"PRESIDENT kENNEDY:" "I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth." "ALDRIN:" "Picking up some dust." "NARRATOR:" "In the 1960s, an impossible dream came true when human beings walked on another world." "ARMSTRONG:" "The Eagle has landed." "NARRATOR:" "In all, 24 Americans went to the moon." "But it took an unseen army of over 400,000 engineers and technicians to make it possible." "This is the story of the men and women who built the machines that took us to the moon." "PRESIDENT kENNEDY:" "As we set sail, we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked." "[Cheers and applause]" "NARRATOR:" "In the summer of 1961, as the United States embarked on its great space adventure, one question above all others remained unresolved." "What kind of spacecraft would take a man to the moon and bring him back alive?" "The United States had a total of 15 minutes of space-fight experience," "5 minutes outside the Earth's atmosphere." "And now we were committed to go to the moon." "We knew nothing about the moon." "No unmanned spacecraft had landed there or even taken decent pictures of it." "It was very vague how we would even get to the moon, what would the vehicles look like, what kind of rocket we would need." "NARRATOR:" "During the initial briefings, everybody assumed the way to the moon was to send one huge spaceship all the way there and all the way back" "But at NASA, they already knew there was a problem." "It required landing a big, heavy, bulky spacecraft on the lunar surface." "One additional disadvantage was that it required a rocket that probably was going to be 50, 60, maybe 70feet high." "And it finally occurred to some of the engineers" "How are these astronauts gonna get out of this big vehicle and get down on the lunar surface?" "NARRATOR:" "As NASA puzzled over the problem, an obscure engineer called John Houbolt came up with a radical altemative." "Instead of taking a single giant spaceship to the moon and back why not build a second lightweight craft that would shuttle between the moon and a mothership?" "It would be smaller, lighter, and much more maneuverable." "There was only one massive drawback" "To get back to Earth would require the lunar shuttle to rendezvous with the mothership in lunar orbit." "STOFF:" "What scared everybody about it is you have to rendezvous and dock around the moon." "You're a quarter of a million miles from Earth." "And he's proposing this in 1961 when we had no space-fight experience and just rendezvousing and docking in Earth orbit concemed everybody." "CAUSEY:" "Every time he brought the idea up, he was shot down." "Everybody said that he didn't know what he was talking about." "It was very embarrassing, because he is a very quiet, very reserved, reticent man, and he was very taken aback by the hostility." "NARRATOR:" "The opposition was led by NASA's foremost rocket expert, Wemhervon Braun, who had always favored the big-rocket approach and now told Houboltto cut the lunar-rendezvous crap." "CAUSEY:" "Wemhervon Braun had a very strong ego, was very popular in the United States, very famous in the United States, because of his appearance on television." "And he believed very strongly in the idea of taking a big rocket to the moon." "NARRATOR:" "In desperation, Houbolt finally wrote directly to NASA's top leadership." "CAUSEY:" "In these letters, Dr. Houbolt said," ""I know that I'm stepping out of line here."" "I know I might even get fired because I'm writing this letter, but I think its so important to bring this to your attention" ""that I'm willing to risk my career in doing it."" "SEAMANS:" "He said something like," ""I know I may be a pain in the neck and I shouldn't be writing this letter to you, " and so on"," ""but I feel so strongly about this," "I feel impelled to write you."" "And he said in these letters to Dr. Seamans that the lunar-orbit-rendezvous idea was the only way to get us to the moon." "Dr. Houbolt didn't say, "I think its one way,"" "or he didn't say, "I think its the best way."" "He said, "I think its the only way."" "SEAMANS:" "It was rather strident in the way it was written, and my first reaction was," ""I'd like some way to get that son of agun off my back"" "NARRATOR:" "But Seamans was sufficiently intrigued to recommend that Houbolts proposal should at least get a serious hearing." "It was a turning point." "At a meeting in June 1962, called to hammer out a solution, von Braun took everybody by surprise." "CAUSEY:" "Everybody was getting together to, again, try and