We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other thing. Not because they are easy, but because they are hard. We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained.
and new rights to be won. And they must be won and used for the progress of all mankind. We shall send to the moon 240,000 miles away from the control station in Houston a giant rocket more than 300 feet tall, made of new metal alloys, some of which have not yet been invented, capable of standing heat and stresses. Several times more than have ever been experienced, fitted together with a precision better than the finest watch, carrying all the equipment needed for propulsion, guidance, control, communications, food, and survival, on an untried mission to an unknown celestial body, and therefore, as we set sail, we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure. man has ever embarked.
Thank you. It's like a person waiting in the wings to go on stage. They probably have less time to daydream because they're trying to remember what they've got to do. I had a feeling that I really ought to concentrate on remembering the things that I had to do at the moon and all that. Gosh, here we are, and we're getting down close.
I hope the suit checks out okay. You get sweaty palms and heart starts pounding. It was like the big game about to start.
You're in your work clothes ready to go to work, but you still have to stay there. You have to schedule it in conjunction with the booster schedule itself. You're plugged into the console, it's supplying 100% oxygen. It's kind of a catch-up time if there's a problem with a boost or something, we're there not sitting out to pad until account gets to a certain point and then we're called to proceed to the spacecraft. Y'all take care now.
...and that's where we're pointed, you know, they're just gonna launch us right straight through this thing. This is Apollo, Saturn Launch Control. I'll still go on the Apollo mission, the flight to land...
Coming in now, we are on the automatic seat. Telemark, T-Matic, 6 seconds and a half. Second stage tanks now pressurized.
35 seconds and counting. It won't fail because of me. T-minus 20 seconds and counting.
Guidance internal. 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, engines on. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, start.
It feels just like it sounds. I got a pitch and a roll program and this baby is really going. Roger that.
Standby for mode 1 Bravo. 1 Bravo. That's a lovely lift off, but it's not bad at all. There's a moment there just of supreme elation.
Complete release of tensions. Feel all that power precisely directed. Know that we're on course, first of all, for Earth orbit, and then precisely insert it onto the right orbit, right trajectory for rendezvous with the moon. Follow Houston, you're right smack dab on the trajectory.
Your I.U. is doing a beautiful job. I got a yaw program.
Trajectory's good. Thrust is good. Right away, Houston. At last, I'm leaving the Earth, and I'm destined for the moon.
What a ride. What a ride. Roger. We copy, Pete. That here looks good up here, too.
Rolls complete. This is really a rock and roll ride. You can feel it shake.
There's a real strong vibration. Of course, you're up at the end of this, beauty. Here you are going along with the G on you.
It's up to about 4 G's but you're psyched up, get shape and all that. Even lifting your arm to move switches, no problem. You are go for staging.
Here you are coming up on staging and when staging happens it's like, man. And we're out over the Canaries. Houston, through the Canaries, how do you read?
Up here, looking out the window, it's really fantastic. Roger. Let me tell you a little bit about the ride.
John, this is Houston. If there's nothing startling to report about the ride, we'd rather hold off. Now there's nothing really spectacular difference to report on the right. We'll hold off on that.
The sunset is just as beautiful as always in this space business. In Africa, there are a lot of nomads out in the desert. Clear desert nights, you see the fires from all of these.
These little yellow dots that represent fires from all of these nomads camping out. And you realize the broad area that you're looking at. And each of those little dots represented people, other humans, that are out there in an environment which I would consider more strange than the environment they might think about.
Me. When you get there in an orbit, engine shut down, and things sort of feel sort of funny. And you sort of unbuckle your seat belt and wiggle around in your seat or tap your toes. And all of a sudden, your body's everywhere in the room.
And you're just doing flips and cartwheels and spins. Your first feelings of weightlessness as it hits you is like going down a country road about 60 miles an hour and a car goes over the bump and your stomach goes up into your throat and then you get over the bump and you get that good sensation feeling and then bomb you're back down again. Only when you're in space you can go into weightlessness, you go over that bump and you never come down. Uh, can you give us a ver-do an E-mod dump?
