Transcripts For CSPAN3 Washington Journal Apollo 11 Moon Landing 50th Anniversary 20240714

On the 50th anniversary of the apollo 11 moon landing todays washington journal in conjunction with American History tv will focus on this historic event and its influence on modern spaceflight. For the next three hours we are live from the national air and space museum where we will talk about apollo 11 with historian command michael and you. You can let us know our impressions if you watched the mainline. If you want to talk about the day 2027488000 and for all others, 2027488001. You can post your thoughts and impressions of the anniversary and do the same on our Facebook Page facebook. Com cspan. Our show will be based hear from the national air and space museum. A couple of facts of the anniversary of the apollo 11 mission. It was near limestone, buzz aldrin and michael the team for that day. For lunch for lunch took pl. , july 16th at 9 32 in the morning. The moon landing on july 20 july 1969 4 17 in the afternoon. The first step at about 10 50 6 pm on july 20, buzz aldrin would follow along 20 minutes later. That mission when they left the moon in 1969 and returning to earth on july 24 on july 24, 1969. We will talk about the historical significance, what it means for spaceflight today and as we hear from historians and astronauts and the like we will hear from you as well and you can let us know these impressions. Again, if you watched the moon landing 2027488000, and 202 7488001. For all others this morning. We want to let you know this program is being done in conjunction with our colleagues at American History tv. Cspan3 on the weekends turns into that channel with historical programming, interviews, lectures and the like and they have a way of talking to you about the 50th anniversary. If you want to share your impressions on their specific facebook, thats cspan history at facebook cspan history facebook. Com. You can talk about the mission and participate on twitter. Theres a polling question there and all weekend long we will give you programming specifically related to apollo 11. You can watch that on cspan3. Go to our website at www. C span. Org and if you go to the website page you can find out all the programming they have planned and the other information for you specifically not only about apollo 11 but other programming they have is well. Another interesting fact when it comes to the mission, the things they carried on apollo 11, the astronauts and science experiments and things of the like but some of the other things they carried as well. A plaque commemorating the landing was on one of the arms of the lunar module. That plaque would eventually stay behind on the surface of the moon carrying two large American Flags and also flags of certain nations. As you see pictures of them walking on the moon that came courtesy of a Television Camera that went on board the module as well as other things. We will talk about those things in the course of the morning. But to hear primarily from you during this three hours. Not too far away from the national air and space museum but they are hosting us this morning as well. Jack in rhode island starts us off on impressions for those who watched the moon landing. Thanks for giving us a call. Go ahead thank you and im showing my age because i did watch it with my father who is a little bit older. Hes no longer here. Its not really publicized because its not medically correct, the key people that got us to the moon where the tech illogical geniuses that were germans. Von brown led the product project and then there was rudolph, and then there were a lot of key engineers and scientists from operation paperclip. They were german scientists and german engineers that the Us Government let in after world war ii because they wanted their expertise in rocket engineering. Germany for that history and background for the time that you watched it, what are your impressions of the mission itself . Extremely successful. Absolutely amazing and it was because primarily of those men but also those astronauts were absolutely amazing. Their bravery was astounding and i have to admit im a little proud myself because my ancestry is german. A couple of them were and maybe they did that to protect themselves, but lets hear from martha in Virginia Beach. You are next up. Go ahead i wanted to thank you all for covering this from the very beginning. My husbands cousin was in charge of that unfortunate accident where they burned before they even got out of space. A lot of pressure was put on them to hurry up, we have to beat the russians. I think in hindsight maybe there were some corners that were cut and they just jumped into the thing too soon. Ive been fascinated are you talking about the events of apollo one . Yes. But there was a gentleman on there the other day talking about that from the beginning to this point. So thank you for taking my call, have a good day. Before you go, what specific memory do you have about the landing itself or the mission itself . My mother and i were fascinated with it. She died in 1976 but we set up there at night and watched it go on. And my husband had to go to sleep because he had to go to work the next day. I worked as a Research Chemist and have always been fascinated and science of any kind. Thats martha in Virginia Beach again giving her impressions of the moon landing. 2027488000. If you have specific memories of that time and you want to relate those, its 202748 8001. Mark in the bronx new york on our line for others. Go ahead. I was in the navy at the time and we were in vietnam. I was in the uss boston 700 feet 28,000 and i was on this signal bridge where we did flashing lights and signal flags. When the word came from the bridge it was during the day there and when it came from the bridge, the call goes out that says stand by your bag, the signal bag with all of the flags in it. Once the messages brought to the leading petty officer the call is signal in the air at which point george who is a petty officer at the time hooked up the flags that read usa man on moon and then we hoisted it up to the yard arm. At the same time the captains gig was dropped over the side with a photographer who took pictures of this ship with the flags up. That was it. Thats what we did. What was the reaction for those on board . Do you remember anything specific about that . It was on the signal bridge so it was just three of us. I dont know what was happening down below. We had 1200 men on this ship so i really couldnt answer that. I couldnt tell you. Some of the footage you will remember for those of you who watched not only in the United States specifically but worldwide, people in other countries and react to it as well. If you go to nasa and use the footage you will see various images and pictures of people watching all over the world as this one event that took place in space became the fascination of the whole world. We will go to robert in baton rouge louisiana. Good morning. Good morning. I was 18 years old and saw it on tv like most people. Amazing. It is still impressive today. I have a younger son who cant really appreciate it as much as i tried to tell him about it but im a big pan of fan of apollo 50. What i have in my hand for those who collect coins the United States mint produced a commemorative coin for the 50th landing and theres a historic picture where a Neil Armstrong was taking a picture with buzz aldrin and when the film came out it showed a picture of Neil Armstrong standing. You see the lunar module if im correct on that. But anyway for those of you who collect coins the United States mint had these. They are beautiful collectors but on the back side of the coin itself it shows the 1st foot print. Its unbelievably beautiful and it was pressed by the mid. I wish everyone could see this thing but like most people i ran outside and looked at the moon to see if i could see them landing. I assume a lot of people did that. It still stays with me today, one of those moments that grab you. Did you watch it with family and friends all by yourself . I watched it with my mother and father who passed away when i was a child. My two brothers were there and i guess like everybody else we were glued to the tv when it would come back and forth. Walter cronkite was unbelievably great in his narrative. It still sits with me today. My brothers and i were just sitting there of course holding our breath like everyone else who is watching it and watching Walter Cronkite take his glasses off and just smile. This great event. One small step for man one giant leap for mankind. As the years go by, this may go down in history but id like to think that it will go down as something that people will truly be able to go back in the past and be there. Luckily we have film of it and everything. Kudos to everyone who is part of this thing especially the people who built it. The engineers. Thats robert in baton rouge and he talked about Walter Cronkite you remember. For those of you who watched on that day it was Walter Cronkite delivering the updates on the mission and had a model of the lunar module one himself that was provided to him, and used that to demonstrate what was going on with various parts of the flight. Again these are historical images you can find online and nasa as we tell the story of this 50th anniversary of the apollo 11 mission. You can post on our Facebook Page, you can also post on the American History Facebook Page as well. Dont forget that American History tv, cspan3 turns into American History tv on the weekends. You can see a weekend of programming not only thats interesting today but other fulllength features. Go to our website for more information on that. I believe this is mark from the bronx. I believe ive taken that one so lets go to david in chicago. David in chicago watched the moon landing. I did watch the moon landing. I was just a kid, just started gradeschool and i remember it well but i want to talk about the fact that it took about 400,000 americans just about american born and educated to put to the moon. There were about 100 scientist but this was americanmade and american born talent. Right now there is a bill going to the senate that would further entrench workers into a labor force. When we think about what to put a man on the moon and back this was all before the labor dump started into our to elegy sect is. So when you think about the moon mission i want everyone to remind your senators and your congressman that we did these two major epics. Winning the cold war, putting a man on the moon and back before all of this cheap labor dumping started in the late 80s. When it comes to apollo 11 itself were you one of those during the time when the mission was announced and it was going on, were you a big supporter of the mission or did you have skepticism . Let me tell you something. My father worked on the intro integral check elegies of a defense contractor that provided the position to trajectory technologies that sent a man to the moon and back and for the multiple deterrence. This is my family. My father worked so many hours overtime during the 1960s and even paid triple time back then on holidays. Working on christmas or thanksgiving to meet a deadline because it was such a rush to meet these before the end of the decade. They paid triple time. Companies dont do that anymore. They dont care of their take care of their people like that. Thats david in chicago calling to talk about the work aspects of apollo 11 and the man to manpower that to base to make it happen. Its one a variety of things you can talk about during the course of our morning. When it comes to things that were taken from the moon you will remember that part of the purpose of the mission was to take samples from the surface of the moon and those samples are still being that today. This is from the lunar and Planetary Institute telling us that 22 kg of material taken from the surface of the moon translates to about 50 rocks in total including lunar soil samples and the lunar and Planetary Institute tells us that 2 tubes of material from the surface of the moon was also taken from that. That is again some of the purposes of the mission and things taken and brought back to earth from the efforts of apollo 11. This is kristi from huntsville. Good morning. Good morning. I probably watched it but was only 10 years old and dont remember. But i do remember is i lived in huntsville where it all began and i used to hear the racket tests. It was amazing. I still hear rocket tests there on the arsenal. My good friend, her grandfather was a head of operation and i just feel proud living in Huntsville Alabama where it all began. Is huntsville still a major hub when it comes to space issues . I know you have a museum but how much work goes on to this day . Not as much space as it is army because its a Redstone Arsenal so its an army base as well as a Marshall Space Flight center. I worked for Lockheed Martin in the past but my dad was with ibm. We got transferred to huntsville in 1965 and reckitt testing was being done at that point. Rocket testing was being done at that point. And let me tell you it was earth shattering to hear them test but it was cool. As a kid it was very cool. Thats kristi from huntsville. Part of the efforts of johnson once president kennedy decided he wanted to send a man to the moon to put efforts across the United States to make that happen, primarily in the south and Huntsville Alabama being one of those major locations where the work of Apollo Missions would take place. You can still see some of the evidence there at the space museum. James in arlington texas, good morning. My dad was a Senior Engineer on the Apollo Program. He worked for north american aviation in southern california. He basically worked on anything from the launch escape towers to the first stage. How much did he talk about it . How much did he talk about it with you guys at home . Technically there are certain things he didnt talk about it at the same time such as when apollo 11, 8, 9, 10 for that matter, when they returned to earth we had a big event at the facility and the astronauts would be flowing in for ceremony. We would all see them be driven by us in an electric cart and then we would be allowed to look at the capsules which have been saved so we had what we call the pei de i room which had a lot of exhibits. People once a year would get a chance to see that well into the 80s in fact. I would see the modules and capsules, the mockup of the shuttle. When i was 10 years old i was taken to my father to the beach facility. I was wondering why we were going to see the beach and they had a big event for the delivery of the last second stage from saturn 5 so the opened up the doors on the Assembly Building seeing this massive second stage be rolled out. Its quite an impression on a 10yearold. Are you in the Science Field or anything related because of those influences . My sister and i both followed my father into engineering. I worked 11 years until 2009 in shuttle support and support for the International Space station. Originally i was a Mcdonnell Douglas employee but we got bought out by boeing. My sister started with north american, rockwell i should say, and the assets were brought out by boeing and she ended up working with me and still is working at this time but is about to retire. We did a recent polling question in conjunction with it sos, we looked at space issues. One of those things that were found at the top of the list with people, environmental efforts. Lower on the list efforts like going back to the moon and going back to mars. Do you still support this idea of manned spaceflight missions . We will talk to kathy next from imperial missouri. Good morning, thanks for taking my call. I was four years old. I remember it vividly. Everyone was riveted to the tv. I was allowed to