Red Moon: The Crash of Apollo 11

Copyright © 2019 Rick Heinrich.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4808-8572-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8573-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019919563

Archway Publishing rev. date: 12/11/2019

Contents

Chapter 1 July 20, 1969: Sea of Tranquility

Chapter 2 July 25, 1969: Ministry of General Machine-Building Industry of the USSR, Moscow

Chapter 3 August 1, 1969: Langley Air Force Base, Virginia

Chapter 4 ‘Star City’, near Moscow

Chapter 5 December 15, 1969: Congress, Washington D.C.

Chapter 6 March 2, 1970: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

Chapter 7 July 1970: Washington D.C.

Chapter 8 July 20, 1970: Ministry of General Machine-Building Industry of the USSR, Moscow

Chapter 9 NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston

Chapter 10 September 24, 1970: Moscow

Chapter 11 October 2, 1970: Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

Chapter 12 January 31, 1971: Cape Kennedy

Chapter 13 February 3, 1971: CBS News Studio

Chapter 14 February 4, 1971: Lunar orbit

Chapter 15 Mare Fecunditatis – 0.5450° S – 56.5350° E

Chapter 16 March 4, 1971: NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston

Chapter 17 Postscript 1975: Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic

About The Author

To my brother.

CHAPTER 1

July 20, 1969: Sea of Tranquility

‘Program alarm …’

‘. . . 1202’

A pollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were mere minutes into the powered descent initiation phase of the first lunar landing attempt and were descending rapidly towards the Sea of Tranquility some twenty thousand feet below their spacecraft. They were standing side by side – Armstrong on the left, and Aldrin on the right – in the cramped confines of their lunar module that they had named Eagle weeks before, and both were now carefully monitoring the primary guidance, navigation, and control system that was automatically controlling the vehicle for them.

The atmosphere was one of peak concentration and calm experience. While both astronauts had never been in this situation, they were both highly attuned test pilots who had flown in space before and were used to the unknown. Both had also flown jet fighters in combat missions during the Korean War and knew how they would react in situations of the most extreme stress; how to react to the unknown and deadly external factors. That experience was precisely why they were here today: to deal with the unknown.

The prominent red master caution light had just gone on in front of Armstrong’s face, and his mind raced to remember the lists of error codes that would call for an immediate abort; codes related to propulsion, guidance, oxygen, and others. He didn’t know what a 1202 alarm was, but it wasn’t one of the critical codes they had memorized during the countless hours inside the lunar module simulator. Armstrong reached out and pressed the red master caution light, extinguishing it. Their altitude, speed, and rate of descent were all nominal – they were in the P63 braking program and their vehicle attitude was good. With the engine bell facing their direction of travel, Armstrong and Aldrin were looking straight out of the triangular windows and into the black inkiness of space above, effectively on their backs in relation to the lunar surface below. Somewhere far above them, Michael Collins was inside the Apollo command module Columbia speeding around his lunar parking orbit. Everything looked okay.

‘We copy 1202, Eagle, stand by.’ From mission control in Houston, astronaut and designated capsule communicator Charlie Duke replied in his soothing Carolina drawl, hiding the flurry of concern that was erupting among the room of scrambling flight and software engineers desperate to understand what the alarm meant. The room was filled with white shirts and black ties as the engineers and mission controllers sat hunched over screens full of telemetry, checking and then re-checking their data.

Standing above Duke were the two senior NASA astronauts: director of flight operations Deke Slayton and chief of the astronaut office Alan Shepard. All three were looking towards mission control guidance officer Steve Bales with desperate but professional faces. Duke gripped his headset microphone tightly with his right fist so no errant or panicked voices slipped through to the spacecraft.

Bales furiously flipped through manuals on his desk, knocking away overflowing ashtrays and unrelated manuals, cursing his luck that Jack Garman wasn’t in the room to tell him what the alarm was. Garman was a young computer engineer who knew the Apollo guidance computer intimately and would know what the alarm meant in seconds. He’d know, that is, if he wasn’t at home with the measles on the most important day in manned space flight. It would take Bales minutes to figure it out and that was too long.

‘Guidance, what’s the story?’ an urgent voice from flight director Gene Kranz barked at Bales. The whole room knew a master caution alarm that couldn’t be clarified during a critical phase of flight necessitated an immediate abort. There was no more pressing situation than the descent of the lunar module towards the surface of the Moon.

‘Damn it, flight, I don’t have a reading on it!’ Bales swore more at himself than the flight director; he could see his vision tunnel in and feel his throat tighten as he realized he didn’t have the answer.

