Neil Armstrong describes heart-stopping moments in moon landing during rare interview
The 81-year-old Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, gave a rare interview in which he shares insights into the 1969 lunar landing.
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Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, has revealed some heart-stopping moments in that 1969 flight in a rare interview.
The 81-year-old astronaut sat down for an hour-long chat with Alex Malley, chief executive of Certified Practicing Accountants of Australia.
The Australian accountants snagged the interview coup, said Malley, because “I know something not a lot of people know about Neil Armstrong — his dad was an auditor.”
The Apollo 11 crew, after their historic moon landing, used a plastic felt pen to jam circuit breakers into place after one of the crew banged into the panel with his bulky backpack, Armstrong said.
“He could have picked something not very important, but it had to be the engine that got us back into orbit,” Armstrong said wryly. The crew figured “it probably will hold” but as insurance used the plastic pen and “made a crutch to hold it into place.”
Armstrong didn’t say which of the other two aboard — Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin or Michael Collins — knocked the circuit breakers.
As commander of Apollo 11, a former test pilot and a veteran of 78 Korean War missions, Armstrong was pragmatic about his chances.
“I thought we had a 90 per cent chance of getting back safely to Earth on that flight, but only a 50-50 chance of making a successful landing on the first attempt.”
As they approached, he realized the computer chosen landing spot was “a very bad location, on the side of a large crater with large boulders” so Armstrong took over the controls manually and “flew it like a helicopter to the west.
“I was able to get it down safely with something like 20 seconds of fuel left,” he said.
How emotional was the crew at that moment?
“There was a handshake and congratulations. We’d made it this far.”
Nor was there much planning, he said, for the famous first words: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
Said Armstrong: “I didn’t think about that after landing. I had no confidence in our ability to get down safely.
“The first statement, ‘Tranquility Base. The Eagle has landed’ was our signature line, that we were achieving the presidential goal. Getting out (of the capsule) was less important.”
Although Armstrong recounted again and again how the crew spent the historic flight concentrating on details, his voice cracked as he described leaving medallions on the moon surface to honour astronauts from the United States and then Soviet Union who had died trying to explore space.
“It was special and memorable but it was only instantaneous because there was work to do. We were there to get things done.”
Armstrong spoke to the annual CPA Australia convention on Aug. 24, 2011. The four-part videos of his interview with Malley have recently been posted online and broadcast as part of the Bottom Line interview series produced by evoTV in Australia.
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