stay at past bed time. I was worried when the astronaut went down the ladder that he would sink in like in quicksand. I. Explain to me that because the lander didnt sink in that the astronaut would be okay as well. Thats a vivid memory of yours. What else do you remember from it . I remember everyone being excited and thinking this is a great day and that we can do anything. Do you still think manned spaceflight should be a priority for the United States . Yes. I do. I think we should start by expanding either increasing the number or the size of our orbiting space station, establishing a colony on the moon and then going to mars like stair steps. Okay. Thats kristi in missouri. If you go to the website at www. Cspan. Org, that polling question on space issues, a lot of questions. Some about the work of nasa and the priorities that nasa should pursue, other information as well available to you when you go to our website at www. C span. Org. We are at the national air and space museum here in washington dc as we talk about the 50th anniversary of the apollo 11 mission. You are welcome to join us for this conversation. You can follow along on our twitter feed and follow along. After this program more programming on apollo 11 available when you go to c span3 American History tv. In virginia, george, hello you are on next. Good morning. I remember it very well. I was in norfolk for Naval Reserve duty and i heard it on the radio. When they announced it i got tears in my eyes. It was just an impressive thing. I was 28 years old at the time. Its part of history. I remember sputnik as well. Its a great time to be alive and participate. Do you think the historical significance of apollo 11 still resonates . Has it waned a little bit . In the dc area of course we have a lot of government things here but the significance of it is incredible. The side and if its of all of this technology, so much of our lives, the cell phones, the gps, medical devices using advanced electronics, having a project like this accelerates that. It may have happened but i dont think it would have happened as quickly if it didnt have the impetus to go ahead with this project. We will hear from jim in ohio. Hello there. Good morning and thanks to c span. Golly if that were the only channel on my tv i would keep it. I was a young man watching this with my future wife and her family in 1969 and unless my memory fails me i think we went outside to try to look up at the moon when that happened and sort of imagine that we could see something that was going on a. Its this thing a young person would do. Maybe i dreamed that but i think we did it what i know for sure, i was working at goodyear, i was an apprentice pipefitter and i went to college after that and became a Science Teacher for 38 years. I dont know if i can draw a Straight Line from the moon landing to become a Science Teacher but i think i can drop kind of a crooked line. I still get emotional when i hear the replay of the eagle has landed. I guess i was glad to hear virginia georgia say he got emotional when he saw it. I dont know. Maybe thats what drove me into the science classroom and just as an interesting aside, my son was born nine months to the day after the moon landing so i dont know if i can draw a Straight Line on that when either but thanks for cspan for giving us a chance to reflect on maybe the high point of American History. Thanks for the call. We really appreciate it. Things left on the moon. A couple of things that the astronauts were trying to shed some of the weight from the module before it left the surface of the moon, if you go to the website they have a list of some of those things. It was the section of the eagle as it was known and was apparently nicknamed during the flight itself. The section left on the surface of the moon. The one iconic American Flag placed on the surface of the moon. Other mementos honoring the apollo 1 crew. You heard a caller reference that in which the very first three astronauts died because of a fire. There was a small silicone disc of goodwill messages left on the surface including experiments, tools, trash, and as they tell us, including human waste. You can find out more when you go to the website and more available to you on American History tv. We will go to bobby in columbia maryland. You are next up. Good morning. I supported the apollo 11. We worked a solid year seven days a week and that morning i watched with my three children sitting on a lawn chair in the living room with no furniture. We had a 12 inch blackand white tv and i went on to support the Apollo Missions. Thousands of contractors were involved. I dont think people realize how many contractors are involved in these missions. We have everyone from lockheed to honeywell to engineering, ibm. Thousands of us produced, my group produce the documents to set on the console that told the astronauts what they were going to do every minute including the music that would wake them up in the morning. It was an exciting time and we worked hard. We worked so many hours and went on to support all of the other Missions Including the first Space Shuttle mission. I wrote the safety and went on to support, i retired in 2011 and the last that i worked on was 2012. It was an exciting time. I worked on the missions in the 90s for 10 years and it has been an exciting Space Program. So exciting. I want us to go back to the moon. I want us to go to mars and i think its wonderful and i enjoyed every second. It was hard work and i enjoyed it. Before you go a couple of questions. You said he wanted to go back to the moon, go back to mars. Should that be strictly a nasa thing or is there a thing where private companies are involved in the process . Nasa is probably made up of 80 product companies. Its not just nasa. It has always been other Companies Involved and other contract theres that put up times of contracts and award funds to private companies. Honeywell is very much involved, lockheed is involved. There are thousands of Small Businesses involved. I dont think people realize that nasa is actually made up of tons of private contractors, thousands of them actually. Everyone from companies with 30,000 people to companies with six people that make up screws for particular pieces of equipment. Up there has always been private Companies Involved. Here is marcia. Marcia is in pennsylvania. Hi marcia, good morning. Im calling on the line for all others because i have a somewhat unusual and i would say completely neutral position on watching the moon landing and that is entirely circumstantial. That evening i was 23 years old. I have been married for two years and my husband and i had just bought our first house and moved in less than one month before that. We had furniture stored in my parents house, we had furniture stored in his parents house and we were moving back and forth by hand with a little travel trailer. That was saturday night and i played church organ so i didnt even consider plugging in our 10 inch blackandwhite tv to try to watch stuff saturday night because i had to get up early sunday morning. That was, i cant say im for or against anything because i never got to watch it. I think the first time i actually watched it was reruns probably 10 years afterward when we got to the first decade anniversary. We read it in the newspapers. Newspapers were everywhere. We probably got somebody elses sunday paper that next morning because having just moved in we would not have had a Newspaper Delivery to the house. Any regrets that you didnt see it firsthand . Know and i would not have been able to because we would have had to stick one of those funny looking antennas on the roof. Im 73 and im sure anyone else in my age will remember those very little cable tvs if any. If you didnt get a picture on your rabbit ears had to stick one of those on the roof and your husband had to be agile. [ laughter ] got you. Things for the story. Thats marcia. We are going to take a pause. You can continue calling if you want to talk about your impressions. 2027488000. If you watched it for all others, 2027488001. We will hear from alan ellen stofan particularly how the smithsonian hand handles this type of. I want to show you something from moonwalk one. It was produced by nasa and part of that program included in animation which i guess was a danced that showed the various steps of the apollo 11 mission. Here it is. The flight begin with a vertical lift through the heavy lower atmosphere and a tilt to the east. At 6000 Miles Per Hour the empty first stages discarded, so was an adapter ring and the unused escape tower. With the second stage firing it reaches 15,000 mph when it too is jettisoned. The third stage places apollo into orbit at 17,400 mph. When the spacecraft has been thoroughly checked out the third state fires again freeing itself from the grip of earths gravity. While coasting outward the command Service Module separates exits from the lunar module and the empty third stage is left behind. Apollo loses speed throughout 9 10 of the journey until the moons gravity overcomes the pull of earth. The reverse fires in the opposite direction. Armstrong and aldrin enters the ego leaving the command Service Module in lunar orbit. Eagle slows more and breaks to a touchdown on the surface. From the Smithsonian National air and space museum we talk about the influence of apollo 11 and joining us now the director of the museum, ellen stofan. Good morning. I suppose from a Museum Perspective this is one event you have to memorialize. How do you go about doing that . We hold the collection not just for the nation before the world. When you have an anniversary that is such a big one you want to say how do you bring apollo to a generation where over half the population was born post apollo . How do you bring the sense of wonder, excitement and this amazing achievement that we did . You have to go big. How do you go about it x first of all to combination of going over the history, what happened, how did it happen, why did it happen. Making sure people understand it in the context of the cold war. But ive been trying to come back to in all of the celebrations is that it took 400,000 americans to make this happen from seamstresses who made the suits to the engineers who designed the rockets to the astronauts who ultimately flew on them. Its that idea of teamwork we been trying to get across so we been doing a lot of events, a lot of lectures. We have a statue of Neil Armstrongs spacesuit that have been trying to reach people around the United States. Take a look at his spacesuit and then this week in washington we been project a rocket onto the National Monument and thus light last night and tonight we been launching it. Not the monument, just the rocket. What was the inspiration . How did you come about that . Two of my creative Staff Members said we have to do something on a grand scale. How do you bring that excitement of a launch to this generation who didnt see it . The last couple evenings when ive been watching little kids faces when they see the rocket on the monument and its shaped a little bit like a rocket so its not totally surprising. The show that weve run for last night and tonight tells the story of apollo and sets it in the context of kennedys university speech, let us look forward of course. Lets not just say 50 years ago we did this thing. We want kids to say whats next . What am i going to be a part of . We were talking about a recent poll and one of the things that was asked is what should be the priority with nasa . Concerns about the environment may be low on the list and concerns about going back to the moon, how does that strike you for what you do . I think thats an important thing. I believe climate is the most important thing we can be working on because the threat is so real and important and nasa plays a Critical Role in observing the earth. Nasa also plays a Critical Role pushing us forward in exploration. I think its a choice between looking at rather than trying to solve all the problems. I think Going Forward nasa does need to send humans to the moon. They are going to hopefully discover that life evolves not just on to moon but mars beef as we think life could have evolved and we want to find early signs of it. Also if weve learned nothing else from apollo, when a society does something really hard and challenging, it brings the world together, it pushes Society Forward and inspires a generation of Science Scientists engineers and mathematicians and that is what happened. Behind you, lunar module 2. I suppose people will ask you if this is the real thing. We get that question a lot. It was a test article so it was built for the program. They actually built more modules than they set to the moon and thats all of one of them. All kinds of testing was done on it but luckily at the end of the program we got it here to display. You talked also about the spacesuits. Armstrongs recently refurbished. What led to that process . The space suits are almost individual spacecraft. They need a source of air for the astronaut they are very complex and made to protect the astronauts but were not made to last 50 years. In places they are made up of 21 layers and they were starting to degrade and werent in very good shape. To keep it out of the light but to work on how do we stabilize those layers and make repairs without changing it . We dont want to for example clean the lunar dust that remains on the suit we dont want to clean that up. How do we put it into a condition where its good for generations to come . We have an incredibly special mannequin inside the suit that helps the air circulate inside of it that we can maintain temperature and humidity conditions to protect the suit. Its in great shape, it just went on display and visitors can come in and see it. Will this be the only one that gets refurbished or are others planned . In the course of restoring his suit weve learned a lot about science experience experiment in and of itself. Suits to make sure they last for long periods to come. Most of the suits are stored in a dark room and controlled conditions to protect them as much as we can pick when it comes to apollo 11 what are the common questions asked of you or others here at the smithsonian about the mission . They want to know the human stories behind it. Who were the people that were involved . The other thing is they really want to touch something and at a museum we dont normally let people touch things but thats why one of the most popular exhibits is when you can touch is one you can touch moon rocks. What were done with the rocks, and how does the smithsonian treat them . They are in the possession of nasa where they are available for researchers from around the world who are still doing research trying to understand what they can tell us about the history of the moon and how that relates to the earth. The moon is possibly a piece of the earth that came off very early so understanding the moon helps us understand this planet and the surface with all of those big traders tells us what the early history of the earth was like. It was incredibly important for helping us understand this planet and a policy the apollos forward. What were you involved in . Looking across all the programs and was also involved in plans to get humans to mars in 2030. When you hear about current efforts what do you think about questions that have to be asked and what should be considered if that is the longterm goal . I think we are in great shape to get humans to mars because when you consider that he made the call to go to the moon 8 1 2 years later we landed on the moon. We didnt even know some of the technologies that needed to be developed. Because of our long experience, we have answered most of the questions, we know what we need to do and are ready to go and its just a question of national will. Do you think