Page 72 - All About History - Issue 70-18

Neil Armstrong

Inside the

Apollo 11

spacesuit

An accident occurs during the test of the Lunar
Landing Research Vehicle at Ellington Air Force
Base – Armstrong ejected from the vehicle and can
be seen floating safely

Helmet
Although grieving, Armstrong used his work as a way of The helmet wasn’t just
dealing with the pain of losing his daughter. designed to protect the
It was all the more poignant then when, in September of that astronaut from the vacuum
of space, but its gold tinted
year, Armstrong was announced in the next batch of astronauts visor and sunshields
as NASA changed their policy on civilians. ‘The New Nine’ as protected against solar
the astronauts were termed, were among the best astronauts ultraviolet light, heat
that NASA have ever had. Indeed, many of them went on to fly and damage from tiny
Apollo missions to the Moon, including Jim Lovell, Pete Conrad, meteorites.
and John Young, but even in 1962 it was recognised that
Armstrong was the best of the best.
Following President John F Kennedy’s declaration to send
astronauts to the Moon by the end of the 1960s, training for the
New Nine began in earnest. Their first space missions were to
be part of Project Gemini, which was a series of missions into
Earth’s orbit aboard the tiny two-man Gemini capsules. Initially PLSS remote
selected as back-up to Gordon Cooper on Gemini 5, his first control unit
voyage into space was as commander of Gemini 8, with fellow Placed on the chest of the
spacesuit, the PLSS remote
astronaut Dave Scott flying beside him as co-pilot. control unit allowed the
Gemini 8 was perhaps the most ambitious spaceflight to astronaut to control oxygen
have been attempted by that time. Armstrong and Scott’s levels and suit temperature,
mission was to get into orbit, perform the first ever rendezvous as well as activate their
radio and mount the
and docking with an unmanned vehicle, make a number of Hasselblad camera that the
manoeuvres and also send Scott out on a spacewalk before astronauts used.
returning to Earth. However, after performing the docking the
two spacecraft began to roll out of control.
Armstrong switched to the Gemini capsule’s Orbital Attitude
and Manoeuvring System, or OAMS, which is a system of
thrusters used to control spacecraft attitude to counteract
the roll, but it didn’t work. The Gemini capsule undocked, but
this only served to increase its roll to one rotation per second, Lunar boots
forcing Armstrong to apply the Reentry Control System to The first famous footprints
counteract the spin. However, the rules said that once the into lunar soil were left
by boots that were made
Reentry Control System is switched on, the mission must end very much like the gloves,
early and return to Earth. covered in a sturdy steel
It was later determined that a short circuit in the wiring had mesh and a silicone tread.
prevented one of the thrusters switching off. Armstrong and
Scott received the NASA Exceptional Service Medal for their
calm response to the crisis, and NASA learned a great deal
about how to rendezvous and control two spacecraft that
have docked together a crucial learning experience ahead of
–
the Apollo missions which would see multiple rendezvous and
dockings. Indeed, the entire Gemini program was to prepare
for Apollo. Armstrong was given command of Apollo 11, with
Michael Collins as Command Module pilot and Buzz Aldrin as the
Lunar Module pilot. However, flying in space was one thing, but

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