Uh, give us a 3-2-1 mark, uh, when you do your VERB 74. And, uh, if we get it done now, we should have an answer for you on your erasable memory by the time you get to Wymus. Do a VERB 96 first. We had a great deal of difficulty paying attention to what our job was.
Already I was getting the impression that this is such an amazing thing that I'm going to forget these things. I know I'm going to lose this image, it's going to be replaced with another. Each image came up, was there for a flash to be appreciated and savored, and then reluctantly let go because you know that it's going to be superposed with others. Okay, we're giving you a go for your EVA at this time. Okay, the hatch is open.
When you're outside in one of those spacesuits, you're really in space. There are no boundaries to what you're seeing. It's like having a goldfish bowl over your head, which gives you unlimited visibility. And then the portable life support system is just very, very quiet.
You know, there's a water pump in it that's circulating water through your underwear, you know, cooling water. And there's a fan that's pumping the oxygen through. But they're very quiet. You can't hear them at all.
It's as if you're out there without anything on. Hallelujah. Hallelujah, Houston. Sort of total, complete silence and that beautiful view, and the realization, of course, that you're going 25,000 miles an hour. You recognize that you're not there because you deserve to be there.
You were just lucky. You're the representative of humanity at that point in history. Having that experience, in a sense, for the rest of mankind. The flight director says get back in. Apollo Control Houston, two hours, 25 minutes ground elapsed time.
It will be during this pass that we will have the trans lunar injection burn. Captain Conward, go for TLI. Roger. Guys, I've got the word you want to know. You are go for TLI.
You're go for the moon. If there's anything to be a little bit remorseful about on going to the moon, it was that you didn't get a chance to spend as much time around the Earth as you'd like, because there's an awful lot of very interesting things to see. 3, 1, ignition. The present altitude is now about 3,000 miles. Spacecraft moving at nearly 35,000 feet per second.
These three crew members are traveling faster than man has ever flown before. There's not much sensation of what's really happening, except that we're looking at the computer, and the computer is adding up the velocity. And suddenly, we really knew that we were really traveling.
And shoot, when that engine lit off, it was on for a long time. Shutdown. But it really hit us when it stopped, when we turned around and looked at the Earth.
Suddenly, the Earth had started to shrink. so you could play the music. Mine was country music. Hi, this is Buck Owens and the Buckaroos.
We came down to the studio and we thought we'd put together a little thing that you could take along with you on your trip. Now, you know, when you get back, they're probably going to put you in the movies. So the first thing we're going to do for you is to play a little song called Act Naturally. It goes like this.
They're going to put me in the movies. Ain't gonna make a big star out of me Well, we'll make a scene about a man that's sad and lonely And all I gotta do is act naturally Well, I'll bet you I'm gonna be a big star You might win an Oscar, you can't ever tell The new plays are gonna make me a big star Cause I can play the part so well Well, I hope you'll come to see me in the movie And I know that you're gonna plain to see Mmm, the biggest fool that's ever hit the big time Yeah, all I gotta do is act naturally By the way, gang, you know we're making this tape And they're going to the moon, they're on their way to the moon right now You don't think of it as Texas or the United States. You really think of it as Earth.
The three things that I associated with Earth were people and green trees and fresh water. This is something a little different for me. My name is Merle Haggard and this is my band, The Strangers. And I hope that we will be able to do something you'll enjoy hearing on your way to the moon.
Of course, we hope that you come back, but we want you to leave this tape there, okay? We want this tape to be out of sight. Someday, when our green world finds us These hard times are gone.
We'll laugh and count our blessings in a mansion all our own. If we both hold together, tomorrow's sure to come. Someday, we'll look back and say, it was fun.
You get ready to eat, they'll say right on there, command module pilot, day three, meal two. So you take that packet out, and you may have two drinks and three or four different types of food in there. so you've got to find a spot to stick these or they're gonna float off and then you've got to get the water gun you got to mix up the drinks and mix up the food and and eat them around and not let everything float off in the interim The only bad part about zero gravity and Apollo was going to the bathroom. We had a very crude system.
For your feces, it was a bag. You put this bag in the right position, so you go, but the only thing is that nothing goes to the bottom of the bag in zero gravity. Everything floats.
