The first steps on the moon

The article was published for the first time on the Hidan website on the 30th anniversary of the moon landing - from "Mada" a scientific newspaper for each volume 1969-1970 No. 1

Exactly at 04:56:20 in the morning on Monday, July 21, 1969, (the hours - according to Israel time), this happened. "One small step for man, one big step for mankind", said into the microphone hidden in his large helmet, astronaut Neil Armstrong - and sent his left foot, inside a heavy and clumsy shoe, to the lunar surface.
15 minutes later, Edwin Aldrin also splashed off the thin ladder of the lunar lander. He absorbed in his eyes the "sea of ​​peace" around him, on its colors and shadows. "What a wonderful Yeshimon!" he exclaimed in a voice whose admiration reached hundreds of millions on planet Earth.
In many broadcasting stations around the world, between the description of the event and the commentary of scientists and intellectuals, the broadcasters played for their listeners the piercing sounds of the "steps of the white elephant". About 380 thousand kilometers from them, Armstrong and Aldrin began to circle the virgin soil around them, looking like clumsy and white doubles, in their heavy space suits, but walking with strange flexibility and lightness, a kind of exciting ballet dance. This is how the dream became a reality: the first people landed on the moon.

The evening before, at 10:18 on July 20, the spider - aka the landing vehicle, this time called "Eagle" - sent its thin legs, equipped with sensitive radar sensors, towards the rocks below it. Neil Armstrong drove with his own hands. With precise maneuvering they placed him on his knees. The final stage of the landing consisted of 12 minutes of nerve-racking tension. Then the spacecraft plunged from a height of 13 km to a height of 6.5 km; Then her braking engine was activated, and she glided at a slower pace to a height of only 500 meters from the surface of the moon.
From there the landing was even slower and more careful. Below them, the astronauts saw pits, craters, rocks, jagged cliffs. A mole had to stand between them when it was vertical - so that it could not jump back, when the time came. Armstrong embraced all his experience, senses and nerves. The doctors at the control center in Houston noticed this very well: his heart was beating violently, 160 beats per minute. "Here is the Sea of ​​Tranquility base: the eagle has landed!" Aldrin suddenly called out and millions breathed a sigh of relief. A happy laugh was heard from the control center. Armstrong's heartbeat also slowed down to 90 beats per minute.

The first landing on the moon was, as a matter of fact, 102 hours 45 minutes and 42 seconds after the launch of Apollo 11 from Earth, only 39 seconds behind schedule. All that time, the mother spaceship "Columbia" was orbiting above, around the white one, with the astronaut Michael Collins in it.
The astronauts got off the "spider" only after thoroughly checking its instruments and resting for a while. While standing at the foot of the "spider", another
When he got off, Armstrong removed the lot from a memorial plaque on one of the kneeling men, and then immediately put a handful of stones into his pants pocket - lest he be forced to cut short his tour due to unforeseen danger.
The two lunar pioneers reported what they saw: crimson stones, dark dimpled surfaces, a lot of dirt ("we leave footprints 2.5 cm deep"), strange bubbles in the rocks (possibly originating from volcanic activity). "It's quite easy to skip here but You have to bend your body forward, in the direction you want to go, otherwise you feel drunk," they announced. Both of them placed some experimental devices in front of the white: a quartz mirror, for returning laser rays to the earth, so that it would be possible to determine with great precision (up to 15 cm!) the distance between Earth and the natural satellite; a seismograph that will transmit, it is hoped, for the next two years; an aluminum plate for absorbing particles (the plate that returned to Earth with "Apollo"). Then they scooped up soil samples with a shovel and aluminum, and for special containers for this.
Aldrin even drilled a soil sample from a depth of 12.5 cm, with the help of a pipe and a hammer, and it was evident that the job was not easy. The astronauts also said that the extreme temperature changes (120 degrees in the sun, 140 degrees below zero in the shade) do not particularly bother them, thanks to The air-conditioned space suit. But on the other hand, the sun blinds the eyes mercilessly.
Before returning to the "Eagle", Armstrong and Aldrin had time to speak with the President of the United States, Richard Nixon, in the most original phone call ever made from the White House: "You have made the sky part of the human world", he told them. When Armstrong's mother heard her son's voice from the brick, she said with a trembling voice: "I was afraid that he would sink into the moon dust. But everything, thank God, is fine. May they return home safely." All humanity joined her prayer.
From the bottom of the Sea of ​​Serenity, from the spotted craters, the two jumped back to the "spider". In total, Aldrin was a tourist on the moon for about two hours, and his colleague Armstrong - close to three hours: he came down earlier, and returned later, at 07:35 a.m. The lunar pioneers had difficulty sleeping at first, curled up on the floor of their spaceship. Then fell asleep a little. Finally they checked their space vehicle; Then, at 19:55 in the evening of that historic day - many generations to come will surely memorize its date in schools - the eagle soared into the sky, to "Columbia" awaiting his return. The three astronauts began their journey to Earth: to 21 days of isolation in a sterilized and comfortable scientific prison (lest they carry with them unfamiliar and dangerous forms of life), to enthusiastic receptions, to an excited and cheering world. They returned from danger to glory.
In the way of nature, the glory of those who paved the way to "Apollo" has almost been forgotten.11 But it is hard to say that the landing on the moon was a crushing surprise even to the moon itself; Even before that, farm children surrounded him, and placed metal gables on him, who diligently scratched his face and his tongue shamelessly with their curious cameras. Just eight years ago, NASA, the sponsor of Apollo, launched the first American into space. It was some time after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first person to do so, vacationed in space.
The path of the American space shuttles was not, at first, a bed of roses - but a bed of disappointments and failures. The Soviets first circled the Earth and launched the first astronaut to "walk" in space; And again and again impressive successes. But they were not only impressive, but encouraging; It was the late US President JP Kennedy who announced in the early sixties that the first American would land on the moon before the end of the current decade. He could not guarantee that the first American would also be the first person to do so - but that's how things turned out.
* The first step in the American space program was the "Mercury" shuttles. Their goal was very fundamental: to send humans into space, in single spacecraft, to test their ability to operate there, and to test the mechanisms that would allow them to be safely returned to Israel. Mercury included a total of two sub-orbital and four orbital deliveries, and their success paved the way for the next stage: the "Gemini" operations.
"Gemini", means twins; Indeed, the Gemini spacecraft carried two astronauts with them. Along with the additional information that the Gemini missions were intended to provide about the ability of human beings to operate outside the planet on which they were created, the program was also intended to prepare for more complex space operations - chief among them, the launch of man to the moon. Naturally, Gemini dispatches included more complex team operations. Ten Gemini relays intertwined with milestones in the conquest of space:
"Walking" in space (an operation that the Russians were the first to perform, but
the Americans expanded and perfected it); Meetings in space; hours
A lot of craft outside the spaceship. Gemini ended with the launch of a spaceship, which circled the Earth 59 times, and in this launch one of the astronauts labored for about 5 and a half hours continuously outside the ship! The experience and knowledge gained in "Gemini" was necessary in preparation for the "Apollo" launches - especially when it comes to space encounters and maneuvers in it. The three Apollo astronauts relied, therefore, in their forays outside the Earth, on the knowledge and experience of dozens of previous space flights. Only now, it was possible to start leaping far, to the moon.
The two Apollo vehicles - the command spacecraft, and the lunar lander - are manned by three astronauts, chosen from a group that currently numbers about 50; All of them train in NASA facilities and all of them can successfully perform complex and long space flights. The development of Apollo also requires the installation of sophisticated and large launch facilities, and the training of control and supervision teams on the ground. And of course: the grueling training (from diving to mountain climbing and high-speed centrifuge spins) of the astronauts themselves. And so they set off, in October 1968, Walter Shira, Don Eisela and Walter Cunningham inside Apollo 7 (the first Apollo spacecraft to be launched into space when it
manned), where I will land after about 11 days, not before they performed
Good luck with space encounters with the third stage of the missile that will result.
Two months later, Frank Borman, James Lovell, and William Anders set out on Apollo 8 for the most exciting space adventure up to that time: they circled the moon, photographed it from all sides, sent the humans what they saw their eyes "One minute to lose contact. All systems are fine.

