_Live From Cape Canaveral_ - Jay Barbree [69]
All motion stopped. He spoke: “That’s one small step for a man—one giant leap for mankind.”
Lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin stayed aboard Eagle to keep watch on all of the lander’s systems. The LM was Aldrin’s responsibility, and as soon as it was safe for him to leave Eagle, he came down the ladder and joined Armstrong on the surface.
“Beautiful, beautiful! Magnificent desolation,” Aldrin said with feeling as he stared at a sky that was the darkest of blacks. No blue. No green. No birds flying across an airless landscape. There were many shades of gray and areas of utter black where rocks cast their shadows from an unfiltered sun, but no real color. And there was the lack of gravity. They seemed to weigh a little more than nothing. In spite of their cumbersome spacesuits, both astronauts found moving about in the one-sixth gravity exhilarating and described the experience as floating.
“We’re like two bug-eyed boys in a candy store,” Neil laughed before starting out to explore. He and Buzz wanted to experiment with the moon’s lightweight gravity. They wanted to run and make leaps that would be impossible to do on Earth, where they would weigh 360 pounds with their suits and life-support backpacks. On the moon, in its one-sixth gravity, they weighed only sixty pounds, but they still possessed body mass that restricted their ability to move. If they started to jog, the mass and velocity created kinetic energy and stopping quickly was impossible. They soon discovered “bunny hops” in the suits worked well.
“The surface is fine and powdery,” Neil reported to the scientists in Mission Control’s back room. “It adheres in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the soles and sides of my boots. I only go in a fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine, sandy particles.”
Neil gathered several ounces of lunar surface material in a plastic bag and stuffed it into a suit pocket. The plan was for them to remain outside two hours, planting experiments and collecting lunar soil and rocks, but if something should go wrong, at least they would have a few ounces of the moon that would be invaluable for research back on Earth. So he took a slow look around the moon’s surface and continued his report. Those on Earth hung onto every word. “It has a very stark beauty all its own,” Neil said slowly. “It’s like much of the high desert areas of the United States. It’s different, but it’s pretty out here.”
He then turned and looked for Earth, the true oasis of shifting colors in their solar system. It appeared far larger from the moon than did the moon from Earth. And it was many times brighter. Sunlight made it so by splashing off the bright clouds and blue oceans. It was hope. It was the warmest port in this corner of the universe.
Neil Armstrong lowered his head. There was so much to see and do and so little time. He and Buzz moved their television camera sixty feet from Eagle. This would help Earth’s viewers see some of the things they were seeing and it let them watch Neil and Buzz going about the business of setting up Apollo 11’s experiments.
The two astronauts had problems jamming a pole into the lunar surface to hold the American flag. Though a metal rod held the flag extended, the subsurface soil was so hard they could barely get the pole to remain erect. But once they did, Old Glory stood perfectly.
Armstrong and Aldrin then set up a seismometer to gather information on quakes and meteorites hitting the lunar surface. An instrument to measure the flow of radiation particles inside the solar wind and a multi-mirror target for returning laser beams fired from Earth were deployed—laser reflectors that would not only be used by American scientists, but Russian and other global investigators as well.
In the lunar dust they placed mementos for the five astronauts and cosmonauts who had lost their lives, and Neil Armstrong read the