its there . I think its there but i worry about the longterm commitment. We saw the us commitment didnt waver. It wavered afterwards but not during that 8 1 2 years. We kept going and thats about the time that it would take to get humans to mars so i wonder if we have the National Commitment to stick with it. What encourages me is the us would not go alone. We would go with international partners, we would go with private companies and that is what makes me optimistic. As the director of the smithsonian you are currently involved in some renovations. Whats going on here . This building was built 43 years ago but is having some issues so we are having to do major repair work on the outside of the building and thats going to be a seven year project. Weve closed half of the museum and in 3 1 2 years we will open new galleries. In the end we will have a completely imagined museum that will be true center for inspiration for kids to say i can do Something Like that and one of the things im the most concerned about, i want to make sure every kid comes into this museum and sees stories of people who look like them and who have done Amazing Things in air and space. We just havent been telling them. What do you think is the untold story of those people behind apollo 11 . They look like all of our population. When we think of apollo 11 we think of the astronauts and the scenes from Mission Control. They look pretty much the same except for Joanne Morgan one of the only women in Mission Control. When i was a kid i looked like at things like that and said people like me dont do things like this. There were people of color, women of color involved in the entire project and we need to tell those stories so that kids understand that people who look like them are actually part of this amazing achievement. I know we talked about this a little bit at your most distinctive impression about apollo 11, what is a long lasting impression . To me the longest lasting impression is when we put our minds to a problem we can overcome it if we have the national will teamwork and determination. We can pretty much take on any problem. This is ellen stofan the director of the national air and space museum. We think you from housing us today. Here to talk about thank you for your time. We are going back to your calls on the mission of apollo 11. You can call 2027488000 if you watched the moon landing. For all others, 2027488001. Particularly if you are watching this on cspan3 this is American History tv. You can join in the conversation in a variety of ways. You can post on their Facebook Page, give your impressions of apollo 11 in whats going on especially on this 50th anniversary on their twitter feed you can take part in a hole as well and give your impressions there as well. All of that is available on the website at www. Cspan. Org and more about American History tv there as well. Lawrenceville georgia, thanks for joining. What are your impressions . Was i was 18 years old. I had just joined the navy about a week and a half before that. I was in boot camp in great lakes illinois. We were all pretty excited about it because we were going to get to watch television for the first time in boot camp. We all piled into a little room called the smoking lounge in the barracks that we rarely got to use. We got to sit down and watch the moon landing and Smoke Cigarettes and it was pretty exciting. Everybody was pretty jazzed about it. It was an interesting story. My aunt lorraine had a bed with me. She had a 50 bet that we would not get to the moon. I said i will take that bet. She wrote me out a check because she knew i would be going to the navy. When i got back i found the check at my parents house after boot camp and she hadnt signed the check so i never did collect the 50. Go ahead. I was reading some articles about this. There were some interesting things about apollo 11. I believe i read this right. The very first silica in computer was on that vehicle. And there was software that was developed by mit that was used to do the landing. It basically started the digital revolution which came out of the heart of that program. Another interesting thing i read about, actually on facebook. I came out the video industry. An engineer friend of mine said the original data tapes had been lost. It was the telemetry length from the camera and the images looked pretty bad because they had to pick up data and convert it to a signal at the time. The data tapes he said were lost. I seem to recall they found those tapes. What happened was when nasa decided to sell off a copy of the tapes in 1976 and some nasa intern bought those tapes. Come to find out were the original tapes that got bought for 200. They are being auctioned off today in new york. But they are expected to fetch a price of about 1 million in fact. Why are you so convinced that the moon what happened . I was an 18yearold kid. I just thought for sure, i didnt see any reason how we would fail. Okay, that is sarah and in georgia. Darren is up next in maryville, tennessee. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. You are on, so go ahead. I worked at Cape Canaveral during that time. I have been there for 30 years. I have a small part on the guidance. I was so proud of it. I still have a series of pictures on my wall outside in my garage that shows all the steps up to the landing. So proud of it. I watch it all the time. I look at it and i feel good about it. It was such a great thing for our country and i was so glad to be a part of it. Were you worried that things would go wrong during the mission . On every launch that went there while i was working there, we always worried about something happening of course. We just prayed through it. That it would happen well and everything went well. I am so proud of our country that they were able to do that. From nancy in richmond, virginia. Also watched the moon landing. Good morning. Good morning. Im so delighted to be here this morning to talk. In 1957 i remember watching sputnik with my dad as it passed over richmond. And he said then that one day america would get into space. Fastforward into high school i watch the mercury. And in college i watched the program. In my first year teaching i had the wonderful opportunity thanks to what is now the virginia commonwealth university, they offered to Richmond School teachers the opportunity to take a class in Aerospace Education and as a First Year Teacher this was such a wonderful opportunity because the Air National Guard took us teachers to the Kennedy Center and gave us a marvelous tour, a vip tour. I stood under an apollo rocket as it was being built. It was the most fascinating thing i had ever seen next to michelangelos great staff of moses. I was just thrilled. The following year while i was in charlottesville studying, my father again with me and my mother watched the marvelous moment when Neil Armstrong took that first step onto the moon. We were in awe and in great hope. I think that even today i think of the courage and the trust that our astronauts put into the brilliance. There were so many who cooperated and developed the technology that our country continues to be so proud of. The fact that we were a free country going into space and leaving that hope. I am so proud that we now have an International Space station. I think that is essential. I have continued to follow the program. I taught for 35 years, mainly at Quantico Military base. My students were from all over the world. I did use that class. I taught english. There was not a year that did not go by that my students were not aware that i was a lunatic. And i continue to follow this program. I just finished reading one giant leap and i love the book failure is not an option. I am wearing an apollo tshirt all day today where i live. So from the age of 12 to i am now 73, i remain glued to a program that i think is so essential for our country to accept such wonderful challenges and to operate and do something that brings positive vibrations to people of diversity, people all over the world who can get excited about something that is so grand. That is nancy giving us a lot of history and her personal interest in the Apollo Program. A teacher and we thank you for the call. Again, it is 2027488000 if you watched the moon landing. 2027488001 for all others. If you want to tell stories like nancy did, feel free to do that. We will go to carol on our line for others in south carolina. Go ahead. Good morning i should say. I have a slightly different perspective. I didnt watch it but i heard it. I was in the u. S. Air force at the time stationed at the air force base in vietnam and we couldnt see the video but we did have live audio. We had to imagine what pictures were being broadcast to the rest of the world that we couldnt see. It was a sense of pride for everybody. Although i think the significance of it may have been lost on us at the time. What was it like hearing the audio and then when you finally had a chance to see pictures or video of what was going on . We got the video or the film, i dont remember which it was probably the next day. And it was standing room only to try to get into see it. And we put the audio together with the pictures and it made it a whole lot more realistic. We had to imagine when we were hearing the audio what other people were seeing. Because you are just listening to it, what was the emotion like for you and the others listening along . It was mixed because we couldnt understand what was going on although we were hearing it. And i think what we really keyed in on was what Mission Control was saying back to all of them and armstrong. So we could understand what the process was and what they were doing at the time. Carol from south carolina, heard the mission at first before seeing the pictures. Lets go to marlene in new hampshire. Hi, good morning. Morning. Good morning, i am watching the show on American History tv and i am just finding the whole Space Mission replay is just amazing. I was 20 years old at the time, just giving birth to my second child. It was a totally amazing, amazing event for me. My son who is now 48 asked me at one time to please write down all the things that i have seen in my lifetime and this has got to be one of the top number 1 things that i have ever seen. I thank you for letting me share that. Before you go, marlene, the top of the list . You know, we came out of an age where the kids played flash gordon and all these makebelieve space things and here it is real. It is happening right in front of us. And i think culturally today kids need to be more and more aware of this. They need to be more involved. We need to get our future scientists. We need to keep this growing. And keep kids aware of not only our history but our future. Do you think that spaceflight, a manned space flight should still be an effort by the United States . I do. Should be abandoned . No i dont think it should be abandoned. Know i was asking you if you think manned space flight should still be an effort the United States. Should they still make that effort . Yes, i do. I honestly believe that they do. I think it is important not only as a country but as a world and i think it should continue on, yes. Marlene in dover giving her experiences and remembrances of the apollo 11 mission on this 50th anniversary. We will hear from willie in stearns, kentucky. Go ahead. Last call for the segment. I am fortunate enough to have a book of every front page of the Columbus Dispatch and it is stated july 21, 1969. A good friend of mine, a writer for the dispatch went to connecticut. And ironically Neil Armstrongs mother said she too thought she might sink into the surface of the moon. And i thought that was kind of ironic because i did, too. It seems like a dream and as far as future exploration i think it would be like watching the beatles on ed sullivan. You can only do that once. We did it. I see no reason to do it again. We already did it. That is willie in stearns, kentucky giving us his impressions. Again our program in conjunction with American History tv on cspan 3. We are based from the national air and space museum and we will continue on until 10 00 talking about the 50th anniversary of apollo 11. Training is next for that conversation is john logsdon. He is the founder of George Washington University Space policy. He is the author of the book john f. Kennedy the race to the moon. We will have a conversation with him next. If you remember going back to 1962 it was then president kennedy gave what would be known as his moon speech at riker university in houston, texas. Why the moon . Why choose this is our goal . And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain . Why 35 years ago by the atlanta . Why does rice play texas . We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon, we choose to go to the moon and do the other things. Not because they are easy but because they are hard. Because that goal will serve to organize and nurture the best of our energies and because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone and one we intend to win and the others, too. If i were to say my fellow citizens that we shall send to the moon 240,000 miles away from the control station in houston a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, the length of this football field made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented capable of withstanding heat and stresses, avril times more than have ever been experienced, put it together with precision better than the finest watch carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communication, food and survival on an untried mission to an unknown celestial body and then return it safely to earth reentering the atmosphere at speeds of over 25,000 Miles Per Hour causing heat half that the temperature of the sun, almost as hot as it is here today, and do all of this and do it right and do it first then we must be bold. 50 years ago today we are celebrating the landing of apollo 11 on the moon. The launch of that in a couple of days before that talking about the historical, the cultural and the scientific significance. Joining us for this conversation is john logsdon. He is the founder of the Space Policy Institute at washington university. He also wrote john f. Kennedy and the race to the moon. What was the rise of president kennedy . Competition. The soviet union had defined its space success of the indication of the superiority of the communist way of life. It is hard to recreate in 2019 in a zerosum cold war competition of the late 50s and 60s but it was real to kennedy. And the idea that space was a measure of National Vitality and that the u. S. Was behind is not acceptable to him. After the launch in april 61 he asked his advisers from a memo, asked to find a Space Program which promises dramatic results in which we could win. The answer came back lets go to the moon. That was from the scientist in nasa saying that when kennedy made the pitch to congress, how was it received . The first pitch on may 25, 1961 when he went before a joint session of congress and said i believe we should go to the moon before this decade is out, the reaction was very positive. Kennedy proposed a very significant budget increase and it was passed with very few opposing votes in the summer of 61. Nasa was on its way. What was the role of lyndon b. Johnson during this process . He was Vice President johnson and he was involved in setting up nasa in 1958. He was clearly a cheerleader for a very ambitious Space Program. But when kennedy decided it was important for national purposes, he basically took the issue back from Vice President johnson and made it a president ial issue. Johnson was there, he was involved. But kind of on the margins. When it comes to public sentiment at the time for kennedys proposal, how would you gauge that . There was a gallop poll