A discernible panic radiated out from Bales and over the whole room as Kranz absorbed this new information. The book said to abort but the flight director couldn’t bring himself to call off the landing on one unknown alarm alone – what if it was a false indicator light or something else that wouldn’t affect a safe landing? History books would be written that would include the decision he would have to make in the next few seconds. He wanted to make the right one.

‘Guidance, I need a last chance go or no go call right now. Right now!’

Bales impotently lifted both arms in defeated surrender as a large voluminous folder slipped off his lap and onto the floor next to him. Kranz made his decision, acutely aware the world was listening to the drama unfold.

‘Capcom, tell ’em we don’t know what the alarm is. If all else is nominal the Eagle can proceed. It’s a go,’ Kranz said; the flight director had taken a risk that broke the rules, but he knew Armstrong could make his own assessment from Eagle and initiate an abort if he felt it was warranted. Duke nodded in response and passed it on.

‘Eagle, this is Houston, we don’t know what that 1202 is but you are still go for landing. Go for landing.’ Duke’s calm voice betrayed none of the tension in mission control.

‘Copy, Houston, Eagle is go for landing.’

Armstrong looked down at the Apollo guidance computer screen that was counting off altitude and velocity in green flicking numbers, and then across to the emergency abort T-handle between him and Aldrin.

‘Buzz, keep an eye on nominals once we move into the P64 pitch over program. I don’t think this 1202 will give us any issues but I want to know if the transition is smooth.’ In less than a minute the lunar module would change from the P63 to the P64 autopilot program and would pitch the vehicle forward and reduce braking thrust. This would allow both astronauts to see their landing site in front of them and enable them to make subtle corrections if required.

‘Okay.’ As soon as Aldrin spoke the master caution alarm blinked on again: it was another program alarm but this time the digits were 1201.

‘Houston, program alarm. 1201. 1201,’ Armstrong repeated.

‘Copy 1201, Eagle.’

‘Shit, well, what in the hell are 1202 and 1201! Guidance!’ flight director Kranz barked again at Bales from the center of the room: ‘Tell me this is software or something else? Do we have a category of alarm even?’ Bales felt like screaming and didn’t know what to say – he just couldn’t be sure whether this was a minor issue or something more serious that would affect the guidance computer and risk the spacecraft. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. There wasn’t any value he could bring to the decision now; these obscure program alarms weren’t something he knew off the top of his head, and he cursed his luck in not having Garman’s guidance computer knowledge available.

The flight director looked at Duke and pointed a finger at him. ‘Eagle is go from here – tell Neil it’s his choice on an abort decision.’

‘Ah, Eagle, still no word on those program alarms. You’re go from here: it’s your call, Neil.’

‘Houston, copy; go for landing at this stage.’

Armstrong and Aldrin shared a quick glance, both trying to read the other. ‘Buzz, I’m going to let the computer move us from 63 to 64 and make a decision then.’ Aldrin nodded back, but silently prayed Armstrong would let the descent continue until the last possible moment; he hadn’t come this far to abort a few thousand feet above the lunar surface.

Both astronauts felt the rich rubber-tasting oxygen flowing through their suits and into their lungs and tightly gripped the yellow and black striped grab poles for balance in the lunar module. To save weight there were no seats, and their suits were supported by a cable and pulley system. The blackness of space out of their windows would soon change to the lunar surface as the vehicle pitched forward, and then Armstrong would know if they would continue or make an abort.

In training, Armstrong had ejected from the lunar landing research vehicle, or ‘the flying bedstead’ as they called it, saving his own life with only seconds to make that fateful decision. If all went well now, they would automatically pitch forward and continue right down to the lunar surface for the landing. The guidance computer was designed to take them all the way to a complete stop without human input, but Armstrong intended to engage the optional P66 program that would give him manual control over the final stages of the landing, allowing him to place the lander precisely where he wanted it.

‘Houston, standby for P64.’

‘And … pitch over!’ Armstrong said. ‘P64!’ from Aldrin.

The maneuver was about as brisk as they had expected, and both astronauts held on as they caught their first close-in views of the Sea of Tranquility fifteen thousand feet below them and made out their landing site ahead. The lunar module automatically throttled back to increase the rate of descent.

‘Wow! Look at that! We’ve got the whole area ahead!’ Aldrin was excited and could see the landing spot out of the triangular window. The descent engine was thrusting at a consistent 12% power, but began to slip downwards to 11%, and then 10%, without either astronaut making a corresponding control input.