So you've got this bag, and then the problem is getting it off and closing up the bag, making sure everything's still in the bag. Are you still planning to have TV at the scheduled time? You can go ahead with the TV now.
We're standing by. Hello, Houston. We've got a beautiful view of the Earth here, but it's absolutely fantastic.
We're standing by at this time to receive the first television transmission from the spacecraft. Houston, we're now showing... Grand oasis is the big fascist of space. What I keep imagining is if I'm some lonely traveler from another planet, what I'd plan on the blue or the brown part of the Earth. World, hold on to your head, I'm gonna turn you upside down.
Now the spacecraft at the present time is in a slow roll as part of the passive thermal control program to maintain temperatures. Beyond conception. How's that tape recorder? Is the RPM up to nominal? Yeah, it works pretty good here at CRG.
It works better than it does down there on the ground. We're ready for the news now. Okay, let's see.
The Beatles have announced they will no longer perform as a group. The quartet is reported to have made in excess of a half billion dollars during their short musical career. However, rumors that they will use this money to start their own space program are false. That's about it for news.
A recap of the top ten teams did yesterday. Ohio State beat Purdue 42 to 14. Texas beat TCU 69 to 7. Tennessee lost to Mississippi final score and that one was 38 to nothing. Notre Dame won over Georgia Tech last night 38 to 20. And of course Purdue lost to Ohio State. When the sunlight shines through the blackness of space, it's black.
But I was in sunlight and I was able to look at this blackness. I mean, what are you looking at? Call it the universe, but it's the infinity of space and the infinity of time.
I'm looking at something called space that had no end, and at time that has no meaning. You can really focus on it because you've got this planet out there, this star called Earth, which itself is in this blackness, but it is lit up because the sunlight strikes on an object, strikes on something called Earth. and it's not a hostile blackness.
Maybe it's not hostile because of the beauty of the earth that sort of gives it life. Throughout the flight, the times when one could sit back and really appreciate what an amazing adventure this was was only during those little periods of time when you had a chance to stop and do the things which you weren't programmed to do. A lot of times when there was nothing else to do or after everybody going to sleep and I couldn't, I'd open up the window and look around. One thing every spacecraft ought to have is a huge window. Looking back at the Earth was a pastime that I never really got tired of.
Uh, who's he got up now? The other two guys that they sacked out of. Biomedical.
Data recently was monitored and the CMP was soundly asleep while the commander was resting, but perhaps not soundly asleep. You got the Black Watch watching you tonight. You picked up a nice shift, I see.
Yeah, it's turning out to be kind of quiet, too. We like it that way. When you're out there in this little command module, you see the risk you're taking because you realize that If the glass breaks, or if the computers quit working, or the electrical system quits working, you're not going to get back. And you have time to contemplate this, you have time to think about it, and you have time to run it through your mind a lot of different times.
How far away from Earth now, Jim, about? It looks like you're approaching 150,000 miles. Frank, we had a little eggnog over at Charlie Duke's tonight.
Val Andrews dropped by. She's looking fine. Tell Bill she's doing real well.
All right. Thank you. Everything that I know, my family, my possessions, my friends, my country, it's all down there on that little thing.
And it's so insignificant in this great big vastness of space. Here in Mission Control, the coffee cup has become an appliance second only to the headset in usefulness here. Let's cycle through some of our consumables and other items this morning and tell you what we see.
You know, this looks quite normal. Flight camera action. We'll show you some of the type meals that we have on Earth.
Matter of fact, on this flight, we've carried along pieces of bread. And along with the bread, we have a ham spread. I'll show you, I hope, how easy it is to spread some ham.
Climate of zero G. We've discovered that it is quite easy to... I'm surprised you all haven't sent us the music. Well, you want music.
This little tape recorder has been a big benefit to us in passing some of the time away in our transit out to the moon. It's rather odd to see it floating like this in Odyssey while it's playing the scenes of 2001. We are ready for something. I don't think this is going to be a simple problem. We have an apparent serious problem with a leak in the cryogenic oxygen in the service module which provides breathing oxygen for the crew.
Apollo Houston, try SCE to auxiliary, over. NCE to auxiliary. SCE, SCE to auxiliary. Okay, let's make sure that we don't do anything that's going to blow our CSM electrical power with the batteries or that will cause us to lose fuel cell number two.