in may 1961 before kennedys speech asking are you willing to spend x billion dollars to go to the moon and 60 of the American Public said no. This was a leadership initiative. This didnt come out of a groundswell of public demand for a major spatial initiative. John logsdon, our guest for this segment. If you want to ask him questions you can do so. If you watched the moon landing , 2027488001. If you were all others, 2027488001. You provided us a picture the day of the launch. You are highlighted in the picture. Talk about that. What are you doing that day and what were your impressions . I had chosen in 1967 as a graduate student at New York University and already is a faculty member at Catholic University here in washington to write my phd dissertation on kennedys decision to go to the moon. By 1969 i was pretty well done and the book was on its way to being published. It was a book called the decision to go to the moon. I had been working with nasa on the research. In that earned me a press pass and an invitation to the launch. I was at the press site at Kennedy Space center about as close as a civilian could be to the launch on that morning at 9 32 am. I dont know whether youre showing the picture but that is me in the red circle. It was an unforgettable experience. The sheer power of the saturn five launch. The lowfrequency noise which you can physically feel in your body. And the slow acceleration seemed to hover before gathered speed and headed off. You knew you were seeing something go down to the ends of human history. That combination is totally unforgettable. What was your level of confidence when you saw the launch that the mission could be accomplished . Probably higher than the crew because they knew a lot more than i did. Armstrong is quoted as saying he thought there would be a 90 success they would get to the moon and back. 50 that the landing would be successful. I guess by that time it was pretty high confidence. Nasa had pulled off the very bold step of sending people around the moon on apollo 8 in december of 68. So, i frankly stood there thinking this is going to happen. Our first call for you comes from augusta, georgia is erie this is mark. You are on with john logsdon , the author of john f. Kennedy and the race to the moon. Go ahead. I first of all want to say thank you to all the people at nasa that made it possible. I was a nineyearold kid watching. When they were in orbit of the moon we were at my grandpas house. By the time we got home to indiana we watched them actually land. My mom was basically in charge of our Little Family because my father was off fighting the world war called vietnam. I dont know what they did in vietnam as far as listening to the broadcast from nasa and everything but i remember playing with a little cardboard toy that you got from the gas station that was something you hung from a string and pretended that it was a model of the lunar module that you pretended to be landing with. We were huddled around the tv set at that time. John logsdon, the public sentiment at the time of the launch versus the sentiment leading up to the launch. By the time of the launch and the success of apollo 8 a few months earlier there was a building excitement. Not only in the united dates but the world was watching. A third of the three communication satellites necessary for Global Communication has just been put in orbit a few weeks earlier so this was the first event that was watched internationally. Something like 600 Million People were watching or listening as armstrong and aldrin descended to the lunar surface. This was a global event celebrated around the world. Not only in the United States. How did russia react to it . That is interesting. I have always thought that russia did not broadcast in real time. I was listening to a call in show like this with a woman that said she was in the soviet union and they were watching it live. That is contrary to my impression. But she was there and i wasnt. It certainly was not big news in the russian papers. Lets hear from grand rapids, michigan. Hello. Hello. I name is linni. Thank you so much for taking my call. Youre on, go ahead. It is my birthday. I was 15. I turned 15 the day we landed on the moon. Today i am 65 celebrating the 50th anniversary and my birthday all at the same time. Happy birthday. Thank you. It is an exciting day. I remember watching the moon landing with my family gathered around our tv set which was the first black and white listening to Walter Cronkite. My memory that day is of them landing on the moon. Not only for the first step for mankind and all that happened with that, but also because i dont know how many people realize that the moon is a rolling planet. Cancer in the month of july. When you look at the zodiac the only planet is the moon for the month of july. And i dont know if nasa knew that and leo is ruled by the sun a couple days from now. Thank you and happy birthday to you. Mr. Logsdon, anything from that . Several of your callers talked about watching the moon landing. There was no caller that caught the landing at 4 17 in the afternoon. There was a camera that caught armstrongs first depth. But the landing was all simulation on the various networks. They puzzled how to show this. If they had been able to show the reality they would have showed something really remarkable. As has been said a lot in the past few days right before the landing the lunar module pitched over and armstrong and aldrin first saw where they were headed and it was a rocky field full of boulders not suitable for landing. So neil had to take over and literally fly the lunar module parallel to the lunar surface for a few seconds. Im sure it seemed longer than that to find a level spot to land. They landed with 17 seconds of fuel left. The remarkable pilot achievement. The scientific efforts of the time, talk about them. What was involved with the module itself getting it developed and getting it ready to go . I suspect viewers can see the lunar module over my shoulder here. It is a very weird looking spacecraft. It was designed, nasa chose the way of getting to the moon which had a mothership go to lunar orbit and that mothership was designed to get to lunar over it orbit but most important to get the crew back to earth. It had the heavy heatshield for reentry. There was the separate lunar module that was only for going from lunar orbit to the surface. It didnt have to deal with an atmosphere so didnt have to deal with atmospheric pressure and the skin of this was basically paperthin and flexed a lot. It is not a strong spacecraft. But it was optimized for that one purpose and did it very well. How many versions . This is real. How many versions came up before the final design . From the time that this approach called lunar orbit rendezvous was chosen in 1962 to the final versions that were built, it was probably x, with x being a large number. One of the concerns was wait. They needed to shave every pound of possible weight off of the spacecraft. When nasa was ready after the apollo 1 fire to resume flight the lunar module was still not ready. One of the reasons we sent apollo 8 around the moon was that was a way of testing the whole system except for the lunar module which if we had waited for the lunar module it would have potentially delayed meeting kennedys end of the decade deadline. Here from new york is thomas. You are with our guest john logsdon. Go ahead. Thank you for taking my call. I have two short stories. The first was i was in vietnam in 1969. We didnt know for a couple days. Somebody asked me in the mess hall or someplace and said by the way, we landed on the moon. I said oh yeah, when . A couple days ago. Like it was nothing. That was what was going on when i served in the army. And the second story was my Old Neighborhood have a gentleman who never served. He was the only father on the block who never served in world war ii. 10 or 15 years ago when i read the obituary when he passed away i found out why. In world war ii he designed bombs for the air force. When it came to the Lunar Landing he also designed to of the electric motors on the limb. Im calling because im so proud that i lived so close to a gentleman that had to do with the Space Program. Thank you. Thank you. One thing to say is that this was a truly National Effort to get those two people on the moon and the 10 people that follow them. Only 12 people walked on the moon. Only four of them are still alive. With 400,000 people read all over the country that worked more or less directly on apollo. It was a very peaceful but a warlike mobilization of human and Financial Resources which is unlikely to happen again. How did armstrong, aldrin and collins become the ones to do this mission . Well, as they all say over and over again mainly luck. There was a rotation of crew. If you are a backup crew on a particular mission, three Missions Later you would be the primary group. Armstrong and aldrin were backup to apollo 8. Collins had neck surgery but was restored to flight status. When it came to 11 they were by normal rotation the prime crew. It was not at all given that apollo 11 would be first. It would be the first attempt but there were lots of things that could happen to make it not successful. And then i think nasa management recognized that the piloting skill and the personality of Neil Armstrong made him an ideal person to be first. What is it about the personality that strikes you most . Steady, calm, solid. Exuding confidence, not calling attention to himself. A true leader of the team. The kind of personality that neil demonstrated after the mission and was not portrayed in the first manned movie. That was not an accurate portrayal with the Neil Armstrong i knew. From orlando, florida, richard go ahead. Good morning america. I had the pleasure of visiting the Kennedy Space center twice. Once when i was 4. Back then you were allowed into the vehicle Assembly Building. And when i first went i saw the spacecraft inside the building and i thought wow, that was huge. But then when i went back the spacecraft that was in the building then was apollo 13. And then i went all my gosh, this thing is a monster. By that time i was a young teenager. I was lucky enough to have a Big Television that was black and white. I was okay with that. When apollo took off it just seems like it took forever for that spacecraft to clear the gantry. Once it cleared the gantry all of a sudden it was like boom. As you look at the footage about halfway up you kind of see where the sonic boom rolled off the top of the spacecraft. And then seeing it land, i remember my father is a Science Teacher. He was very encouraging. Took me to nasa every chance he could. And when they were going to land and i was watching them and i was hearing 60 seconds, my dad came flying in the house because he was a Real Estate Broker and i said dad, what does 60 seconds mean . And he said they have 60 seconds of fuel left. And i said wow. It didnt look like they were close to the ground at all. Got you call her. Mr. Logsdon. It was charlie duke who later walked on the moon on apollo 16 that was the casual communicator that capcom was calling out the time of the fuel. As they got down to 30 seconds i was interacting with charlie earlier this week and he tells the story. By the time i got to 30 seconds and they were picking up some dust, whatever the rules were about calling, he knew that armstrong was going to land. The commander have the final authority. He saw where they were on the lunar surface. Armstrong was the man to be able to pilot that spacecraft to the landing. It took nerves of steel to do it. What was it about where they landed on the moon . Why there . Why there is basically because it was the easiest place to get to. Apollo 11 was fundamentally a demonstration of the ability to land on the moon get back. They did a little science but very little. It was really a demonstration that we could meet kennedys goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth before the decade is up. All the prior robotic and the two missions that had gone to the moon, apollo 8 and apollo 10 had looked for the best, easiest landing and picked the sea of tranquility. It turned out that specific spot that the Guidance System picked was the wrong spot. Overall, it was a flat place where you could land a spacecraft with minimum risk. Hears from alabama, jimmy. You are on with our guest john logsdon. Hi. There were 1000 people coming up to see it. And they had equipment that they used on the caravan. All of the automation was done in alabama. Thank you. I basically didnt hear much of that. Did you understand what he said . Lets go to new york. Sally and schenectady. Thank you. I do have a question for mr. Logsdon. I wanted to say that i watched the landing from bogota, colombia. I was on vacation with my parents. We were in a big hotel and there was one television in the Television Room so we watched it communally which is in itself a gift. And i heard a bit of Walter Cronkite. I heard a lot of la luna. The best part is the next day as we walked around the streets of bogota, people knew we were more them americans and people would say things to us about us having things to do with it. I would like you to comment on the role that george lowe played in initiating this project. Thank you. Well, for viewers, lets first say who was george lowe. He was a nasa career engineer and even with the organization that preceded nasa. In 1960, 61 he did the first study of the technical requirements for landing on the moon at nasa headquarters. It was his study that allowed nasa to say to president kennedy, give us enough money and we can do this. Then, george who i had the good portion of knowing fairly well moved to houston with the establishment of the new manned base craft center and was the number 2 person to the Center Director and in terms of the day by day operation, after the apollo 1 fire he demoted himself to be ahead of this follow apollo spacecraft program. He oversaw the redesign of the command and Service Module to get rid of all the problems that were the source of the fire that killed grissom, chassis and white. He is kind of an unsung hero of apollo in my view. That is. 1. 