‘Okay, rate of descent increasing,’ Armstrong said, as coolly as any test pilot faced with the unexpected. ‘8% thrust now, it’s not enough power and descent is too high.’

Aldrin called the altitude: ‘Ten thousand feet.’ There was enough time for a question between the two astronauts.

Armstrong asked: ‘5%. What do you think?’

Aldrin thought quickly. He could feel the slight downward acceleration as the lunar module barely thrusting was being overcome by gravity; the vehicle was far out of nominals for this phase of flight.

‘Neil, go to P66 before abort and see if you can get it back.’ Aldrin wanted Armstrong to try and save the landing by selecting program P66 and taking manual control; then they could increase throttle and reduce their rate of descent. They had eight thousand feet of altitude below them.

‘Okay,’ Armstrong said automatically, ‘we’re in 66.’ Immediately, he flicked the rate of descent paddle lever in his left hand up to +5 feet per second, which should have resulted in a firm increase of thrust to dampen their descent.

‘3% … 2% … 1%,’ Aldrin read from the guidance computer in an increasingly alarmed voice, tracking the falling thrust towards almost nothing. Suddenly the fast-rising lunar surface didn’t seem so inviting. ‘What’s happening? We haven’t lost the engine – it’s still at 1%,’ he said, with the first feeling of panic in his voice. ‘This has to be a guidance software issue messing with the engine thrust.’ The only other thrust the astronauts could bring to bear was the reaction control system, but that was only for the rotational or minor lateral adjustment of the vehicle; right now, they needed a consistent thrust vector down towards the lunar surface to minimize the fatal and unabated descent speed.

In mission control, the panic was increasing at the same rate as the lunar module was descending to the Moon’s surface. ‘Goddammit! Neil abort that sucker,’ Deke Slayton was saying while standing over capsule communicator Duke and firmly gripping his shoulder. It was a statement for his own sake and not something that needed to be relayed onto the crew. They could all hear Armstrong and Aldrin working on the problem. It was only a matter of time before one of two things happened: a safe abort or a crash – and with a landing not looking possible anymore to the mission control team, an abort seemed the only option. When activated by an astronaut or through certain parameters automatically, the abort sequence for the lunar module jettisoned the descent stage from the ascent stage, the latter propelling the crew cabin with both astronauts back into a lunar orbit to rendezvous with the command and service module above. The process took mere seconds once started.

‘Houston, this is Eagle, we are aborting the landing,’ Armstrong said as he immediately twisted the gray abort handle ninety degrees anti-clockwise. Aldrin was watching with bulging eyes, glad that now in the grip of potential disaster Armstrong had made the abort decision as commander.

There was an audible bang through the spacecraft as the explosive bolts below initiated and the ascent stage separated cleanly from the spidery descent segment below them. The ascent stage should have accelerated straight up but, instead, it started to roll violently forward as the abort guidance system entered a radar tracking program and searched in vain for the signal from Columbia. As the vehicle was traversing through full revolutions, the firing engine couldn’t orient sufficiently to stop the downward trajectory towards the lunar surface, and they remained in the same dangerous situation. Both astronauts knew the violent pitch forward rolling was wrong but hoped in vain the spacecraft would right itself and head towards lunar orbit. Aldrin was knocked out of his suit harness and collapsed into the right-hand side of the crew compartment as Armstrong stayed standing and gripped the handholds hard. The last communication from the crew came through from Armstrong: it was the first real panic mission control could detect: ‘Houston! We’re in a violent positive pitch roll! The AGS … th- there’s an error. Standby …’ Flashes of black space and white lunar surface filled his vision as the astronaut closed his eyes for the imminent impact.

From the surface of the Moon, it would have looked like a relatively survivable impact but, in fact, the lunar module ascent stage bounced hard and burst as it depressurized in a shower of oxygen and propellant gas, gold foil and debris, reaching upwards of 50 g’s as it hit. The light 1/6th gravity of the Moon and forward velocity vector caused a significant rebound into the lunar sky, also picking up a high arc of talcum powder-like lunar soil that lingered a moment, sparkling under the intense sunlight, before settling uniformly and quickly in the airless atmosphere of the Moon. The pieces of the destroyed lunar module ascent stage finally came to rest in a debris field seven hundred feet long, fanning out into an arc from the point of impact.

‘Eagle, this is Houston. Eagle, Houston, do you copy?’ Capsule communicator Charlie Duke tried. Flight surgeon William Carpentier was staring at two screens that were both flatlining, but then all telemetry from Eagle had ceased on impact. After three minutes of unanswered calls, Gene Kranz gave the order no flight director wanted to give: ‘Lock the doors.’