On panel 276, under instrumentation, car control. Open CB number 3 and number 4. Close SNC 1 and 2 circuit breakers. Cycle the Parker valve, and then open the SNC circuit breakers on panel 11. Hey, it's off.
It's off. That sounds beautiful, troops. It's exactly what we wanted to see. Charlie, my hat's off to the guys in the trench. I love them.
One of the things different about a lunar trip is you don't pass any place on the way. Going to the moon, you leave the launch pad. Then you leave Earth orbit and then a couple of days later, after passing nothing, all of a sudden you're at the moon. And that lack of waypoints to me had an effect of making it seem a little magical or mystical getting there. This is really a rugged planet.
We're drawing closer to the moon with the Apollo spacecraft. Our LOS clock, loss of signal clock, continues to count down until that time that the spacecraft will pass out of communications range over the backside of the moon. On approach, the spacecraft sort of dives towards and behind the moon. It was a totally different moon than any moon I had ever seen before.
It was in this eerie shadow, no motion, utterly silent. It sort of gave one a feeling of foreboding. It didn't seem like a very friendly or welcoming place. Apollo, this is Houston. Your goal for LOI.
Go ahead, Houston. Jim, you go for the burn. Go for the burn. OK, power is go.
You're going too fast to orbit the mech. You're rocking on ready. Wait two minutes, babe. Give it a final trim. Burn time is 15 seconds, so it's going to go in a hurry.
You're in the burn position, you're ready to go. Baby, let's make this one. Then you look and there it is. 35 seconds.
It's 2001 type stuff. That old moon is just growing magnificently fast and it's just filling up that hatch window and you're drifting into the shadow. Okay, baby.
8, 7, 6, 3, 2, 1, burn. Okay, 78 to go, 50 to go, 20 to go, stand by, Tom. Up and down. Oh, beautiful, beautiful.
Charlie Houston, he got the burn off, we're in good shape. I tell you, we are down among them. You've worked so long and so hard and finally you're here.
The burn has gone well, you know you're in lunar orbit, you know the orbit is good, you're right where you want it to be. I mean, it just looked like you could reach out and touch it. Apollo now traveling over the back side of the moon. The crew should be seeing the features, the rugged features, moving below them at a high rate of speed. Thank you Okay, David, you ought to start getting your hatch closed.
Say again? You ought to start getting your hatch closed if you're not already doing it. I was disappointed. I wanted to go with them so bad I could taste it. As far as I was concerned, that was what it was all about.
Not only go... going to the moon, but going down the surface and walking. We're now less than two minutes away from the separation burn, which will be performed by the command module.
When next we hear from them, the lunar module should be undocked from the command and service module. It's grown quite quiet here in Mission Control. A few moments ago, Flight Director Gene Kranz requested that everyone sit down, get prepared for events that are coming, and he closed with, Good luck to all of you. Keep going, we are down among them, Charlie. Roger, I hear you weaving your way up.
You're going right down US-1, Mike. Roger. Looks great.
Okay, all flight controllers, gonna go for landing. Retro. Go. Econ.
Go. Surgeon. Go. Fido.
Go. Guide. Go. Control. Go.
TALCOM. Go. GNC.
Go. CAPCOM, we're go for landing. Eagle, Houston, you're go for landing, over.
Okay, Houston, we'll give you a countdown. Four, three, two, one, fire. Here it is. Oh, baby. You're coming down to that ground.
Look at that grill. That's got to be, that's got to be probably Diamondback right there. When it pitches over and you get your first look, you know, it was nothing but nine million craters after a terrible sinking feeling. Obviously didn't recognize a thing after studying all these photographs, nothing looked right.
How you doing, Control? We look good, you're fine. How about you, Telcom? Go.
Guide, you happy? Go. Vital. Go. Roger, you're a go.
You're a go to continue power descent. You're a go to continue power descent. Roger.
All during this power descent, I kept telling myself, Jim, this is not for real. You're back in the simulator. Just remember that.
Eagle, Houston, it's descent two fuel to monitor. Over. Eagle Houston, everything's looking good here, over. Houston, I'm getting a little fluctuation in the AC voltage now.