talk about what decision they were gonna make on going to the moon." "SEAMANS:" "The von Braun team gave a presentation, and when they finished, Wemher stood up, and he said, "I'm really proud of our group."" "He said, "Tha twas a wonderful presentation."" "You considered everything very, very carefully, but I have to tell you" ""that thats not what I'm gonna recommend."" ""I'm gonna recommend that we go lunar-orbit rendezvous."" "It was such a surprise to everybody that even his own staff people, several days later, had a private meeting with him, and they said, 'Why in the world did you say that?" "What led you to believe that?" "We were completely surprised that you decided" ""to announce for lunar-orbit rendezvous."" "NARRATOR:" "Belatedly, von Braun had recognized it was the only way." "And in the fall of 1962," "U.S. aircraft manufacturers competed to build what became known as the lunar excursion module, or LEM." "[ Helicopter blades whirring ]" "NARRATOR:" "One of the competitors was a small aircraft company on Long Island." "The Grumman Corporation had already spent time and money investigating the idea of a dedicated lunar lander." "STOFF:" "For well over a year, they had been studying this problem of how to get to the moon." "And because they had been studying it on their own with their own money for longer than all these other contractors, they submitted a much more detailed design." "NARRATOR:" "Grumman's proposal was made up of two distinct stages, each with its own engine." "Adescent stage would take the astronauts down to the lunar surface." "And then, when they wanted to return, a tiny ascent module would separate, leaving the bulky descent stage on the moon and return the astronauts to the orbiting command module." "They really understood that weight was so critical, you wanted to leave the heaviest part behind to get off the moon." "NARRATOR:" "Mission completed, this final stage of the LEM would also be discarded." "NASA liked it, and, in November 1962, Grumman won the contract to build the most complicated and sophisticated spacecraft ever conceived." "But the process had taken almost two years, and Grumman would spend the next five making up for lost time." "As Grumman now got down to the detailed design work they were hampered by the fact that nobody knew much about the surface they were going to land on." "You must remember how many things we didn't know at the very beginning." "This expert was telling us that there are 10 meters ofimpalpable dust on the surface of the moon." "And we worried tremendously about tipping over." "In fact, we made, I think something like 400 different computer runs because we didn't understand what the dynamics of the landing would really be." "NARRATOR:" "But the most pressing issue was weight." "For every pound the LEM weighed, it would take 4 pounds of fuel to lift it off the Earth." "STOFF:" "Grumman's original design has a large spherical top half, the ascent stage, with these very large glass windows." "Well, there's no way you could have those heavy glass windows." "Weight was too precious." "So they had to go to much smaller windows." "There were also seats." "Well, in zerogravity, or 1/6gravity, you really didn't need seats, so the seats were taken out." "In the early concepts for a lunarlander, there's no ladder on the front leg because why do they need a ladder?" "There's only 1/6gravity on the moon." "What if we just give them a rope that they hang from the hatch down to the lunar surface?" "They climb down a rope." "They climb back up it." "We save weight." "Grumman builds a full-scale wooden mock-up." "Astronauts try climbing down the rope." "Nobody can get back up the rope." "So they had to add a ladder down the front leg." "NARRATOR:" "As the prototypes evolved, the one constant was change." "STOFF:" "Astronauts come to Grumman to test the design, and what they found is that an astronaut wearing a square backpack cant frt out the round hatch." "So Grumman deletes the round hatch in the front." "They put, instead, a big square hatch." "NARRATOR:" "Finally, in the spring of 1965," "NASA, worried design changes would never stop imposed a freeze." "It was an entirely independent spacecraft with its own motors, fuel, life-support system, and navigation equipment." "To some at the time, it seemed excessive." "They couldnt have known just how important it would turn out to be." "After 2 1/2 years of preparation, engineer sat the Grumman facility on Long Island finally began building what many regarded