Moonlight Tryst
Armstrong’s Date with Destiny
This post first appeared on Function Space.
We have been obsessed with our closest cosmic neighbor and have been exploring its surface ever since we invented the first telescope! It has been centuries that we have been comparing the beauty of the moon with our loved one. But it turned out that it was Armstrong who actually got a date with the moon and a chance to marvel its cratered beauty.
Today is the day we celebrate rendezvous of Apollo 11 with the Moon and its crew’s successful landing on the occasion of astronaut Neil Armstrong’s 84th birthday.
The man does not need any further introduction but did you know why Neil Armstrong was the first one to walk the moon? Why did he go first? Well, keep reading!
The Eagle made him step out first
Like any other campaign, the Apollo 11 was subject to the media scrutiny, political interference and ego clashes. If we ignore all the three factors and dig in the actual reason why Neil Armstrong was the first one to step on the moon you will get a pretty surprising answer.
The Eagle, the first manned vehicle to land on the Moon with two men and some science apparatus was designed like this:
And it was the first reason why Armstrong was chosen to be the first one to step on the Moon. As you can see in the image, the Eagle hatched open on one side and not at top or bottom. And that door was near Armstrong. Meaning, when the Eagle landed and popped open the doors, Neil Armstrong had to exit first to clear the path.
He saved the day
Besides the fact that NASA had trained him to be skilled for the task he was about to embark, he was the mission commander and an optimistic fella who had a momentary smile while landing on the moon, recalls his fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
Just when the Eagle was about to land, it was running out of fuel. Experiencing fuel shortage in vacuum means crash landing on the Moon and vanishing in the dust forever. But we could hear the words, “Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed” because of Armstrong’s experience honed by the years of flying the smallest and the fastest space vehicles.
As soon as they entered the moon’s orbit, he observed the surface, measured the crater studied the photos taken by Apollo 10 and soon realized that they had missed their landing target.
All his knowledge, experience and expertise of flying, emergency landing boiled down to this moment. First he slowed down their sail from 20 miles per second to 9 miles per second towards the Moon’s surface. At this point only 60 seconds of fuel was left and all Neil was worried about was entering the 50 feet zone before the engine gulped its last drop of fuel, from this height chances of crash landing would not be there.
Likewise, he kept a close eye on their landing spot in the sea of tranquility and kept flying Eagle gently till they touched the lunar soil.
This was a ‘phew’ moment for all the million viewers back on Earth who witnessed this historical event and restored their faith in human intelligence with Armstrong’s ‘one small step, one giant leap for mankind’ quote.
Throwing (moon) light on this man with great presence of mind, strong courage and determination on his 84th birthday was indeed a cosmic experience!