Roger. Stand by. Looking good to us. You're still looking good. Houston, you're looking at our Delta H. That's affirmative.
Looking good to us. Over. Houston, we'll monitor your Delta 8. 6 plus 2, 5, throttle down.
6 plus 2, 5, throttle down. Roger, copy. 6 plus 2, 5. Let me try auto again now, see what happens.
We got data drop out, roger, standby. We're going at alarm. If it doesn't reoccur, we'll be go. We're going at alarm.
Roger, understand, go for landing. Roger, we got good data. Altitude, velocity light. Eagle, we got you now. It's looking good, over.
Four forward, drifting to the right a little. Coming down to 23. 21 down, 33 degrees. We're go, same tide, we're go.
Picking up some dust. And a couple of big boulders. Coming right, got a good spot. Not too bad.
Here comes the shadow. Four, we coming in. Stand by for touchdown. Stand by.
Stand. Houston, uh, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.
There's a cheer in this room. What we're witnessing now is man's very first trip into space with a station stop along the route. We've got a stay Houston.
Eagle, you're at stay for T1. This thing came to a stop on the moon. There was kind of a letdown saying, you know, we're going to have to get it going fast again to get back home.
Neil, this is Houston. What's your status on hatch opening? Okay, Houston.
I'm on the porch. Neil, this is Houston. Loud and clear.
Radio check and verify TV circuit breaker in. Roger. TV circuit breaker is in.
Houston, roger. We copy and we're standing by for your TV. I'm gonna pull it down. It's an amazing keep down, all right. And we're getting a picture on the TV.
Yeah, a good picture. Hey, Neil, we can see you coming down the ladder now. The surface appears to be very, very fine grained as you get close to it.
I'm at the foot of the ladder. I'm gonna step off the land now. That's one small step for man. One.
I had a bet with somebody who didn't really felt that Neil spent a great deal of time before he went figuring out his famous words and they were not extemporaneous on the spot historical words. He actually felt that the... words might have even been written for Neil by somebody else and I said well I'll bet you 500 bucks that when I get to the bottom of the ladder and nobody ever remembers what the second person to do something does anyhow I'm gonna say it may have been a small step for Neil but it's a big step for a little fella like me Lock it on my way out. So this person said, I don't know why you're going to do that.
I'm going to tell you what to say. He said, no, you can bet's a bet. So I bet this person $500.
So when I got to the bottom of the ladder, I said... Man, that may have been a small one. Houston, we have you in black and white. I have a bit of color.
Maybe the color wheel will turn up. I can feel the wheels running because I can feel something in motion inside. Mark, you can put your glove in front of the lens. All right, we're good.
That's coming in there now, Al. Got the old camera running. Okay, what change did you make?
I hit it on the top with my hammer. I figured we didn't have a thing to lose. I can't believe this.
Oh, wow, watch this. I don't know if this will work or not, surely. Well, in my left hand I have a feather.
In my right hand... I guess one of the reasons we got here today was because of a gentleman named Galileo a long time ago who made a rather significant discovery about falling objects in gravity fields. And we thought that where would be a better place to confirm his findings than on the moon. And so we thought we'd try it here for you. The feather happens to be appropriately a falcon feather.
for our falcon and i'll uh drop the two of them here and hopefully they'll hit the ground at the same time how about that mr calvillo was correct in his findings i got a beautiful picture of you guys up down there let me tell you bob this flag is a beautiful picture Hey John, this is perfect with the lamp, you and the old flag. You really should set the flag up on a hill, Charlie, but there just ain't one. I know, John. No, but it's right here.
Big rock. I was proud for our country more than I was proud for me. It was nothing that I did. I just happened to have gotten there at the right time.
My background carried me through. But there were a lot of other qualified people that didn't go. Why my name came out, I don't know.
And we very proudly deploy it on a... Put his ear in to make the country and mankind something different than it was. It was like sitting in the last row of the balcony, looking down.
Well, that play going on. While I was in the play, it was more like I was a spectator. This is Houston. We'd like to say from all of us down here in Houston and really from all of us in all the countries and in the entire world, we think that you've done a magnificent job up there today.