as the first true spaceship." "It was built in one of the world's first clean rooms." "In zerogravity, any floating foreign body would be a hazard." "Everybodys wearing surgical suits-whitesuits- booties, gloves, hats." "If you have a beard, you wear a face mask" "They even preferred people who didn't bathe very often because they didn't want skin flaking off and possibly floating around in there and causing problems." "NARRATOR:" "Then, just in case there was any debris, each LEM was turned upside down and shaken." "STOFF:" "Grumman puts it in a turnbler, rotates it upside down, and actually spins it around and shakes it out." "And, every stage, there was all sorts of bits and metal shavings, and rivets would fall out of it." "All the kind of things you don't want floating around in space that could possibly shortout an electrical system, or somebody could breathe in." "NARRATOR:" "But in the urban confines of Long Island, the one thing Grumman couldnt do was the hazardous business of testing rocket motors." "For this, they would need somewhere much more remote." "In the early 1960s, the company went to White Sands in New Mexico." "Here, in the middle of the desert, they built an engine-testing facility." "Lynn Radcliffe was the first manager." "When I came aboard that first day," "I knew absolutely nothing about rocketry." "It was almost as though I had walked into a foreign country." "NARRATOR:" "The LEM was equipped with two very different rockets." "The first, the so-called descent engine, would take the LEM from the command module down toward the lunar surface." "It was an entirely new and untried piece of technology." "STOFF:" "Up until this point in history, no one had ever built a rocket engine with a throttle." "Either they were on, or they were off." "But in order to land on the moon now, you have to have a throttle so you can slow the spacecraft gradually to come in for landing." "RADOLIFFE:" "This was an unbelievable maneuver when you stop and think about it." "You're sitting on a column of thrust, just hovering there like a helicopter." "And then, as you let it go, the throttle, a little bit, you lower it just at a few feet per second until you make contact." "All of this is an amazing set of requirements to put on anyone trying to design a rocket." "NARRATOR:" "But It was the module's second rocket, the so-called ascent engine, that caused Grumman the most lost sleep." "It didn't need a throttle, but it did need to work with absolute reliability." "You're totally dependent on the ascent engine to work to put you back in orbit." "If, for any reason, the ascent engine failed to work.." "...the astronauts are doomed." "NARRATOR:" "To keep it simple, it used so-called hypergolic propellants, a rocket fuel and an oxidizer that explode on contact." "There were no pumps and no igniter." "But the simplicity came at a price." "The fuels were extremely toxic." "RADOLIFFE:" "We got so familiar with what oxidizer looks like when it leaks." "You have this big red cloud." "You couldnt absorb more than five parts permillion on a continuing basis." "It would start to eat your lungs away." "So if we had a spill and if the wind was just right, we had to get the police out and get people to evacuate." "[Alarm blares]" "NARRATOR:" "But what really worried them was that the fuel was so corrosive that, at the end of a test, each engine had to be rebuilt." "It meant the final assembly of an engine could never be tested." "RADOLIFFE:" "Unbelievably, the first time these engines would ever have been fired, ever- no checkout at the factory- the first time would be when they were fired in their mission." "Imperfection was not an option." "They had to be perfect." "NARRATOR:" "It was a situation nobody at Grumman would ever feel comfortable with." "Meanwhile, on Long Island, engineers were combating yet another hazard of space flight." "In space, you're facing the sun." "Its 240 degrees." "The dark side is 240 degrees below zero." "You have to insulate the spacecraft as well as possible because there's huge fuel tanks in there, and the fuel's gonna boil at 100 degrees and freeze at 30 degrees." "NARRATOR:" "Such a huge temperature variation could also cause the craft to buckle." "Yet Grumman couldnt afford heavy heat shields." "STOFF:" "Fortunately, for the space program," "DuPont had developed this new material." "It was aluminized Mylar." "It was a gold color, and they found if you built it up to perhaps 25 layers, its an excellent insulator." "NARRATOR:" "The LEM