Apollo 11 - Interesting Facts

* Neil Armstrong crashed a Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) in training and had to eject. Only one of the LLRVs built survived the Apollo programme.
* President Nixon had prepared a speech for the eventuality that the Lunar Module (LM) had crashed on the moon or had been unable to take-off.
* On the average Apollo mission approximately 150 components failed, the vast majority not seriously impacting on the mission (the exception being Apollo XIII).
* The lunar landing was nearly aborted when a series of alarms occurred in the guidance computer - caused by information overload from the rendezvous radar. Quick thinking by Mission Control allowed the astronauts to ignore the alarms.
* Whilst landing the LM on the Moon, Neil Armstrong had to take manual control to prevent being landed by the computer guidance system in a field of boulders inside a crater. The LM touched down safely with less than 20 seconds of fuel indicated.
* Buzz Aldrin accidentally broke off the ascent engine arm circuit breaker switch with his Personal Life Support System (PLSS) back pack when preparing for the moon walk. The switch was armed by using a felt tip pen pushed in to the broken switch assembly. If it had not worked, they would have been marooned on the moon.
* Depressurisation of the LM to open the hatch to commence the lunar surface Extra Vehicular Activity (EVA) took over twice as long as planned. This was due to only using one of two cabin oxygen escape valves, in order to minimise the prospect of contaminating the lunar soil which would be collected for samples.
* The Apollo spacecraft and astronaut's EVA suits were filled with a pure oxygen atmosphere at around one third sea level pressure. This gave a partial pressure of oxygen sufficient for them to breathe comfortably, whilst allowing spacecraft cabin and EVA suit designs for a far lower pressure than normal sea level atmospheric pressure on Earth. The average commercial airliner lowers the passenger cabin pressure to the equivalent of around 5,000 feet (1,525 metres) elevation for the same structural design reasons.
* During the moon walk, Neil Armstrong almost fell when his foot entangled in the TV camera cable.
* The lunar surface soil was so compacted by vibrations caused by meteor strikes over billions of years that Buzz Aldrin bent the top of a core sampling tube when hammering it more than a few inches into the surface.
* Neil Armstrong had to be told to take it easy by Mission Control when he over exerted loading boxes of moon rocks back onto the LM.
* The Apollo 11 TV signals that were relayed around the world via NASA in Houston were received in Australia at Honeysuckle Creek near Canberra, and at the Parkes Radio Telescope in NSW. They were then relayed to the USA by earth orbit satellite. Australians saw the lunar TV broadcast in higher quality PAL format, and without the NASA six second "accident blackout" delay. Australians thus heard Neil Armstrong say his famous "one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind" statement before the rest of the world even knew he had stepped off the LM footpad.
* Michael Collins in the orbiting CSM "Columbia" spacecraft tried unsuccessfully to locate the LM "Eagle" at the Sea of Tranquility landing site during his many orbits. NASA Mission Control kept giving him increasingly erroneous locations to scan. The final estimate of the LM position, thanks to observatories on Earth using the Laser Ranging Retroreflector experiment (LRRE) was within 500 metres. The exact location of the LM was only determined by detailed studies of the 16mm film taken of the landing through the LM window - a few days after the return to Earth of the astronauts.
* The Passive Seismic Experiment (PSE) actually picked up the vibrations of the astronauts feet as they moved about, and registered the jettison of unneeded gear prior to LM ascent stage lift-off, and the lift-off itself.
* None of the three Apollo 11 astronauts ever went into space again after their historic mission.