Have a safe trip, guys," the control center in Houston, Texas, broadcast, and Anders replied: "Thank you very much. See you on the other side"; Apollo 8 disappeared from the other side of the moon. Over half an hour later, his visible side appeared again. The connection with the Earth is renewed. The dangerous one at the time of the operation - succeeded. The excitement that surrounded Apollo 8 even overshadowed the impressive technological achievements. Now it was clear: it is possible to reach Labna, and return from it safely. Anyone who listened to the broadcasts transmitted from the spaceship, will never forget the excitement that gripped him, when he heard Burman's voice read the first verses from the book of "Genesis", as he charged in space, on his way from the moon to the earth.

James McDevitt, David Scott and Russell Shtichart, who went into space in Apollo 9 on March 3 this year, carefully examined the "Spider" kits - the lunar lander - as they circled the Earth. The exams were passed successfully. On May 18, Gemini shuttle veterans Thomas Stafford, John Young, and Eugene Cernan set off aboard Apollo 10. They circled the moon, dropped the brick lander from the mother spacecraft, and came within a few miles of the dormant craters. . They saw him from the other side, and did not come to him: they did not land, returned and connected to the mother spacecraft - moments that were surrounded by no small amount of anxiety - and returned to Israel. The way was opened for man to land on the moon.

The three Americans who did this are, according to the US newspapers, "typical Americans": Neil Armstrong was born in Ohio (1930), served as a pilot in the Navy from 1949 to 1952, gained combat experience in Korea, was shot down once in an aerial battle but managed to parachute safely. After his release he studied aeronautical engineering, joined NASA as a civilian in 1955 and was a test pilot of the Rakita X-15 aircraft. He has over 4,000 hours of flight time in jet aircraft. He was selected as an astronaut in 1962 and flew in space for the first time in March 1966 in Gemini-8, which flight was shortened (from three days to six hours) due to a malfunction that was discovered in one of the systems. Armstrong is married and has two sons.
Edwin Aldrin (born in New Jersey, 1930), almost had to retire from spaceflight, due to a leg injury but managed to recover, flew in Gemini-12, also fought in Korea, studied engineering, married and father of two sons and a daughter.
The man who had to be content with seeing the moon from a distance of 112 km, and waiting for her friends is, as mentioned, Michael Collins. His role in the operation is not impressive - but essential in the success of the meeting between him and the upper part of the "spider", which jumped from the moon, the very return of the three to their home depended to a large extent. He is a graduate of "West Point" (his father was a major-general in the US Army), known among his friends as a distinct standard. He was nominated to be the commander of Apollo 8, but an injury to his hand prevented him from doing so. Collins is married and has two daughters and a son.
The three astronauts of Apollo 11 undoubtedly opened a new era: both for science and for the human spirit. It has already been known that another manned spacecraft will be launched to the moon this coming November. Meanwhile, thousands of scientists around the world are eagerly waiting for the mysteries that the blocks of soil brought from the quarry will solve - and for the mysteries that they will provoke.
The beginning of the conquest of the moon is the first step - tiny, but crucial - on the way to getting to know the universe. .