Michael Collins, orbiting high above the lunar surface in the relative safety of the command and service module Columbia, was now the only surviving member of the Apollo 11 crew; he had listened to the whole event and floated stunned and unable to speak or think clearly. He would now be faced with the long and lonely four-day return journey alone.

The White House

Astronaut Frank Borman sat stony-faced in the Oval Office, staring at the metal box that rested at an angle on President Richard Nixon’s regal oak desk. The box was stamped prominently on the side with the circular blue and red logo of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and now hissed an empty light static that filled the otherwise quiet room.

The box had relayed the signal between Eagle and mission control for the benefit of the President and the staff he had chosen for this momentous occasion. Nearby, a silver tray of champagne flutes stood around a sweating bucket of ice with two bottles. Now he and a dozen others in the room waited anxiously for Borman to tell them that what they had just heard wasn’t the worst-case scenario, that something was happening they couldn’t understand, and the landing wasn’t in jeopardy. The smell of dry-cleaned carpet and wood polish pervaded the air as Borman waited for the blood to return to his face.

He knew the landing had been aborted and the mission was a failure – the discarded descent stage of Eagle would be smashed against the lunar surface by now, preventing any hope of another landing attempt for Apollo 11, but he hoped against hope the crew were in the process of rendezvousing with Columbia in lunar orbit and were safe.

As Borman slowly looked up and around the room, he saw a dozen hopeful faces waiting for his analysis of what the abort and following silence had meant; only Vice President Spiro T. Agnew and NASA administrator Thomas Paine were staring directly at him, impatiently waiting for clarification of an outcome they both suspected. Seventy seconds of silence had already passed and he felt obligated to try and make sense of it for his executive audience. The last words from mission control in Houston to ‘lock the doors’ stuck painfully in his mind – it seemed likely Eagle had crashed. He opened his mouth to say something, but the President’s voice filled the room first.

‘Oh my god. Tell me it’s not the worst case, Frank.’

Nixon turned in his chair and looked earnestly at Frank Borman, sitting like a scorned student on the folding metal chair positioned next to the NASA squawk box. Not wanting to speculate, he could only tell the President and the room what he thought had happened.

‘Mr. President, the landing will not occur.’

‘Well, did they crash? Oh my god, oh my god,’ Nixon repeated with his head down and wobbling from side to side. ‘It’s a goddamn catastrophe!’

In the back of the Oval Office, Thomas Paine as the head of NASA whispered to his chief of public information Jack King, who then shot out of the room. Paine walked over to the President’s large desk.

‘Mr. President, we will have all the facts for you shortly. I’d recommend at this stage you excuse anyone who doesn’t need to be here, and we can talk about our next steps. Frank’s right in that there won’t be a landing. We don’t know anything else for sure.’

Nixon stood up and pointed accusingly at his Vice President. ‘There is going to be hell to pay if we just televised live to the world those boy’s deaths! I made it clear we wanted to be sure of a landing first!’ Nixon slammed a hand down on the table causing enough of a reverberation to make the small squawk box jump in front of Borman.

Vice President Agnew pursed his lips and kept his hands in his pockets, rocking slightly on his feet. ‘Damn it, Dick, no one expected this outcome; including these guys,’ the Vice President said, waving his hand over the three representatives from NASA to his right.

Borman sat uneasily and wondered if this would have been the same reaction seven months ago, had his own mission failed. Borman had commanded Apollo 8, which had taken the bold step of leaving the Earth to enter lunar orbit for the first time. Spurred on by the Russians who had flown a number of circumlunar or ‘slingshot’ missions around the Moon with tortoises and other life forms, Borman’s mission had been changed from a low Earth orbit mission to test the command module further, to going all the way into lunar orbit and preventing the risk of being upstaged by a Russian mission.

He had approached his mission cautiously and with safety at the front of his mind; he went so far as to stop his crewmates Jim Lovell and Bill Anders from consuming a tiny quantity of brandy that had been put aboard by Deke Slayton for Christmas Day on the return to Earth. Even so, he knew a number of fatal glitches could have spelled disaster for them.

A door burst open and a suited Jack King walked briskly up to NASA administrator Thomas Paine carrying a note. As he gave the note across, he whispered in his ear, and Paine’s furrowed brow released upwards into a nanosecond of shock: Borman caught it and knew immediately what the administrator had just been told.