was coated in Mylar." "To many engineers, the final vehicle was an insult to every notion of what a spacecraft should look like." "But, in the vacuum of space, it didn't need to be streamlined." "It was one of the weirdest and most improbable flying machines ever conceived." "By the mid-1960s, with just over four years to go before kennedys deadline, the Grumman facility on Long Island began rolling out the first full-scale lunar modules." "For some years, astronauts had been training" ""on a simulator known as the'flying bedstead."" "Its basically a jet engine in the middle, little rocket engines all around it on the outside, just like the lunar module, and astronauts sat in a little capsule in the front." "And they would take off vertically and hover and try to simulate landing on the moon." "NARRATOR:" "It was unstable and dangerous, and the astronauts hated it." "Neil Armstrong had to eject out of it right before it crashed." "At some point in the program, they actually stopped using it because It was just a lot safer to land on the moon than It was to fly this machine down in Texas." "It was just too unstable." "NARRATOR:" "Now, as the completed LEM became available, they were able to train on the real thing." "It was installed in a testfacility with a camera that projected images of an artificial lunar surface through the windows." "STOFF:" "And they would actually run through complete missions in the lunar module" "Next to it, there was a desk where the instructors sat, and they would introduce all sorts of faults." "Flip a switch, something would go wrong." "The astronauts in the simulator would have to dealwith it and try to figure out what was wrong." "[ Beeping ]" "Had to salvage the mission." "NARRATOR:" "Butt he clock was ticking." "It was time to move beyond simulations and take the LEM into space." "In the summer of 1967, the first space-ready lunar module was transported to Cape kennedy." "It would be mounted on Apollo 4, the first unmanned test of the LEM in space." "For the people at Grumman, It was the final test." "But It was not to be." "Almost immediately, things began to go wrong." "STOFF:" "NASA gets a hold of it." "They start running tests on it." "And NASA discovers this vehicle is a mess." "They find hundreds of problems." "Things that werent built right, werent installed right, electrical wires that are frayed, possibly broken, and, most alarming of all, there are fuel leaks everywhere in the system." "NARRATOR:" "Grumman, under huge pressure from the schedule, had failed to complete the preflight checks." "But NASA couldnt wait, and the Apollo 4 mission went ahead without the LEM." "The whole incident of this first lunar module really led to great embarrassment on Grumman's part." "NARRATOR:" "Then, as Grumman raced to repair the leaks, there was a second problem." "As the lunar module was pressure-tested in a vacuum chamber, a window blew out." "There's debris all over the place." "Wires are evidently nicked that you could see with the naked eye." "There are physical holes in the structure." "And I was like, "Oh, my God, here I am." "I'm on the job two weeks." "Look what happened."" "NARRATOR:" "While his colleagues worried about why it had happened," "Rcoamboli was told to clear up the mess." "Heasked NASA what to do." "ROCAMBOLI:" "NASA came back with criteria for cleanliness." "If you have particles of this size and so many per cubic inch, you know, the astronaut will get an itchy eye maybe." "If there are so many more particles and they're bigger, he'll get a sore throat." "If they're bigger still, he could bleed." "If they're bigger still, he's in danger, his life." "NARRATOR:" "It would mean going through the LEM with a fine-tooth comb." "ROCAMBOLI:" "The technicians would go in there with filter paper and camel-hairbrushes, and they would clean what they could not see and they would collect it on the filterpaper." "That was sent back toa Grumman quality lab." "NARRATOR:" "But what had caused the blowout?" "Was there a design fault?" "Had the window been badly fitted?" "Or had it been damaged during construction?" "Grumman was never sure." "The solution was never one of those that gave you a completely warm feeling." "NARRATOR:" "Every window was checked and replaced in the hope that it would be all right." "And, six months later, Apollo 5 took an unmanned lunar module into space." "Twelve months later, Apollo 9 carried the first manned lunar module into space." "And Apollo 10 took a manned LEM around the