2, out of the blue i got an email from his daughter who is in the Washington Area saying i would like to get together and share memories of george lowe and his role in apollo. I am very much looking forward to that. It is good that you know that. Are you near rpi . I think she is no longer on the line. Who are the other Unsung Heroes in the mission in your mind . The man who came up with lunar orbit rendezvous. A man that managed human spaceflight back then. It was called manned space flight back then. A man in washington named george miller. He was associate administrator for manned space flight. He was able to manage the program to success and keep the relationships with the contractors and congress going. And then jim webb and bob, the number 1 and number 3 officials of nasa were steady and kept the program on target. This is john logsdon joining us. He is the founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington university and the author of john f. Kennedy and race to the moon. This is dottie from Atlanta Georgia. Hello. Im from atlanta, georgia. My husband and i are very interested in the Space Program during the 60s. We actually were standing on the jetty at Cape Canaveral. I didnt hear that. Hold on. She was in Atlanta Georgia and watched during the 60s. Try one more time. Okay. My husband and i were at Cape Canaveral. Standing on the jetty watching when john glen in february 1962. And then my son was named scott after Scott Carpenter. He was the second astronaut in orbit. And then my husband and i were watching the moon landing and jumping up and down with much enthusiasm and excitement with the landing in 1969. You live to the program. That is dottie in Atlanta Georgia. I have to say i have a john glen story in here. I was working in manhattan in a totally different field, technical riding in 1962. On march 1 i went a couple streets over and watched john glen parade through manhattan after his 1962 orbital flight. That is what got me interested in the Space Program. There was a direct line between john glen and my career. I had the good fortune of being able to say that to ex senator glen later in life. I am from cincinnati, ohio. Glen is an ohio person. Neil armstrong is an ohio person. Those connections have been very gratifying. How are the three astronauts received once they came back to earth . On august 13 they started the day in new york with a tickertape parade. Then flew air force to to chicago for a tickertape parade. Then flew to los angeles for a banquet provided over by president nixon and then nixon sent them on a giant step store around the world, 29 cities in 36 days or Something Like that. One of your callers said she was in bogota, colombia which was the first stop on this giant app store. They got unanimous acclaim. The world said to them we did it. We the world landed on the moon. It was the idea that this was an effort of all humanity and i think that was very powerful and very successful. This is lisa from louisville, kentucky. Hi, thank you to cspan i appreciate the segment today. I remember 1969, our whole neighborhood talked about nothing that day at the moon landing. We decided we had to get together and do something and i was only 11. One of our neighbors picked up a motorola tv. We hooked it up and ran an extension cord through the window. Somebody had to hold the antenna ear so we could get good reception. Our whole neighborhood was sitting there. That night in 1969 watching the moon landing. I have four heroes in my life. Mohammed ali, jfk, Neil Armstrong and john mccain. And two of them had to do with the great moon landing. It seems like after that science boomed in schools. We did all kinds of aerospace projects. We did all kinds of moon talk. It was a wonderful time and i was so happy that i could see it. Thank you so much. It was great to be alive and aware what was happening. Sending people to the moon was remarkable. It has been since december 1972 that anybody has been back. It is well past time i think for us to return. I was going to ask you what you think is the sentiment now when it comes to manned space flight versus what you experience back then with apollo 11 . It is good that you say not manned space flight, but human spaceflight. The current policy of the u. S. Government is that the first person to go back to the moon will be a woman. President trump and Vice President pence have to clear the intent to get back to the moon within the next five years , 2024. And there is a program, it is official if it has a logo. It was just unveiled yesterday called artemis. It is a stretch and a challenge. But so was kennedys. Everything has to go right. Congress has to be willing to fund it. The American Public i think right now is in particularly in the excitement of this anniversary celebration and is interested in seeing the United States lead an International Public private coalition of companies to get back to the moon as soon as possible. Did that sentiment as far as after the apollo 11 missions, what was public sentiment like . How would you get that . If you gauge it by the media, always a little risky. Apollo 12 followed in november of 69. By apollo 13 until it had its problems, Television Networks had stopped live coverage of the mission. If that is an indication of their judgment of Public Interest, waned rather quickly. It was after all repetitive. All you were doing was landing in a different spot. So, it transitioned from being something that captivated the world to a voyage of expiration and that those that were close to it were interested in. By the time apollo 17 in december of 72, if anything could be described related to flying to the moon could be described as routine, i think people began to accept yeah, we can do this. So, the intense Public Interest dissipated rather quickly. In your mind is mars achievable as far as human spaceflight . Achievable. When is a different question. I think that is most of the technology we need to get humans to mars are achievable. We really dont know how to protect from radiation. We really should have a better propulsion system. Something that has negative connotations but it shouldnt of a Nuclear Rocket engine that could cut the trail of time down from nine months to a couple of months. If we develop the system that would maximize the mission, i think it is achievable by mid century if not sooner. Hears from murphy, North Carolina jack. Go ahead. Thank you for taking my call. I had always heard that armstrong was specifically selected because he was a civilian. Is there any truth to that . That armstrong was selected because he was a civilian i think he said. It was certainly a consideration. Almost all the astronauts had been military test pilots. Neil was a test pilot but a civilian test pilot. I dont think that was very high on the list of selection criteria for the mission. As i said earlier his crew was in the rotation that made them the choice for the first landing attempt. And then his bosses recognized that he was particularly well suited to be the first man. And the fact that he was civilian may well have been an element in it. Lets try from peoria, illinois. We will hear from herb. I was a 20yearold mathematics and physics major in college. And not knowing what i was going to do but nasa was on my list. And i ended up being a college teacher. Ive been a College Professor for over 40 years. Teaching history of mathematics in particular. When i think about watching the apollo landing 66 years is a blink of the eye in the history of the world. And it was only 66 years after the Wright Brothers. I remember that hitting me that my god, my dad was just born two years after the Wright Brothers. He was sitting there watching them land on the moon. And that is a perspective i think a lot of people lose. Right. A couple things to say about that. One is it a ceremony the night before the launch of apollo 11. Lindbergh was there. Not very public, he didnt like being out in public. A man named herman who was von braun mentor in germany and one of the three recognized 20th century rocket pioneers was there. There was a compression of history that indeed we stepped on the moon within 66 years of the Wright Brothers first flight. The american historian arthur, said when the history of the 20th century is recorded hundreds of years from now, the one thing that will be remembered as apollo and apollo 11. We will see, well, i wont see but i think that may be the case. It is it true that armstrong took a piece of the right flyer with him . That is indeed. It belongs to the museum. It is upstairs here today. And niels dedication was to the practice of flight, whether it was airplanes, rocket planes or spacecraft. So, the museum loaned him some pieces of the right flyer to take to the moon with him to demonstrate that historical continuity. Our conversation with john logsdon. He is the author of the book john f. Kennedy and the race to the moon and the founder of George Washington universitys Space Policy Institute. Thank you for your time today. It has been a pleasure. We are live from the national air and space museum as we talk about the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, the apollo 11 mission. We are doing this program in conjunction with our associates at American History tv. If you go to our website, not only can you see everything we have taken in for this event but also on American History tv all weekend long you can see programming specific to apollo 11. The best way to find out what is going on is at our website at www. Cspan. Org. In about 20 minutes we are going to be joined by one of the apollo 11 astronaut, michael collins. Up until then we are continuing your calls on the moon landing. 2027488000 if you watched the moon landing, 2027488001 for all others. You can also tweet us and put thoughts on our Facebook Page. I want to show you a little bit from our washington journal program. It featured a conversation with bill barry. He talked about the technical accomplishment of apollo 11. And other factors that lead to success. It is extremely complex. And there were things we hadnt really done before. We had never flown to the moon before with humans until december 1968. Apollo 8 was the first time we launched people on the saturn five rocket. The saturn five rocket has over 3 million parts. And full of explosive things. Basically a big bomb that is designed to go off in a certain way. Any number of things could have gone wrong. It performed beautifully. We had minor glitches with engines turning off in a couple things like that. It even got hit by lightning on apollo 12 with the launch. It just kept chugging along and heading into orbit. So, a great vehicle. Other spacecraft were well designed. The length of the program came from the fact that we suffered a disaster early on in 1967 when the apollo 1 fire happened. And after that nasa and all the people who worked on the program, about 400,000 people redoubled their efforts to fix everything they could. So, we got lucky but we also worked really hard at it. On this 50th anniversary of apollo 11 we are taking your calls. 2027488000 if you watched the moon landing. For all others 2027488001. A few minutes from now we are said to be joined by michael collins, the commander, the pilot of the command module i should say. This is from timothy in maryland. Thanks for holding on. Go ahead. Im excited to be on c span. I was 10 years old with the lunar mounting. Today i am fortunate to support cspan. I have a question that has to do with the simulation. Today we have computerbased simulation and virtual reality. Im curious about what type of simulation that was done with the original mission. You mean as far as simulators that are used today in the training of astronauts . Or simulating the actual flight and the separation of the command module and reconnecting with the lunar module and making sure that was going to be successful. David in palm beach, florida. Good morning. You are next. Good morning. Can you me . Mike yep, you are on. Thank you. I work at Kennedy Space center for 10 years. The point i would like to make is that there has never been a credit to the contractors that design, tom kelly, the designer and the builder of the lunar module. It is the company who put everything together. The engineers, and the technicians that spent many hours have never been credited with the work that we did. And Companies Like biw, boeing, mit, we made it possible for the astronauts to make it safely. You guys dont know the technical problems that we encountered and we had to make sure that if we had to change a panel, the intense testing we did day and night until we were sure that we had it safe and were able to get the astronauts to the moon and back to the earth. We used a lunar module to come back around the moon and come back to the earth on apollo 13. I wish you had mentioned that. The astronauts took a high risk. But it was we the contractors who made this possible. Tank you very much. Why do you think that is important to mention. Why do you think it doesnt get mentioned a lot . All i read is yeah, the glory goes to the astronauts. And there is no doubt about it. It is high risk. But they never mentioned the contractors to make this thing possible. We were slaves. You guys have no idea the technical problems we face and we had to resolve and prove and demonstrate that everything was okay before we give the spacecraft to nasa. It was the contractors who really put this thing together. Okay. That is david. If you come to the national air and space museum, we talked about it earlier. Lunar module two, one of the many test that are available. You can see it and it gives you a good representation of what you might see if you had seen apollo 11 up close and personal. We are based out of the national air and space museum for our program today rip our next call comes from alan in fort pierce, florida. Either. Good morning. Good morning. This is so fascinating. I was 11 years old when i saw the moon launch and the moon landing. And these guys were my heros. This is just so fascinating what youre doing. I want to mention i had a great experience about 18 years ago. I worked at a community in port st. Lucie florida has the recreation director. There was a man there who was retired, colonel ralph williams. He told me he was on the team that came to florida to look for a site for the space center. And it was so fascinating hearing this man talk. He was probably in his late 80s at the time. And he would talk about what it was like coming down and looking for the location where they were going to put this space center. So i wondered if your guests could also talk a little bit about that. What led up to actually, he took off already, allen. I apologize for that. As far as the heros that you spoke about, of the three do they all stand in equal standing when it comes or does one stand out over the other . How would that rank . All three of them were my heros. When i was a kid, my father had a framed portrait. I think its the print of the same one you showed. He had a framed portrait in his store, and so every time id stop in the store, i would look at that, you know, all three of them were my heros. I mean, they were amazing people. It was amazing what they did. It was so cool that they went up there and then you could look at the moon and think men went up there and landed on the moon. Its really great that youre doing this whole program so people can recognize how important this was, how monumental it was. So allen, thank you for that. I just want to let you know that this program today, even though youre seeing it on cspan, our washington journal program, this is a production of american tv history, cspan3 on the weekends. And as far as their program for the weekend, a lot of programs just dedicated to apollo 11. If you want to go to the website at cspan. Org, you can see the scheduled programming for the event. You notice theres a video library. Type in any space related word you want. You can see that all available at cspan. Org. You heard john talk about what happened when the three astronauts went back to earth. They participated in a press conference, and it was during that press conference where the astronauts had a chance to talk about what they thought was the meaning of the mission. I believe that what this country set out to do was something that was going to be done sooner or later whether we set a specific goal or not. I believe that from the early space flights we demonstrated potential to carry out this type of a mission, and again, it was a question of time until this would be accomplished. I think the relative ease with which we were able to carry out our mission which, of course, came after a very efficient and logical sequence of flights, i think that this demonstrated that we were certainly on the right track when we took this commitment to go to the moon. I think that what this means is that many other problems perhaps can be solved in the same way by taking a commitment to solve them in a longtime fashion. I think that we were timely in accepting this mission of going to the moon. It might be timely at this point to think in many other areas of other missions that could be accomplished. [ laughter ] everybody looking at me . Well, to me there are near and far term aspects. In the near term, i think its a technical triumph for this country to have said what it was going to do a number of years ago and then do it just like we said we were going to do it. Not just perhaps purely