_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [68]
It would not be easy. Eagle was now top heavy, the ascent stage still crammed with fuel, the tanks of the descent stage perilously close to empty.
Charlie Duke sounded the warning. “Sixty seconds.”
In sixty short seconds, the rocket power flaming beneath Eagle would burn out. The tanks would be empty. An abort would need to be initiated seconds before that happened if Eagle was not to crash.
Balancing on slashing flames and banging thrusters, Neil Armstrong calmly aimed for his new landing site.
The flight controllers were almost frantic with their inability to do anything more to aid Neil and Buzz.
“Light’s on.”
This time the announcement was from Buzz as he watched an amber light blink balefully at him from the master caution-and-warning panel. It was the low-fuel signal. Buzz eyed another button, half afraid he might have to punch it. It read ABORT STAGE.
Neil didn’t respond. There was no time. All his senses were brought to needlepoint sharpness.
Buzz intoned the numbers like a priest, steady and clear, voicing the final moments flashing away. He had confidence in Neil’s ability. But his hand did not stray far from the ABORT STAGE button.
“Seventy-five feet,” he called out.
“Six forward…
“Light’s on…down two-and-a-half…forty feet, down two-and-a-half…”
Time was the enemy.
“Thirty feet…
“Two-and-a-half down…”
Then the magic words!
“Kicking up some dust…
“Faint shadow…”
So close now! So close!
There was no turning back! The door behind Armstrong and Aldrin had closed.
“Four forward…
“Drifting to the right a little…”
In our NBC studio all was silent. Russ Ward and I did not dare interrupt the voices coming from the moon. The landing was live on NBC’s sixteen networks spread around the planet. If it were possible for hearts to stop beating and for humans to still live, we would have done it.
Then these words from Buzz Aldrin…“Contact light!”
“Okay, engine stop…descent engine command override off…”
On Earth, billions of hearts pounded madly.
In Mission Control, Charlie Duke was choking…He still needed voice confirmation. He wanted to hear the words.
“We copy you down, Eagle,” he radioed, and began waiting all over again.
Three seconds for the voices to rush back and forth, Earth to moon and moon back to Earth.
“Houston…”
Neil Armstrong had landed so smoothly that Buzz wasn’t taking any chances. Were they really down? Stopped? Buzz studied the lights on the landing panel to be certain.
Four lights gleamed brightly. Four marvelous lights were welcoming them to another world where no human being had ever been.
Neil allowed himself the luxury of a long, deep breath as he stared through his helmet visor at the alien world before him. He was surprised at how quickly the dust was hurled away by the final thrust of the engine and had settled back on the surface. Within seconds, the moon looked as if it had never been disturbed. He keyed his mike. “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
Charlie Duke spoke above the bedlam of cheering and applause in Mission Control.
“Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You’ve got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.”
It was 4:17:42 P.M. EDT, Sunday, July 20, 1969, eight years after President John F. Kennedy had promised to send astronauts to the moon before the end of the 1960s.
Silently, Buzz and Neil saluted him.
FOURTEEN
Moon Walk
Neil Armstrong moved slowly and purposefully down the ladder. He was in no hurry. He would be stepping onto a small world that had never been touched by life. A landscape where no leaf had ever drifted, no insect had ever scurried, where no blade of green had ever waved, where even the raging fury of a thermonuclear blast would sound no louder than a falling snowflake.
A quarter-of-a-million miles away billions of eyes were transfixed on black-and-white televisions. They were watching this ghostly figure moving phantom-like, closer and closer, and then, three-and-a-half