Apollo 11's leap into the unknown - 13 Minutes to the Moon Season 1, Episode 8 - BBC World Service

The 13 minutes begin, but Eagle is going too fast and there are communications problems.
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We have met the people and heard about the Apollo 11 technology, now the descent is underway.
This is the full story and it's a leap into the unknown.
Presented by: Kevin Fong
Starring:
Charlie Duke
Steve Bales
Don Eyles
Courtesy of the Johnson Space Center Oral History Project:
Neil Armstrong
Gene Kranz
Jay Greene
Jack Garman
Bob Carlton
Theme music by Hans Zimmer for Bleeding Fingers Music.
Listen to the podcast: www.bbc.co.uk/...
Watch Season 1 of 13 Minutes to the Moon here: • 13 Minutes to the Moon
Watch Season 2 of 13 Minutes to the Moon here: • Playlist
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[@LaPabst]

Love this stuff, I'm 65 and I was very much alive as this all happened in real time. You can't appreciate history as it happens, it becomes more amazing as time passes.

[@AndrewBlacker-t1d]

The irony... Our family was driving from Cody, Wyoming back to Chicago during this descent phase. Mom all but twisted the knobs off the am radio trying to find and keep a radio station so we could listen to coverage. "Communications were lousy!" We got to Badlands National Park, and Dad got out his high quality radio from the camper and found a solid station. It got dark out, moon was bright, and we were surrounded by the peaks of the Badlands (that looked like the moon)... while astronauts were crawling out of the LM. It's a night I will never forget.

[@shivamduhan7700]

thats amazing, I completely agree about the moonlike quality of badlands. i went there this winter and reached there at night after driving for hours through a fierce snowstorm listening to chris hadfield's an astronaut's guide to life on earth. i was the only one there in a 100 mile radius on a full moon night after 6 ft of fresh snow, it truly felt like i was driving on the moon.

[@SalyLuz-hc6he]

Wonderful! Thank You for posting this great series!

[@patinduru]

Awesome podcast 👍

[@TheDoomCJ]

i love

[@BBCWorldService]

Watch the series here: kzbin.info/aero/PLz_B0PFGIn4f0xYPhOk0wIASOYE8-1Wbz

[@michaelboso9355]

Excellent series. Among the best. Not a fan of those circles.

[@AndrewBlacker-wr2ve]

Eagle is heading down faster than anticipated... P63 is a program that fires the descent engine based upon ALL data concerning positioning of the LM after it left the CM. P63 needs the IMU data to know how to calculate and steer the LM to the selected landing area. The reason cited for Eagle going "long" downrange is excess pressure in the tunnel between the CM and the LM. As I said above... Why doesn't P63 recognize that the LM is moving down too rapidly from the 'get go?" The LM IMU only had ONE job to do: keep track of Inertial Movement to feed accurate data to P63. Did it not detect the "pop" and acceleration? Instead, P63 starts as if everything for the recent 45 minutes is based upon perfect IMU calculations. Why have the IMU, or P63 if the don't/can't update based upon real time data?

[@kbabioch]

Probably it's more complicated than reported here. But your questions are totally valid, would like to get some answers.

[@AndrewBlacker-wr2ve]

@@kbabioch A lot of things said in this series don't make sense. And I'm not accusing the producers of knowingly deceiving us... but rather, better quality control.

[@bitesofmathematics4356]

Initially the full thrust of the descent engine is well below the level to deccelerate at all during descent, and it only gains that ability as fuel is burnt. Thus it must at first increase speed as it descends, before later slowing down. This was anticipated. I have read that it was lunar gravity variations, or mass-cons that contributed to an excess of speed above the expected. However during early P63 the engine is already at full thrust and can't supply any more of the needed thrust to bring the speed in line with expectations. The business about the pressurisation of the tunnel linking the command and lunar modules, is relevant only if it saved a bit of fuel ie. the lunar module then had an initial mass, prior to PDI, exceeding expectations. Note for P63 the mass ( and for that matter the centre of mass ) is estimated ( by dynamical response ) rather than known precisely. For instance the lunar module had probably another 30 seconds of fuel beyond what was quoted to the crew by Houston. The only way we'll ever know for sure is to go up there and measure the remaining fuel in the descent stage! In any event it turned out to be good luck as the target area was full of bloody boulders, so going long wasn't all bad.

[@bitesofmathematics4356]

Please note that Don Eyles ( the P63 programmer ) has written a book, called "Sunburst and Luminary", which deals with all of this.

[@RaymondRaymond02]

🎉

[@Paul-vm9sz]

I can’t believe after 50 years people still believe this actually ever happened. Absolutely blows my mind. Never in the history of mankind has man been able to do something involving technology, and then wasn’t able to do it again 50 years later.

[@Ruda-n4h]

Technology can regress due to a lack of driving impetus. We no longer have a transatlantic supersonic airliner, electric cars were absent from our roads for 70 years after their first appearance, and after the Romans fell, many technologies disappeared for nearly a millennium e.g. concrete, steam power, sewers, flexible glass, until rediscovered and/or improved upon during the Middle Ages. The equipment was custom built and much of it is archaic. Many things cannot be bought “off the shelf” and have to be specially manufactured. Re-designing from scratch is cheaper and better. However, it takes years to build up that sort of expertise and NASA has been going through the same problems it had in the early to mid-60’s. Rocket technology has not progressed much at all and although modern computers are far more sophisticated, they are far more vulnerable to particle radiation than those in Apollo that used low density integrated circuits and magnetic core memory, both of which are extremely radiation hard, and a lot of work has had to be done to remedy this. The mission requirement is very different from Apollo. The duration of stay is longer, the terrain will be rougher this time with longer shadows and a heavier lander. We also live in much more risk averse times. All these issues are what has caused it to take so long this time around.

[@kieranororke620]

No one with any knowledge ever said it can't be done again. And if you knew anything about this subject you would know that both NASA and the Chinese space agency are currently planning to land humans on the lunar surface quite soon, with NASA's Artemis programme aiming at 2027 and China by 2030.

[@Paul-vm9sz]

@Ruda-n4h No it can’t. On top of this NASA admits to having erased all the Apollo telemetry and has destroyed the schematics…..that’s utter BS.

[@Paul-vm9sz]

@@kieranororke620 NASA astronaut Don Petite already went on the record saying the technology has been destroyed. The fact is….it wasn’t there in the first place.

[@peterm3964]

crappy visuals

[@gregmassi2067]

What a joke!

[@JohnM3665570]

Why?

[@ugowar]

​@@JohnM3665570Because he's obviously one of those "free thinkers". Move along, nothing to see here.

[@Huda88754]

Yes you are

[@me-cq7wv]

BBC What a joke