Abstract
Early on the morning of July 16, 1969, three of NASA’s most capable astronauts enter the elevator at the foot of the gantry to the side of the rocket and ride up the 320 feet (98 m) to the Apollo spacecraft on top of the Saturn V. Neill Armstrong takes the left seat, Buzz Aldrin the center and Michael Collins is on the right. To squeeze everything in, and to cushion the astronauts during the high-g loads of takeoff and re-entry, the seatbacks are attached to the floor and so the astronauts are lying on their backs staring up. They spend nearly three hours running through checklists, responding to instructions from the controllers, checking dials, and waiting for liftoff.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The first (central) engine was ignited nine seconds before liftoff, then the others at intervals of a quarter of a second (to lessen the shock), allowing them to build up to full power before the hold-down arms were released and the rocket rose from the pad.
- 3.
There are at least three different weights that are referred to as “ton.” For brevity, we use the word “ton” to signify a weight of 1,000 kg (about 2,205 lbs) instead of “tonne” or “metric ton.” Note that in the United States and Canada, “ton” usually means 2,000 lbs, while in the rest of the world it usually means 2,240 lbs.
- 4.
This velocity is a so-called space-fixed velocity since the spacecraft is now in orbit. Velocity figures for earlier in the flight were so-called Earth-fixed, i.e. relative to being stationary on the launch pad.
- 5.
I led a small team at TRW Systems in Houston that analysed the accuracy of these measurements after the Apollo, 8, 10, 11 and 12 missions. Our results confirmed the decision not to navigate using the sensors and computer in the CSM.
- 6.
You can see for yourself by visiting one of the sixteen Command Modules that returned from space and are located at museums around the US and abroad. See https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/apolloloc.html for details.
- 7.
Declaration of interest: the engine was designed and manufactured by TRW, my employer at the time.
References
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Norris, P. (2019). Apollo 11 – Getting There. In: Returning People to the Moon After Apollo. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14915-4_3
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