moon." "MAN:" "Yeah." "NARRATOR:" "It was time to take the LEM down to the lunar surface." "[ Man chuckles]" "MAN:" "Lift-off." "We have a lift-off." "32 minutes past the hour." "Lift-off on Apollo 11." " ARMSTRONG:" "Roger." " MAN:" "Tower clear." "ARMSTRONG:" "Roger, roll." "NARRATOR:" "On July 16, 1969," "Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape kennedy." "Some 72 hours later, the lunarlander undocked from the command module and headed for the moon." "It was the final challenge." "Hundreds of thousands of man-hours of work worry, and effort were about to be put to the test." "My heart was in my mouth." "ALDRIN:" "Altitude 1,600." "RADOLIFFE:" "We'd come to a moment oftruth that would last only 12 minutes." "If I could have held my breath for 12 minutes," "I probably would have." "ALDRIN:" "700 feet, 21 down, 33 degrees." "NARRATOR:" "Grumman had simulated the maneuver hundreds of times, but the reality was proving different." "The astronauts were heading for a boulder field." " MAN:" "Low level." " MAN#2:" "Low level." "MAN#3:" "Thats good." "NARRATOR:" "As Armstrong searched for a safe landing place, the fuel began to run dangerously low." "MAN#1:" "The only call-outs from now on will be fuel." "We had very small margins." "You know, a 120-seconds margin forlanding sounds ridiculously short." " MAN: 60." " MAN#2: 60-seconds." "MAN#3: 60-seconds." "GAVIN:" "We were all counting seconds as to how much fuel we thought remained." "MAN: 30-seconds." " MAN#2: 30-seconds." " MAN#3:" "Forward drift." "RADOLIFFE:" "It just seemed an interminable period of time before we got those wonderful words that the Eagle had landed." "NARRATOR:" "The LEM had landed with less than 20-seconds of spare fuel." "I cant describe this to you in words, but let me tell you." "There was a relaxation that I think all of us felt." "RADOLIFFE:" "It was such a tremendous relief that they had made it safely onto the moon and they were going to go out and walk on the moon and all those wonderful things." "NARRATOR:" "Among those in the audience at mission control was Wemhervon Braun." "Dr. Wemhervon Braun turned around and looked back and he was searching for somebody." "And he finally saw John Houbolt." "And he said, overall of the shouting, he said, "John, you were right."" "We wouldnt be here without you."" "[Cheering ]" "[Cheering ]" "NARRATOR:" "But as the world celebrated," "Grumman's engineers knew their most testing moment was yet to come." "Would their ascent engine do its job?" "DUNNE:" "Two astronauts were gonna climb into this thing, and, essentially, they were gonna press a button." "And if it worked, it worked, and if it didn't, there werent many things that they could do about it." "Once you pressed that button, that was it." "All my co-workers were standing around in the aisles, looking up at a monitor along with me." "And this is the, really, definition of a white-knuckle situation." "That moment of lift-off was awful, just plain awful." "[ Radio crackles]" "Is there an anxiety?" "Absolutely." "Absolutely, there's an anxiety." "One you cant believe." "Like, is this gonna work?" "We know we did everything, but, God, it better work" "I don't think that anyone could, at that time, tell you 100% that It was gonna work" "MAN:" "9, 8, 7..." "It was really quite tense." "MAN:" "Proceed." "NARRATOR:" "It worked like a dream." "ROCAMBOLI:" "They started putting TV cameras on later landers when you could see the ascent engine, and it didn't build up like the Saturn V, where you saw the flames coming out and it slowly lifted off." "It went up likea shot, like wow" "NARRATOR:" "The LEM had performed faultlessly and, at Grumman, they assumed there could be nothing more terrifying or exciting to come." "In the spring of 1g70, as Apollo 13 headed towards the moon," "Dick Wilde received a call in the middle of the night." "WILDE:" "The telephone message was unmistakable." "We were being called in to the plant early because an explosion aboard the command and service module had taken out the electrical and oxygen system." "NARRATOR:" "Some 200,000 miles from Earth, the command module had been left powerless and disabled." "WILDE:" "As I drove in to the plant the coincidence, to me, was amazing." "This was Monday, April 13, 1g70." "[Voice breaking ] And this was Apollo 13." "STOFF:" "All of a sudden, everyone's attention is riveted on Apollo." "All around the world, people are watching whats going on praying for The astronauts." "Are they gonna make it?" "Are they gonna die in space?" "NARRATOR:" "It