stars.

Just like the night side of Earth.

I guess it's turned into night up there, really, hasn't it?

It really has.

It's a view worth the price of a trip.

Well, there are a lot of us down here that would be willing to come along.

I hope you get your turn in soon.

This is Apollo Control at 75 hours, 26 minutes.

Apollo 11 is 966 miles from the moon.

Velocity 6,511 feet per second.

We're 23 minutes away from the LOI burn.

Okay, Capcom, we're go for LOI.

I've got a spectacular view of you.

Look at that, man.

Fantastic.

This back there behind us, this is like a gigantic crater.

Look at the mountains going around it.

My gosh, they're a monster.

That's the biggest one, yeah.

This is big, I can't even get in the window.

You want to look at that?

That's the biggest one.

Did you get the pictures of it?

Yeah, I just took one.

Oh, boy, you could spend a lifetime just geologizing that one crater alone,

you know that?

Good.

Not how I like to spend my lifetime, but...

59.

Beautiful.

It's very quiet here in the control room, but...

Oh, there's a fake mother over here, too.

Come on, now, Buzz, don't worry about it.

There's a fake mother.

It's got some very vivid name.

Yeah, sure looks like a lot of them have slumped down.

A slumping big mother, huh?

Yeah.

Most of them are slumping.

The bigger they are, the more they slump.

That's a true reason, isn't it?

There it is.

It's coming up.

What?

The Earth.

The Earth?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a problem.

You know the available Earth?

Apollo 11, Apollo 11, this is Houston.

How do you read?

Reading you live and clear, Houston.

How are you?

Glad you're reading you the same now.

Could you repeat your burn status report?

It was like perfect.

The spacecraft is looking good to us on telemetry.

That's, uh, that's the last real we eat, uh, towards the center.

Amazing how quickly you adapt.

Well, it doesn't seem weird at all to me to look out there and see the moon going by.

It's like crazy moon out there again, huh?

It's funny when you think.

Well, our day went pretty well.

More than much to say about the scenario.

It was a good day.

The

divine spark in man will consume him in flames.

That the big brain will prove our ultimate flaw like the dinosaur's big body.

That the metal plaque Armstrong and Aldrin expect

to place on the moon will become man's epitaph.

But the future has never revealed itself.

It is made step by step, moment by moment.

The next great moment is now at hand.

The world waits and the astronauts sleep.

After having breakfast, the crew will have a rather busy day.

Including the first man landing on the moon.

That you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit.

An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl

called Chang'e has been living there for 4,000 years.

It seems she was banished to the moon because she

stole this tale of immortality from her husband.

You might also look for her companion.

A large Chinese rabbit.

Who is easy to spot.

Since he is always standing on his hind feet.

In the shade of a cinnamon tree.

Okay, we'll keep her close by for the bunny girl.

You heard that report from Neil Armstrong.

They're now in the lunar module.

Flight director Gene Kranz is going around the control center now.

Talking to his flight controllers.

Reviewing status.

And in preparation for making the go or no-go decision for undocking.

Apollo 11, Houston.

We are go for undocking.

Over.

Roger.

Understand.

...

...

Houston, you're looking good for separation.

You're a go for separation.

Columbia, over.

...

See you

on the terrible, over.

Roger.

Angles undocked.

Roger.

Somebody's upside down.

See you later.

Make any angles, over.

Roger.

Pitch 212.

Y'all plus 3-7.

In about 25 seconds from now...

the important burn of the descent propulsion

system engine of the lunar module.

..

Will begin slowing it down for the landing on the moon.

Ten percent TCP.

Roger.

Ten percent.

Ten percent.

Three

minutes, point early.

Position check, NASA.

It looks to be a little off.

Roger.

Continued power descent.

See?

We got good lock on.

Altitude lights out.

LA is minus 2900.

Roger.

We copy.

Program alarm.

Bobo 2.

1202, give us a reading on the 1202 program alarm.

Roger, we got you.

Go

For landing, over.

Roger, understand.

Go for landing.

Landing

is not just as simple as it sounds.

They've got to come in over some rather high features before

they make that set down on a fairly flat point in the moon.

The most difficult part of the mission is the landing.

You have the maneuverability of a helicopter so you can descend vertically,

look at the area, and then finally pick out that one spot that is acceptable.

The hard part, of course, is to get that close and

then have to commit to leaving after all of this work.

And I think that pressure is probably the greatest

amount of pressure any crew will ever have.

We're now in the approach course.

Phase everything looking good.

There's just 14 miles to go and four and a half minutes is left in the zero.

We're go, flight.

Okay, we're go.

We're go, same time.

We're go.

Roger, we copy you.

35 degrees.

35 degrees, 750.

Coming down to 23.

Stay down at 19.

Tranquility Base here.

The Eagle has landed.

Roger, Tranquility.

We copy you on the ground.

You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue.

We're breathing again.

Thanks a lot.