Over. Thank you very much. Have you had enough TV for today? Yes, indeed. It's been a mighty fine presentation there.
Thank you. Couldn't have enjoyed it as much as we did. Get some rest there and have at it tomorrow.
Okay. Signing off. See you again tomorrow. All systems on the lunar module are in good order. We have not heard from Tranquility Base since saying goodnight.
My mind's one that just goes constantly. So I took a sleeping pill. Slept like a baby.
I had one dream that was very vivid. In my dream, we were driving a rover up to the north. And you didn't really feel like you were out there.
It was untouched. The serenity of it had a pristine purity about it. We crossed a hill. I felt, gosh, I've been here before.
And there was a set of tracks out in front of us. So we asked Houston if we could follow the tracks and they said yes. And we turned and followed the tracks.
Within an hour or so we found this vehicle. It looked just like the rover. Two people in it.
They looked like me and John. Had been there for thousands of years. It was not a nightmare type situation, nothing like that. Probably one of the most real experiences of my life.
I had a train on the drop of a hat to go land on the moon. I'm one of these nuts. I like classical music.
And I almost learned to like country and western. One of the things I took was earliest symphony fantastic, which seemed like that was an appropriate thing to be taking to the moon. And I was floating along, just laying back and enjoying life. I just crossed the face of the moon, going towards the dark. And here's this strange scene, this music, and it just seemed to put it all together in one moment that you could completely forget that this is a real situation.
This is Apollo Control Houston at 104 hours 31 minutes. Now onto this historic mission. The lunar surface temperature in the sun should be around 135 degrees today. In the shade, the temperature would again be about minus 100 to minus 150 degrees Fahrenheit.
That would be in the shadow of the lunar module. Oh, look at that! The Earth out there is a little bit of a golf ball, it often breaks down.
It seemed very unreal to me to be there, looking back at the Earth and thinking how far, far away it was. This is the moon, that is the Earth. I'm really here. We're allowing about five minutes for the drive to station three.
Okay, safety belt front. And I'll tell you, Indy's never seen a driver like this. Barney Oldfield. Charlie, what should we be heading for? Those craters up there?
Don't tell me that. Boy, this is so neat. You look like you're headed just about for our spot. See Survey Ridge down there?
Yeah. This is gonna be spectacular! No, not through this crater. Yow!
Woo! I can see if you're nervous, Charlie. Oh, Barney's really driving this beauty. Only way to fly, Tony. And boy, this is going to be such a spectacular view, you can't believe it.
Oh, that's good news. We are here! You did it!
Hey, that was a good stop. Those wheels just locked. Mark off.
Cooper. John, did you dust that TV lens? Get some dirt in your eye, Houston.
Hey, that does a good job on the lens there. You want us to go up and travel along that route? Yeah, why don't you press on up there?
I think that the best place is... I felt very welcome there. You know, the moon's been waiting for us for thousands of years. Millions of years, maybe.
Unless someone else has already been there before us at some time, that's possible. Although we didn't see any evidence of that. I felt like I was the only one there, but not an alien. Not an alien in terms of invading someone else's domain. I didn't find them hostile or I found it very majestically beautiful.
Bland in color, but majestically beautiful. Look at that glass covered. Get over this ranch, John. You wanna take off and go that way down?
Yeah. Hey John, did you make those little footprints here around the side? Yeah, I guess I did.
I'll drive then. What a crater, Ram. 3-8 is the soil sample. That is the best sample we got.
I know it. I'll tell you. You just had to steal time now, then. You just had to stop chipping at a rock and figure out that bringing back a little bit of some kind of thought and feeling was as important as bringing another chunk of rock back.
Not being a machine, but being a human being, you have to stop and say, do you know where you are and what you're looking at? And try and take in, in those few moments of privacy you have, everything there is to take in in that moment. And you've got five minutes here.
And all of a sudden, you've got to get to work. Thank you. Boy do I like it up here. I'm going out for the ballet.
Alright, we're filthy. I thought I'd call the kill plan. Hey, you're the one...
