Apollo 11 took off for the moon this week in 1969. To prepare the astronauts, Nasa put them through gruelling, relentless simulations – and BBC Tomorrow's World paid a visit.
Apollo 11 launched this week in 1969, carrying the first men to land on the Moon. In the months leading up to the historic take-off, Nasa put the crew through gruelling, relentless simulations in order to prepare them – and BBC Tomorrow's World paid a visit.
To prepare those astronauts for this voyage into the unknown, Nasa had built a complex system of incredibly detailed simulators. These enabled the crew to master the intricacies of the Apollo spacecraft, and for Mission Control to meticulously rehearse every phase of the mission, from launch to lunar landing to re-entry.The contraption Parry and Burke found themselves strapped into, recreated what it would be like to be inside and fly the command module which was nicknamed Columbia.
"Every minute motion of the spacecraft is reflected here, and as the prisms turn and roll the astronaut gets a vivid impression of the Earth hundreds of miles below him. Spain and the North African Coastline – it took six artists six months to paint on all the detail by hand, working mostly from satellite photos. Some of the areas on this map are accurate to half a mile," said Burke.
"Everything that happens in the capsule in this simulated flight is watched over in this main control room, and another one at the space administration headquarters in Houston, Texas, 1,500 miles away," said Burke. " watching a bank of closed-circuit television monitors and talking, in constant touch with their counterparts in Texas. The wall navigation controls are completely operational; the crew has to cross check every decision with the onboard computer before altering course."During the actual space flight, the astronauts and the flight controllers would need to be ready for anything, so simulations included every scenario Nasa could think of.
Despite running out of fuel, and feeling the pressure to abort, Armstrong decided to manoeuvre to try and find a smooth place to land
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