technical, but also a triumph for the nations overall determination, will, economy, attention to detail, 1001 other factors that went into it. Thats shortterm. I think longterm we find for the first time that man has the flexibility or the option of either walking this planet or some other planet. Be it the moon or mars or i dont know where. And im poorly equipped to evaluate where that may lead us to. I just see it as a beginning, not just this flight but in this program which has really been a very short piece of human history. An instant in history. The entire program, its a beginning of a new age. Lets hear from james in roanoke, virginia. Hi. Good morning. Id like to find out if the two space vehicles that still on the moon are still operational. Whats your interest in finding that out . Caller just curiosity. I watched the space landing when the man landed and stepped on the moon, but ever since then ive been wondering now after all these years if the space you know, the mobiles up there still operational as far as going back to get them and do missions with them. Is what im asking. Got you. From watching apollo 11, what do you remember most about it . I watched when arm strong stepped on the moon. It was an experience back then to even watch that. It was amazing. Were you in support of the mission back at that time . Yes. I sure was. That was amazing. To see that. Here is gayle in florida. Watch the moon landing. Hello, gayle, thanks for calling. Caller hello, yes. I want to thank cspan so much for these programs. Im i was 24 years old. Im 76 now. I lived in Cape Canaveral during the apollo launches. The inspiring thing was the sense of unity. The sense of the whole world as human beings, and we have such division right now. These programs maybe help us remember that were all human beings and were all the same and we all have the same kind of dreams and a sense of adventure, and i hope that that positive inspiration that i certainly felt when these apollo astronauts went to the moon, there are a lot of sacrifices to do that. Families, all the people who worked on this program worked 24 7. You know, my family was working for ibm there, and i just want to thank you for doing this. I hope this will remind us were human and we can do anything we put our mind to if we do it together. Thank you so much. Gayle, before we let you go, did you watch the event by yourself . Did you watch with other people . Do you remember that . Caller yes. I was by myself. My husband was at work, and i was went out in my front yard. Im like a lot of people say, it was stunning. It was like an earthquake that you knew was you were safe, but the earth shook like crazy. And i think one of your callers said that it was almost like the craft hovers for a while instead of just like you think of rockets taking off. It hovered. And the power of it, and i do know that the astronauts and all of the personnel, i was watching it by myself, and i think its the most one of the most inspiring things ive its kind of like a sense of inspiration that look what humans can do if they just try hard and really focus on things that are important, and that will help us. So, yeah. Look, this is tim in minnesota. Hi, tim. Good morning. Caller how are you . Fine, thank you. Go ahead. Caller i was only six when they did this. And i really didnt understand the significance of it. But ive read a lot of books since then, obviously. And i want im interested in a lot of these guys have said that it totalled to be hundreds of years behind where were supposed to be technologically. You know, we should be a lot further, but we spent trillions on wars the last bunch thats going to congress now is about 700 billion for the authorization act. And yeah, i just think by some of these books ive read and that were way behind where we really should be. One person called and said we should have had bases on the moon by now. We should have class forms in the i would like to hear what he had has to say. Thank you very much. Thats our caller from minnesota. Joining us now, michael collins, the command module pilot here on cspan. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. I appreciate your time with us today. Looking forward to it. What do you wish people would ask you . How much did i get paid for it. Other than that i suppose you hear a lot of the same questions about this, but what would you like people to know about the mission that they wouldnt know, especially from your experience . Well, i think it starts with john f kennedy. He was our president. He was assassinated, but he for one reason or another became fascinated by space. He thought it was something that country ought to undertake, and so he made his famous speech and said we ought to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade and return him safely to earth, and that was a masterpiece of simplicity. It was such a short, succinct, but direct set of instructions to us as we trained to get prepared to go to the moon. We could get things done. We could say kennedy wanted this, and youre late there, and it pulled a whole tremendously large group of people together at its peak. There were about 400,000 americans working on the Apollo Program. Well, i shouldnt say apollo. I should say Space Program. There were other aspects as well. What were you doing when kennedy made the call, and did you think it was possible when he made it . I dont know what i was doing at that moment, but my vision of was it easy or difficult, possible or impossible, kind of oscillated. There were times when i thought oh, sure, weve got four years to go before 1969, and all these problems seem to be falling into place. Other times i thought no, were not going to make it at all. Some difficulty would come up. There would be a snag, something we didnt understand before that we had to solve. It was a vacillating kind of goal as far as im it wasnt like the moon was that big and there it was. Sometimes it was pretty big and sometimes it was tiny. When you heard for the very first time that you were going to be on this mission, what went through your mind . I was very pleased. It was a culmination of John F Kennedys goal, and it was the high point in my judgment of the Apollo Program which had a lot of high points in it, but that was the a plus ultra, if you will, of missions, and the two people that i was going with were wonderful and highly competent. I was very pleased to be joining them as well. I heard during an interview about the command module itself that you were very close to it. You had i guess a direct hand maybe in the design and building. Is that the case . Well, we were we were generally assigned to a flight at a point where the our machine, we were going to fly was not yet finished. We used to go to the factory and help it down the assembly line. They have to undergo a series of tests. It was helpful to the contractor. In this case it was north american rockwell out in california. It was helpful to them to see that their customer was there helping this to be designed, and, of course, it was necessary, really, from our point of view so ultimately we would understand the machine with a great deal of intimacy. How much input did you have when the design of the machine as visiting astronauts, we probably had too much power, i would say. If we said something, they would all scribble it down on little note pads, and we might have been dead wrong. But we there was a lot of give and take to that process, and as our machines, this case it was colombia, the command module. When they got finished with it, it was pretty problem free. When colombia and eagle separated, what were your responsibilities while you were orbiting . I was their den mother. I was their ticket home. I was in an orbit 60 miles circular around the moon. And i just was keeping home fires burning and everything in order while they were doing their work on the surface of the moon. Which involved what . Give us specifics. Im sorry . Which involved what . Give us specifics of what you were doing while in orbit. I was pouring myself a cup of coffee. I turned the thermostat up to 72 degrees. I had a little music if i wanted, and then i had a volume switch for Mission Control. And sometimes dont tell Mission Control, operated as a cutoff switch. Did you as far as when you were orbiting, what went through your mind as far as the ability to complete the mission . Well, i thought wed complete the mission. The aspect that worried me the most was not the Lunar Landing. I thought armstrong, extremely competent pilot. Weve seen thousands of photographs of the area in which he was supposed to land, and so i dont want to say that the descent was a piece of cake. It was not. They had a lot of problems with their computer along the way. But i really was not worried about neil landing safely at his target or somewhere else close to it. The thing that worried me most was the assent when they were ready to come back up to the command module. We at nasa really believed in redundancy. When we have a gadget, we wanted two gadgets. A prime gadget, and if it broke, we had a backup. And that was true in almost all cases. However, it was not true in their ascent. The lunar module just had one ascent engine. Small little thing, one combustion chamber. If you didnt get ignition, they were two dead men. That was what was uppermost in my mind when they were on their way down and when they were coming back. Once you got back to earth, you we had a previous guest tell us you guys went around the world to talk about the mission. What was the reception like . The reception of our around the world trip, i think we hit Something Like 29 cities. It was amazing. I thought that people would say well, big deal. Good. Thank you. You americans finally did it. Instead of that, they all said unanimously we did it. They felt participatory. They felt like they had almost crawled on board with us, that we humanity, had put this thing together and had carried it off, and they felt very proud to be a part of that, just to be a human, to live during that time when we were if you want to get technical, we were exceeding escape velocity. We were on our way somewhere, and that they were part of that. Michael collins, every mission has a patch assigned to it. Yes. We found out you designed the apollo 11 patch. Yes, i did, more or less. I think it was jim lovl, one of our backups who thought the eagle was a proper motiff, and i agreed with that. So i kind of took that idea and ran with it. Went into a National Geographic book and got a proper eagle trying to fold its wings as it was coming in, and, of course, i had to have a little earth popping up over the horizon little by little, the patch emerged. Also on the patch itself on some of the other patches of the missions, they had the names of the astronauts. Yours did not. Why is that . I didnt want any names on it. It was a tradition in a started with chen, i flew with john young. John and i agreed that there were thousands and thousands of people who deserved a name on a patch somewhere, and they werent going to get one. If they werent going to get one, then we shouldnt have one. That we were so dependent on thousands, and if you go into Mission Control in houston, the walls are lined with patches. I just like to see that gemini 10 and apollo 11, no names on those. Names on just about all the others. Not to denigrate the others. Thats fine if you want to put a bunch of names on it, but i thought we were better off without it. When you look at the moment, do you still think about the mission . I dont think about it often unless someone pokes me in the ribs. Ill go out and walk down the street after dark, and i kind of sense something up there, a Little Silver sliver up there. The moon. Oh, hell, ive been to the moon. It kind of takes me by surprise every time, but im a slow learner. Does it shock people when you tell them that . About how you look at that . I dont know. I dont know what i do, but im sorry, i didnt get the question properly. Im saying when you tell people that you dont think about the mission much, does it shock them . Does it shock people . I dont know what gives people 110 volt ac shock. I dont think so. I think its pretty hard to shock people. Theres a current effort to go back to the moon even go further to mars. What do you think about that effort . I like it. When i came back from the moon, i always used to joke that they sent me to the wrong planet, and that nasa ought to be renamed the National Aeronautics and mars administration. 20some years, a book mission to mars. Im a big mars addict. If you ask me today, i would say i would go for a jfk in his memory, mars direct mission. And i think going back to the moon is a solid idea. A lot of research has gone into the current plans to use the moon as a jumping off base to go to mars, but im entitled to my d dissent, and i say no, mars direct, go. Do you think people have the same awe of space flight that they did when you went to the moon . I dont know how people consider space. Its so remote from our daily lives. You know, in the normal course of events, i dont think about space very much at all. And, of course, its been a large part of my life, but you know, if youre a dentist, you worry about cavities. You dont worry about space. So i think its way out on a periphery of our consciousness. Now, its a good thing. Theres so many bad things out on the periphery of our consciousness that its nice to have one. Its a good one. One that you can get behind, get interested in. Support. And will have benefits, tangible and intangible. What did you do after you left nasa and the Space Program . I was i went to work for the state department. I was assistant secretary of state for Public Affairs for a while. And at that time this location where im sitting on the maul in washington was an empty field, and we wanted to convert it into a national air and space museum, and so with the help of barry go goldwater and some other influential politicians, we were able to get 40 million appropriated, and so this building was built. I worked here for longer, about six years, and i had worked at in the Space Program, matter of fact. Michael collins, i asked you you wish people would ask you, you said how much did you get paid for the mission . Zero. I was kidding about that. No. We got paid whatever our salaries were and the organization to which we belonged. I was an active duty, i guess colonel in the air force at that time, and so whatever air force colonels i was probably overpaid considerably. Michael collins, the command module pilot for apollo 11. We thank you for your time today and giving us that time. Thank you very much. Nice to be here. Coming up, well hear from someone at the air and space museum, the space history curator, the author of apollo to the moon of history and 50 on sects. That conversation is next. First the museum unveiled the space suit of Neil Armstrong. We spoke to Kathleen Lewis about it. Its one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Right now we are in the Wright Brothers gallery of the national air and space museum. Im standing in front of Neil Armstrongs space suit which we put on display for the first time in 13 years yesterday morning. We took Neil Armstrongs space suit off display in 2006 because we determined that the materials that were inside the suit were beginning to deteriorate. They were degrading. And we didnt think that the case that we had it in was adequate to preserve it, so we decided to put it back on take it off display and put it in storage where the temperature and humidity were strictly controlled. And give it a rest until we could come up with a plan for displaying it in a climatecontrolled case. The materials that were used in this space suit are almost all synthetic materials. And because theyre synthetic materials, they degrade. This is especially important