was the nightmare scenario." "They were hurtling uncontrollably into space with diminishing supplies of fuel, electricity, and oxygen." "It was the most serious, worrisome thing because of the imminent possibility of losing ourastronauts." "NARRATOR:" "With the command module out of action, there was only one hope." "NARRATOR:" "The crew retreated into the lunar module, which carried its own supplies of oxygen and fuel." "But what to do now?" "The LEM's highly specialized rocket motor lacked the power to break their momenturn." "At mission control, there were desperate meetings." "There was one possibility." "If they could use the LEM's motor to sling shot them around the moon, it might just be possible for them to return safely to the Earth." "It was a huge gamble." "WILDE:" "We all knew that the crew was in a dire situation." "A rescue like this had never been attempted." "So in the background, there was always the concem that this effort was gonna fail." "People were glued to their televisions and their radios, listening to what was going on, and they were certainly concemed that we might have lost three astronauts." "LOVELL:" "Masterarm's on." "One minute." "We're burning 40%." "NARRATOR:" "But the maneuver worked." "Slowly, the craft curved around the moon in what was known as a free-return trajectory to Earth." "The astronauts were on their way home." "MAN:" "Okay, Aquanus, you're looking good." "NARRATOR:" "But did they have the fuel and power to travel the quarter of a million miles back to the Earth?" "Everything depended on the LEM." "It had been designed to keep two peoplea live for50 hours." "Now It was being asked to keep three people alive for up to 100." "There was agradual build up of carbon dioxide." "The LEM had been equipped with finite supplies of lithium hydroxide, the agent used to remove carbon dioxide from the recirculating air supply." "Once again, there were desperate meetings among NASA's engineers." "There was one inspired possibility." "If they could raid the command module for extra supplies of lithium hydroxide, they had a chance." "But that was not as simple as it sounded." "WILDE:" "No one had fore seen the kind of problem where the LEM would be used as a lifeboat." "And, unfortunately, the command-module lithium was packaged in square cartridges, and the lunar module's were packaged as round cartridges." "So the problem became, "How do you frt"" "a square cartridge into a round canister?" ".'" "NARRATOR:" "NASA suggested using duct tape and tubing from the spacesuits to jury-rig a connection." "It worked." "I think all of us had a sense of tension in those hours that weve not felt before or since." "NARRATOR:" "Finally, as the craft approached the Earth," "The astronauts faced the ultimate challenge." "How to safely smash through the Earth's atmosphere." "The answer was to return to the crippled command module, with its protective heat shield and, to minimize friction, discard the LEM, affectionately christened Aquanus." "MAN:" "This is Apollo Control Houston." "At 141 hours, 31 minutes into the flight, weve had lunar-module jettison." "NARRATOR:" "Then, as they blasted through the Earth's atmosphere, there was a break in communication." "RADOLIFFE:" "That was an awfully worrisome time." "We did not hear from them." "You cant have radio communications while this thing is going through that entry until it comes out to a point where you can pick it up again." "NARRATOR:" "There was what felt like an interminable wait before the Apollo 13 parachutes finally came into sight." "[Cheers and applause]" "I think singly that was the high point of the program because we had saved astronauts from imminent danger." "It was even more important, in retrospect, than the first landing." "The sense of relief was..." "You could feel it." "It was really quite emotional." "NARRATOR:" "The lunar module had not only performed far beyond its design limits." "It had brought The astronauts back from a death too horrible to contemplate." "RADOLIFFE:" "You would think that, yeah, I could be doing a little breast-beating now, but I really don't feel that." "What I really feel is thankfulness that it happened." "I'm really grateful that it happened." "NARRATOR:" "For the Grumman engineers who had devoted nearly every minute of their waking lives for nearly a decade to building the lunar module, It was the crowning moment." "Everybody wanted to be part of that program." "Everybody was proud to be on the program." "And tha twas a wonderful feeling."