The spacecraft was still about 100 feet above the surface. “60 seconds,” came the warning from Houston, indicating how much time the astronauts had until a mandatory abort for low fuel. Aldrin called out the speed and range of the spacecraft. Mission controllers listened intently as Mr. “You could’ve heard a pin drop” in the room of about 100 people, recalls flight director Gerry Griffin in an interview. Our reporter spoke with those who experienced this firsthand. The moon landing did more than advance science or boost U.S. Armstrong had to search for a safe landing spot manually. Where existing maps had shown a smooth region, car-sized boulders cluttered a field of craters. Armstrong could see that he would have to make an adjustment. As the lunar module drew closer to its landing site, the Sea of Tranquillity, Mr. Charles Duke Jr., the official communicator with the space capsule, or CAPCOM, relayed a message to the astronauts: Proceed. After a few tense seconds, engineers at Mission Control in Houston decided it wasn’t catastrophic: It was the landing computer on the spacecraft signaling an overload. Armstrong and fellow astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin were descending toward the moon, about to change the course of human history, when things started to go wrong.įirst came an alarm indicating something awry with the spacecraft. Neil Armstrong almost didn’t land on the moon because he was running out of gas.
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