about the rubber bladder thats in the suit. This is the essential part of the suit that keeps the oxygen inside the suit and allows the astronaut to breathe. The rubbers they used, the technicians knew had a limited life span. It was a combination of natural and synthetic rubbers. And they knew that it could break it would start to break down after six months. They had to time the manufacture of the suit to six months from the planned splash down to the astronauts and the conclusion of their mission. We knew that when we acquired the suit, that there would be problems, but the science was not there for us to determine what was the best environment for the suit. Having the space suit on display preserved and digitized is very important. Its not only important for the generation of people who remember when Neil Armstrong stepped on the surface of the moon 50 years ago, but its even more important for the Young Children who come here who have no memory of the Apollo Program, and even their parents, perhaps, dont have a personal memory of the Apollo Program. This suit is here for that icon standing in for the icon in history, but its also standing there as a starting point for future generations. They from that suit, they will learn what space suits did, and what they will have to do if we return to the moon. We travel to an asteroid or even go onto mars. We are live from the air and space museum here in washington d. C. And joining us now for our conversation is the space history curator here. Specifically works on the apollo 11 curator issues. Hes an author as well. What are you in charge over . The apollo spacecraft collection. The lunar and command modules, things like that. So whats your as far as the collection itself, whats included, how large is it . Its very large. So over 2000 artifacts within the spacecraft collection, and then we have our apollo collection in general. Its thousands of objects from saturn 5 down to small things like space food. Including the lunar module. What do people want to know about that . I think it surprises people when they look at it. It doesnt look quite like an aircraft or Something Like that. Its not air row dynamic. A lot of people have questions about how it works and whats that gold stuff, usually is a common question, whats it for . Why does it look the way it looks . Answer the question. What is the gold stuff . Its a mylar. Its basically thermal protection. It kept the spacecraft regulated, the temperature regulated while it was in the direct sunlight or in shadows. Its a huge range of temperatures on the moon. It was important to have thermal protection to keep the spacecraft sort of temperate. From your personal perspective, whats pareimporta about this day, the 50th anniversary . Its such an exciting day. I have been speaking with a lot of people about what the significance of today is, and the Apollo Program more generally. Its a wonderful reminder of how space flight can inspire and encourage a sense of unity. You see that with the hundreds of thousands of people who worked on the nation across the country and the world. And also the the huge audience that it attracted. Half the worlds population stopped what they were doing to watch the first Lunar Landing together. I think its an important part of that legacy, that this mission really inspired people to come together in various ways. Is there a diplomatic role in the mission itself as far as how it was perceived worldwide . I think well, if you look back to why kennedy proposed project apollo in the first place, he was motivated by larger geopolitical concerns and the interest in alignment more generally. With the hope that it would win the hearts and minds of the world and that people would align with the United States. And i think in many ways it contributed to the sense of alignment with the u. S. Theres a wonderful story about how the astronauts traveled the world on their diplomatic tour and everywhere they went people said we did it. There was a sense that it was an accomplishment of human kind, and people were aware that the United States sent humans to the moon, but that it was this larger project. So it was a u. S. Led Global Project in a way. That was seen as important politically. Our guest is the author of apollo to the moon, a history in 50 objects. Were going to talk about that. If you want to ask her questions, you can give us a call, 202 7488000. A little bit about your back. What was the purpose behind it . Well, i wanted to tell the history of project apollo in a different way, a way were not as used to. So it is such a complex program. It involves so many people, and often you can read an overview of the program, but you miss some of the sort of details. And one of the ways that you can tell those stories is through artifacts, i thought. And so i selected 50 artifacts and together i sort of see it as a tappest ri. You get a picture of the political history, the social history, the cultural history, the technological history of apollo through the individual stories. It allowed me to dive deep with each of the small stories and bring them together to tell a more full picture. You talked about the lunar module. Talk about the command module. What should people know about that . So i think also just even stepping back, it was there were multiple spacecraft involved. That certain times they act as one, and other times they are divided. The command module is seen as the astronauts home during the mission. They lived it in for a little over eight days in total, and but it was also their laboratory. It was everything had to happen in there. It was a combination of spacecraft and home and bathroom and kitchen and dining room, and a really complex ship that included sort of two parts. You have the sort of pressurized interior, and then a really sophisticated heat shield on the outside. Also you talked a little bit about the camera that eventually would record the astronauts on the moon and other actions. Talk about that artifact. The Data Acquisition camera. This is a special artifact for a number of reasons. The role it played in apollo 11, it was mounted in the window, buzz ald rons window and recorded the landing, but we had operated the camera was going to be left on the moon. The astronauts left a lot of materials behind on the moon so they could bring knew lar material home. It turns out Neil Armstrong put this camera inside his bag. We call it a mcdivot purse. Its a bag he put a number of miscellaneous things in there and brought them back as souvenirs. It ended up in one of his closets, and after he passed away, his wife contacted the museum, because she had found it. And we looked at this material, and we were just thrilled to see that the camera was in there, and it was not left on the moon. Is it currently on display or is it kept elsewhere . Its currently on display. We have a special apollo 11 case we brought out some ar fakts for the anniversary. One of the other things was the computer that was used. Talk a little bit about the computer that actually was versus what we have today and as far as its computing power. Compared to computers today, it had limited computing power, but it was extremely robust and sophisticated for the time, and this is a point in history where there was a huge change between computers getting larger and larger and with apollo, they had to be very small. You see this huge shift happen here, and there was a lot of investment in research and development in Apollo Computers that then would pay off later on in the development of that industry. So the apollo computer itself was quite small. And it was extremely reliable, and the software was hand woven with ropes and so it was quite robust. Well continue with that conversation. For first call for you is from carol. Carol is from new york. Youre on with the curator of the national air and space museum. Go ahead. Yes. Hello. I worked for bankrollen air space in 1965. I was a college student. They hired summer help for any of the employees at the brommen whose children were in college at the time. So it was a big thrill for me to work for the learn lerner excursion module. I typed thousands and thousands of part numbers on vellum which they reproduced later. That was a small part i played in it. It was a thrill at the time. My father worked there for many years, and he was part of the scaffold crew that put up the scaffolding in the hangar for the mockups for the lems, and apparently i heard that when they had the when the lunar excursion module was in the air, they also did these same maneuvers in this hangar on the mockup that my father was privileged enough to be a small part of also. And my family watched the lunar excursion module and the it have a thrill. It really was a thrill to watch it on tv and to be a part of it. I got to meet Scott Carpenter and a few of the astronauts at the time. Got you. Thank you, carol. Anything from that . Thats a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing with us. I think it points to a few sort of important things that happened during apollo. A lot of the people working on the hardware got to meet the astronauts and got a sense that these were the people that we are sending to space, and it contributed to a sense of responsibility and duty and ensuring that the spacecraft and all the different components were reliable, and that astronauts would not encounter any problems in space. So that was an important element of the program. One of the people you highlight in the book is a woman named margaret hamilton. Who was she . She was the head of Apollo Software for both the hlunar an command module, and a pioneer for her time. She studied abstract math. She was from indiana originally, i believe. And came to cambridge, massachusetts with her husband when he went to graduate school there, and then ended up supporting the family which was also a bit unusual for the time, and working as a software engineer, and she actually helped popularize that phrase. When she first did, it was there were some jokes about it. Because it wasnt it was seen as sort of aggrandizing that profession. But it really caught on, and it was an important contribution. And she, herself, ended up overseeing a very, very large team in the development of the software for the Apollo Program. Theres a picture of her standing next to a stack of books. Thats the code apollo was using at that time . Yeah. Printed out. They would print them on cards and feed it into the simulator, and then it would print out what you see in that image, the printed out code from how many lines of code. Do you know offhand . Oh, me . I will leave that to the computer curator. A little outside my area. Joanne from missouri, hello. Go ahead. Caller hello. Hi. Can you hear me . Yeah, youre on. Go ahead. Caller okay. I just wanted to say that i was in high school when i watched it with my family, and one special thing for our family was it happened on my fathers birthday. His birthday was july 20th, and he was an avid viewer of all the shuttles, the apollo everything. He was very americanoriented, and just loved the fact that we were involved in these things, and our whole family is very proud to be a part of the whole group that did all of this, and supported it. And just a wonderful memory, an awesome experience even to see it on television. Caller, thank you. Thank you very much. What a wonderful day to have a birthday. I think thats a great celebration. Ive heard stories of people having either wedding anniversaries or weddings on july 20th as well. Its a good way to celebrate, and i have a colleague whose parents were married in germany on that day. He says that a part of the wedding party, part of the reception included following the mission. This is from alabama. Bill, good morning. Youre on with our guest. Caller yes. I just wanted to say that, you know, i was there. I actually worked for the Space Program. I was in the launch support team. I worked on the building. Put that all together. Backpacks for the astronauts. We built those. Myself and three or four other guys in our shop. It was an exciting time. Ive got movies from where i was standing on top of the vab building, filming the apollo as it took off, and it was an awesome thing. It was just spectacular for me to work on it. It was like going to disneyland every day. It was something new. No one had ever done this before. So it was exciting for us, and i was just glad to be part of it. Got to meet the astronauts just about every day. And we i just wanted to add a little thing. I dont know if many people know or even notice it but when the saturn five launches, if you watch the rocket, it leans over a little bit. So that it can clear the tower. One of the tail fins would have hit the tower. We built all those swing arms and put them together in birmingham, alabama. It moved to huntsville where we finished them. Also worked on the lunar roller up there, and then we went to florida. Moved down there for about three and a half years. And just wanted to add that to it and say how proud i was to be part of it, and i hope caller, thank you very much. Okay. Thanks. Thank you for sharing your story. I love hearing these stories, and its so wonderful to highlight the contributions of the people who contributed to the program, and it was over 400,000 people. A huge coordinated effort, and everyone was doing their part. One of the interesting things about apollo, the way it was structured was that nasa oversaw the program, and but there was a huge percentage of contract and sub contractors working on the mission, and so over 90 of the people who contributed to project apollo were coming from private industry or from universities or institutes. And it was the type of program where you so many people participating and contributing to it and coordinating their efforts together its created so many wonderful memories. I always get excited to hear the details of the individuals that contributed . You mentioned the tapes even today. Theres supposed to be an option of private tapes that was held by a nasa intern at the time. Bought it when you hear stories like that, dont you yoish had them in your possession . I hope theyre preserved carefully. Its a reminder that when project apollo happened, space flight was brand new. The first artificial satellite was 1967. By 1969 humans were landing on the moon. So many things had to be done quickly, and there were a lot of expectations about protocol, perhaps, that we have today. They werent exactly in place at the time, because this was brand new, and a pioneering effort, and a lot of things were figured out in realtime, like, the inclusion of cameras within a human space flight. Tell us about the moon rocks that were brought back from the mission. So with apollo 11, it was roughly 50 pounds of lunar material brought back. And in the Apollo Program in general is 842 pounds. That material has been really helpful in our understanding of how the moon formed. Its age. The material content of the moon as well as answering questions about our solar system more generally. There are three primary types of rocks. Theyre similar to earth rocks. The idea, the theory is that a large marssized body impacted the earth and the moon was formed through that collision. Were the rocks kept now where are the rocks now . Are they being tested on . Theyre being used for Scientific Study and some of the material, i believe from 11 was just released for scientists to study. And it had been carefully protected since that time. And not used in Scientific Study, but all the material brought back from the Apollo Missions, the majority is in nasas possession, and we have some lunar material, but its on loan from nasa, and nasa lends it to scientists for San Francisco study, and over the years as scientific instruments have improved, weve been able to learn Additional Information from this