‘Mr. President,’ Paine cleared his throat. ‘The lunar module Eagle has crashed on the lunar surface. There is no indication Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin have survived, but that is not yet confirmed as fact.’ Paine paused. ‘If one or both have survived, we have no means of rescue; the suits they were wearing would give them a few hours of oxygen only.’ Paine handed the folded piece of paper across to Frank Borman, who stood up for the first time to read it. President Nixon put his fingers to his temple and stayed sitting, staring straight ahead without any acknowledgment of what he had just heard. There was an inaudible mumble from him.

‘Dick, we’d better prepare a response,’ the Vice President said, looking across at Paine to signal his desire for him to draft one. ‘We don’t have anything ready for this scenario, but we can adjust the ones we do have. I don’t think we can wait very long to get something out: we should aim for an hour.’

‘Goddamn catastrophe,’ Nixon mumbled.

CBS News Studios

News anchor Walter Cronkite and former astronaut Wally Schirra sat side by side at the studio desk, repeating the news that had now gone around the world. Cronkite solemnly and slowly put on his thick-rimmed black glasses before reading from the sheet of paper he held in his right hand.

‘If you’re just tuning in tonight, we can confirm, sadly, that the Apollo 11 lunar lander, callsign Eagle, has crashed on the Moon. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Colonel Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin are presumed killed in what is undoubtedly NASA’s greatest tragedy since the Apollo 1 fire two years ago.’ Cronkite’s gravelly and staccato delivery gave enormous weight to the words, as two photos of Armstrong and Aldrin were shown on the newscast.

‘Wally, as a member of the original Mercury Seven astronaut group, you would have known both men personally. What can you tell us about them in this great moment of sadness?’ Cronkite asked his co-anchor.

‘Well, I would have to say right now, that most of us, those who knew them that is, also knew the families pretty well. Our thoughts are with them; Neil and Buzz’s wives, children, parents and other family members. I can’t imagine what they are going through right now listening to this tragedy unfold live and around the whole world.’ Wally Schirra turned away from Cronkite and looked back into the camera.

Cronkite continued. ‘And of course, the world prays that Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins, now sadly the only surviving member of his crew, who is orbiting the Moon alone, can find the strength and courage to return home safely to all of us here on the good Earth.’ A piece of paper was handed to Cronkite who took it and quickly read it. Wally Schirra looked at him and waited patiently.

‘We’ve just been advised that the President of the United States of America, Richard M. Nixon, will address the nation, and the world, in one hour’s time. We hope you’ll join us here on CBS for what no doubt will be a momentously solemn occasion.’

Both the NASA administrator and the chief of public information conferred with the White House chief of staff on the final draft of the President’s speech. The Oval Office was a hive of activity as cameras, lights and make-up specialists elbowed for room and took sound and light readings while stepping over a sea of cabling. It seemed like a hundred people were talking at once.

Ultimately, Nixon would have final veto on anything the speech contained, but Paine and King wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything said that was factually wrong, or otherwise caused them additional unforeseen issues with what already promised to be the biggest public relations disaster in NASA’s history. Paine cursed to himself that they had been forced to air the landing attempt live, instead of his desire to only go live once the lunar module was safely on the surface and the first extra-vehicular activity had been given the go ahead.

Frank Borman stood in front of Paine and King; light reflected strongly off the gold astronaut pin affixed to his left lapel with all the artificial lighting in the room. All three were addressing Nixon, who held the final draft of the speech. Borman spoke with polite but directed verve.

‘All I’m saying, Mr. President, is we don’t know for sure if Neil and Buzz were killed on impact or survived. We don’t know if they’re actually dead at this very moment.’

Nixon sat looking at the three men while a young female aide applied rouge liberally across his sullen cheeks. ‘Damn it, you said those boys are dead no matter what; so what am I supposed to do? Wait until they die and leave the world waiting? Or tell them that two of our finest might just be sitting up there right now waiting for their oxygen to run out?’ His question didn’t require an answer, and Nixon didn’t want one.

He continued: ‘America and the world have just watched us fail spectacularly.’ Nixon took care to enunciate every syllable of the last word while holding Paine’s gaze. ‘They expect some kind of an answer right now. This isn’t the damned Eisenhower administration where we can hide behind a radio for another few hours. The cameras are rolling, boys.’

Borman felt angry for the first time and pushed it deep back down inside himself. He wasn’t interested in politics right at that moment; he was thinking more about the families, and Michael Collins still up there in lunar orbit.

‘Yes, of course, Mr. President, we understand completely,’ Paine deferentially replied, before nodding his head to King