Apollo 11 insignia. At Scheer's suggestion, the CM was named "Columbia" after "Columbiad", the giant cannon that launched a spacecraft (also from Florida) in Jules Verne's 1865 novel "From the Earth to the Moon". It also referenced Columbia, a historical name of the United States. The astronaut had personal preference kits (PPKs), small bags containing personal items of significance that they wanted to take with them on the mission. Five PPKs were carried on Apollo 11: three (one for each astronaut) were stowed on "Columbia" before launch, and two on "Eagle". Neil Armstrong's LM PPK contained a piece of wood from the
Apollo PGNCS Two PGNCS alarms (1201 "No VAC areas available" and 1202 "Executive alarm, no core sets") were relayed to mission control on the first lunar landing attempt on July 20th 1969. The computer system overload was caused by the simultaneous capture of landing radar data and rendezvous radar data. Apollo PGNCS The Apollo Primary Guidance, Navigation and Control System (PGNCS) (pronounced "pings") was a self-contained inertial guidance system that allowed Apollo spacecraft to carry out their missions when communications with Earth were interrupted, either as expected, when the spacecraft were behind the Moon, or in case of a communications failure. The