I concur, John. Having gotten away from the spacecraft, I was able to really realize what this place was like that we had landed. I had tried to anticipate what it would be like for many years, but it was obvious that there was no way one could have anticipated what it would be like to stand in the valley of Tars Littoral, a place deeper than the Grand Canyon and equally as spectacular, see this brilliantly illuminated landscape with a brighter sun than anyone had ever stood in before, with a blacker than black sky.
And then to top the whole scene off in this blacker than black sky was a beautiful, brilliantly illuminated blue marble that we call the Earth. The path of evolution is now in space as much as on Earth. Man has showed that as a species, mankind was willing to commit itself to living in environments that were completely different than those in which the species evolved. put a shield of life around ourselves in order to protect for them but the willingness to go out there is there we've shown that the curve of human evolution has been bent okay time to load up right now yeah we're underway again tony okay we'd like you to drive gingerly up to the outset area there okay we're going up we're gonna go right or left we want to head uh just keep going Oh, I'm sorry.
Look to the left. You can expect trouble from backseat drivers. Okay, we copy that, Josh.
Look at this, baby. I'm really getting confident in it now. It's back wheeled off the ground.
Charlie, whatever you do, don't hit that brake. The Grand Prix driver's at it again. This is about the neatest thing I ever saw. It's back to the lam, right, Tony?
You bet your life. And you're well ahead on the timeline. You've been making good time.
He must have forgot something. Well, everything is running. We're just about to start up up slope here. Have we been climbing John? Look at that pitch meter.
It's pegged out high. We have been climbing. Cody, we're really, we're really, it doesn't feel like we're climbing, but we've been climbing for quite a while.
a while here and we're going up a steep steep slope john i'll tell you look at that charlie i don't see one one one well i'll be doggone look at that girl you said you're gonna see some other tracks on the moon i knew it they were going back down our tracks tony okay good show There she is, John. Somebody up there likes us. Don't run into our home.
I felt like I was an alien as I traveled through space. But when I got on the moon, I didn't feel that at all. I felt at home there, even though the Earth was a long ways away. We could see it directly above, about the size of a marble, and realize that we're there, but by the grace of God. I felt like I was at the end of a thin cord that could be cut at any time.
It was precarious, but yet I felt comfortable. I felt something other than just what we can visually sense. A spiritual presence was there.
Perhaps it was because so many people on the earth were focusing their attention. They were maybe sending signals to us somehow. I sensed, I guess in a way, much like maybe the first man on the earth would have sensed. Like Adam, and perhaps Eve, as they were standing on the earth and they realized they were all alone, there was no one else on the earth, but yet they had that special communication. And I guess it was similar to the feeling I had on the moon when I realized that Dave Scott and I were the only two on this vast planet, another world.
We were the only two there. We felt an unseen love. We were not alone.
Bob, this is Gene and I'm on the surface and as I take that last step from the surface, there's an everlasting commemoration of what the real meaning of Apollo is to the world. We'd like to uncover a plaque that has been on the leg of our spacecraft that we have climbed down many times over the last three days. We came to be reflected in the light.
Some seven minutes, 22 seconds away from ignition on that limb ascent back into lunar orbit. Our first footstep in space. Where man was able to look back at the earth and see the earth and see himself in a different perspective. 6, 1, Ignition.
As you leave, you're leaving this unbelievably beautiful... Naked charcoal ball out there in space and you've been around the moon you've been on it you're seeing something that's familiar to you that's home that's where we live there's where we left the lunar rover and there's where we explored and there's the mountains and the valleys and it is in a sense has been a home a life-sustaining home for you and when you leave it and you see those things you leave it with the same kind of feeling and awe that you left the earth with several days earlier. When we were about 30 minutes from rendezvous with the command module, Pete said to me, You want to fly this thing? And I said, well yeah, I'd like to fly it. As I took the controls out, I said, well wait a minute.
The people on Earth in Mission Control aren't going to like this. And to show how he thinks about things, he said, Don't worry about it. We're on the back side of the moon.
They'll never know. Good night. Roger, Houston. We are returning to the airport.
Glad to have you on the way back home. I think I must have the feeling that the travelers in the old daily ship used to have. You went on a very long voyage away from home, and now we're headed back. I have that feeling of being proud of the trip, but still happy to be going back home and back to our home port.
We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained and new rights to be won and they must be won and used.