lunar material. This is tl from sun city, california. You are next with our guest. Good morning. Caller hi. I wasnt alive when the Lunar Landing was broadcast 50 years ago, but i have a direct connection to the Apollo Program. My father worked for both nasa and rockwell. Rockwell was then known as north american aviation. Downing california, in a way, ground zero to the space age, and i was hoping to speak with mike collins to tell him how handsome he is at his age well, my dad worked on perhaps the command module in the second stage of the rocket, and there were also other projects such as the x15 rocket plane. Im just calling to tell say that the Apollo Program in a way is like a legacy of my dad, because i never got to know him because he passed away before i was born, so in a way, the moon landing is a way to get to know him while he was alive. He made friends with a lot of his coworkers, and even an actor who later became a president himself. So thanks, tl. Thanks for the stories. Thats great to hear. Yeah. Downy, california with north american aviation is an important part of that apollo story, and in many ways, but the command module was developed there, and so this is the home of the spacecraft out astronauts. They had to go through a lot of modifications. There was the apollo 1 fire in january of 67. It alerted everyone to some of the dangers of space that they needed to improve the capsule and to ensure the astronauts safety, and many of those improvements that took place in downy helped make a Safer Program and is part of the reason why we didnt have any fatalities in space. Part of the book deals with human waste. Could you tell our viewers why . Well, thats one of the questions that the people who have traveled to space get asked the most. Mike was asked that last night. Someone asked him how he went to the bathroom in space. His response was very carefully. I think thats the correct answer. Its really complicated. It has been an issue from the very beginning to make sure that you know, things are hygienic, relatively clean, and its never that pleasant. When you think about being inside the spacecraft, in tight quarters, the command module itself, i read a back that the author compared it to the space of three british phone booths, if you can picture those next to each other. Very limited space. But the early the urine collection device, for instance, the astronauts would have worn on the lunar surface, fitted to their bodies. Theyre very much a reminder that all the early astronauts were men. But they had issues with them leaking sometimes. And then fee ccal collection wa one of the less glamorous aspects of space life, well say. Thats just one of the many photos youll find in the book apollo to the moon a book and 50 objects. Our next call from columbus, ohio. This is steve. Caller hello, im so glad you wrote that book, and im certainly going to buy it. My wife and i grew up with the Space Program, and we watched the moon landing. What saddens me is when i speak with such spenthusiasm about th Apollo Program especially, and i talk about all the benefits that came from it that we take for granted in our daily lives. A lot of the people i talk to in their 20s and 30s, they grew up with this stuff. They dont understand it was a benefit. My parents sat it was a waste of money, they say, and why are we going to waste more money trying to go to mars. Im just saying, wow. The apollo, the whole 60s piece of the Space Program just transformed our society, and these guys are just waking up and saying okay, i can you know, computer miniaturization. Food preservation, waste management, greener technologies. Complex polymers for sports, et cetera. Could you enumerate on some of these things and possibly educate the public on just how much we got back from our investment . Got you, caller. Yeah. There are quite a few spin off technologies that were important. Apollo sort of helped seed the computer industry. A lot of people who were working on project apollo went onto contribute greatly to the development of computing. I would say with project apollo, its important to look at the political spinoffs. President kennedy proposed project apollo primarily as a response to a larger geopolitical situation. It was done within the context of the cold war. There was a flight in april of 1961. The first human in space. And it was a huge blow to u. S. Prestige, and then that was quickly followed by the bay of pigs invasion. It was another blow to u. S. Prestige, and kennedy asked his Vice President , Linden Johnson to find a Space Program that would be highly impressive to the International Public that we could win, and so project apollo was really motivated by politics in a political situation. So when we evaluate it, we should evaluate it in terms of the impact on diplomacy and the u. S. s position in the world. The United States did not primarily invest in project apollo for the spinoffs. Theyre a wonderful outcome of the mission. But it is not why the program was funded, and it also shouldnt be the primary reason or primary means that we evaluate it. When it comes down with fascination of space flight, do you think it still exists as it did at the time of apollo 11 . I think its different. I think theres a huge fascination, and here at the national air and space museum, we have a wonderful visitorship. People of all ages from all over the world come here, millions and millions of people a year. Thats a great sign of the interest in space flight. But at that time in the 1960s, space flight had just sort of evolved from Science Fiction to science fact. And it was brand new. And you cant it would have to be different today. And it was also coupled with a revolution in television and media and communications, and so the first Lunar Landing was also the first live Global Television broadcast. And thats an important part of this history and the impact of the mission as well. It allowed people from around the world to do something in unison, and to follow explorers in realtime. And that was really memorable, and that gave people a sense of participation, and thats part of the historic weight. From candace in florida, youre on with our guest. Good morning. Caller good morning. I just want to say anyone who is around to watch the moon landing, what an amazing, amazing accomplishment we had. And my connection is my best friend was judi reznick who was on the challenger. Because of her, i was privileged to be involved in one way or another with many things going on out at nasa, and i knew john glenn and Neil Armstrong, and quite a few others, and its just been a highlight of my life, and continued success, and i know that all of that they are such a different breed, these astronauts, and engineers. They are very, very courageous, and i know that if they could, they would go up in space seven days a week. I was very honored to be a part of some small part of all of this. I thank you for your time. Thanks, candace. A different breed. What do you think about that characterization . I think if you meet the astronauts, they are very, very impressive. Really capable. Really competent. Really intelligent. Risk takers. Really extraordinary people. Ive had the privilege of being able to have a number of conversations with mike collins over this year, and he did the forward for the book. He is a remarkable person with so much ability, poise, thoughtfulness, intelligence, and you just you stand in awe of what they were able to accomplish and the risks they were able to take and the focus they brought to their jobs. And yet, he told us he doesnt think about the flight much these days. Does that surprise you . Well, its been 50 years. I think its a good sign that he has lots of other things that occupy his mind. He wouldnt want just an 8day period of your life to take up your entire life, id imagine. Attached to the module was a plaque. That was on it . It was carefully designed. A few months before the first Lunar Landing, Symbolic Activities Committee was formed to plan out the symbolic activities that would take place on the moon. In addition to the scientific experiments, the astronauts performed symbolic activities. And the plaque was part of that. And it was supposed to symbolize and signal to the whole world following the flight that this was a mission for all human kind. And so it depicts the two hemispheres of the earth, and youll see there are no political boundaries. That was the important part of the symbolism. The earth from space, you cant see the political boundaries and theres a sense of unity and were all on the planet together. Under that theres a message carefully crafted. And youll see that theres a line about here men from planet earth first set foot on the moon. It says foot instead of landed because there was concern the soviet union was going to land their probe just ahead of the mission. They changed to foot to make sure it symbolized human. Theres also the a. D. In the date. Nixons speech writer said that was a great way of sneaking god in as a subtle nod to religion there. And then it has the crews names and president nixons name as well. From nile in troy, michigan. Hi. Caller yes. Thank you for taking my call. I have two pieces id like to add for your viewers. Number one, i had a first cousin who was a naval aviator, and actually, flew moon rocks off the carrier back to california. Secondly, i think its important for the viewers to put time and distance in perspective. In 1969 just a prior hundred years earlier, it took americans almost five to six months to cross the United States in a covered wagon. Once the Transcontinental Railroad was completed in may of 1869, it just took seven days to cross the United States in a train. Now that the moon landing has occurred, we reduce the time it takes to get to the moon to four days of space travel over 2 240,000 miles, of what man kind has done or humankind has done to reduce time and travel and distance for something that so taken for granted. Today we live in an era where it takes a few hours to cross the country. Thank you color. Thats a story we tell here at the museum, because the first power control by 1903, and then you have the first landing in 1969. Hanging above it is the spirit of for st. Louis. They crossed the atlantic in the first solo flight. Its a really good past history. Is hugely profound and light. Its remarkable to come here to get a fence or technicality will development. Can you hear me . Yep. You mentioned Charles Newberg . Yeah. I have a couple of questions. Apollo 1, those three guys that burned to death, how about the others that are involved. What about apollo 9 and 10, and the other question is when Neil Armstrong one step for man, one giant leap for mankind. Who was running the camera . And mike collins he been on the prompter quite a while. He was Drinking Coffee and listening to music, what kind of coffee was it ended he play any johnny cash, bob dylan, or neil young . Well, hes gone now. He had the benefit of drinking warm coffee in space. On the lunar module they didnt have hot water to heat up their coffee, or their food, so they were eating cold food. In the command module one of the technologies that was introduced for the program was hot water. It was lukewarm, but it was coffee. You could actually listen to the soundtrack from the mission. Its an interesting combination of music, but if you go online you can google it and you will find it. s modifier has the list. Im not sure what mike collins was listening to buy himself, but had a range of options. The first meal was more of a snack. That bacon squares which were the most popular food items in the Space Program. When you are in space you lose a lot of your taste because because her nasal cavity is field. In space people tend to like the spicier and more saltier food because its harder to taste foods. It was a late meal. After they did the moonwalk which was 2 1 2 hours long they came back and had a more substantial meal. Beef stew, cream of chicken soup, fruitcake, that cut type of thing. Thats one of the standard astronaut foods from that period. One thing i like to say is we didnt have enough geology so i put a lot of money into getting more people into geology. One of my friends was a female was one of the first females to go to Geology School there. Theres no bathrooms in the geology bathroom when she was there. She got into programs that they hadnt been able to before. I was livid. I was working for a summer job. I spent the afternoon at nasa at the hotel across where they had where i think its nbc. Were able to see them in the lobby of the hotel. Got to meet a fellow oklahoman after he got through talking. That i went over to another hotel and watched the landing. A lieutenant in the navy since we bought the young whippersnappers champagne. Two thank you for telling us that story. One thing that is so heartening is this focus on the contribution that went into apo. Atre was some mention, but apo. The 50th anniversary, there is much, much more attention. There is really important contributions of women to the program. As the caller mentioned, having to deal with things like not having designated bathroom or being the only woman in the room and there are such important stories to hear from the people who contributed to the program and the women who are really pioneers within that field. Host when the astronauts came theyre up in something that looks like a silver trailer. What was that . Guest that look like a trailer, what was that . The mobile quarantine facility is one of my favorite artifacts. It is a great story about how project apollo happened at such a short timescale. It happened so quickly. A lot of the Technology Used for project apollo was off the shelf. And already available. This is what was modified to quarantine the astronauts. W the question is whether they ti might ringback some problematic might ringback some problematic orlie to something that was a w modernday exchange. Wanted to make sure there in quarantine just in case. There wasnt a solution on how to quarantine from the landing. E they came up with a solution to have this trailer that was small enough that it could be n on the Aircraft Carrier and could be transferred by airplane to houston. They did a number of modifications, but if you look o at it its an airstream trailer from that period, so they left n bed and they left the kitchen and they have a microwave and there. They were able to eat steak and drink martinis when they first came back and have a hot shower. They changed the pressure of the airstream trailer to make sure nothing would escape and ve put in special trailers. Put in special trailers. Trailer for them that they were able to live in. Lets go to clay in North Carolina. Good morning, thank you. Its an thhonor to be on. B i was just, my grandfather who worked and lived in this area, he was always as a little childa telling stories about this, and see the anniversary now. He was part of one of the scientist trainers that should be up in the hangers when they were training the astronauts to land on the moon. Just over the weekend watching all of this and listening to my mom she would tell me stories about back in the day they would do a 20 tax. It was a lot of money for a lot of folks, and america had a lot to do with landing on the moon. Its a privilege and honor to be a part of it. L one of my families ellipsis one of my families ellipsis do with landing on the moon. Thats awesome. Collar, thank you very much. Apollo at one point was a Huge National investment. Into n think about is a good reminder, why the country invested a program like that s and that scale and to be reminded of this contract. And see cross power. The book is called apollo to the moon. Our guest is also the state history separator at the National Space museum. Thank you for your time today. Inc. You so much for having me