Page 19 - Command Module News Today

After down the ladder. >> hello there. >> hello there. >> the most unusual position a cameraman has ever had, hanging by his toes from a tunnel and taking a picture upside down. >> we will take all the data back into the command module. >> roger. >> we are going to turn our tv monitor off now while we have other work to do. apollo 11 signing off. >> houston, as the sun sinks in the west, the white team bids you good night. >> you earned your pay today. >> good night all.

>> hornet, understand. completed the decontamination in the command module. >> the elevator will take recovery one down to the hangar deck and where the crew will enter the mobile quarantine facility. this becoming jammed with people. ive never seen this many people in the control center at one time before. apollo 11 plastic has been hung in the mission control center. a replica of the crew patch. [ applause ]

Was going on, i was asked after the flight, werent you terribly lonely? the loneliest man in this whole lonely mission in the lonely history of this lonely planet? werent you lonely? i said no, not at all. i was happy. i had hot coffee. i could turn the thermostat up to 72 degrees. i loved my surroundings the apollo 11 command module, columbia, it was a happy home for me. far from being lonely i felt being part of what was going on. >> hearing you describe those years, it makes me wish there wer...

>> you look beautiful. >> i feel like a million dollars. >> there was absolutely no sensation of falling. there was very little sensation of speed, other than the same type of sensation that we had in the capsule. i think as i stepped out i thought the biggest thing was a feeling of accomplishment of one of the goals of the gem ni 4 mission. >> the next major breakthrough will be the bringing together of two orbiting craft. the russians have made one test in their program and presumably have lea...

>> the primary goal of project gemini was to perform space rendezvous. without that, no moon mission. >> with lunar orbit rendezvous technique, where the lunar module flew back up, rendezvoused with the command module, you have to bring these two vehicles together and get them close in such a way that it was easy to dock them. took a fair bit of work. >> flying nose to nose, we can very clearly see the rising scanners up there. >> roger. >> that was the moment when we pulled ahead in the space r...

The "bleacher report" next. so not everyone can afford to retire in vail colorado one retired navy s.e.a.l. found a way and a second career. >> i was a member of underwater demolition team 12 and part of the apollo 16 recovery team. a command module popped up. i came out. got the door open the astronaut looks out. it was phenomenal. one of the defining moments as a team guy. my name is larry, im a retired navy s.e.a.l. and now im run a snowcap in colorado. one of the things i love about drivin...

>> a lot of people said, you didnt understand the situation. >> reporter: another crisis. carbon dioxide levels were getting dangerously high. ground control fixed that by instructing the crew to build a make-shift rig they called the mailbox, to purge the deadly gas from the craft and keep oxygen levels safe. the crew were running low on water and food. >> you lost 14 pounds? >> i didnt realize id lost 14 pounds. i guess i -- i was all charged up. >> reporter: they were sick freezing and tired,...

The next leg of the space race was a series of sprints. >> we launched the saturn 5 essentially every two months. >> reporter: each mission got the astronauts a little closer to their ultimate goal. apollo 9 launching march 3rd, 1969 with three astronauts the first test of a lunar module in space. apollo 10 in 1969 moved within 50,000 feet of the lunar surface. that would be a dress rehearsal for apollo 11 commanded by neil armstrong. >> what will your plans be in the unlikely event that the mod...

Spacecraft, to get them home. >> were trying to come up with some good ideas here for you. >> reporter: one was to shut down the command module to conserve its remaining energy. use the lunar module as a sort of lifeline. >> we knew we had the lunar module. it had power, and batteries and oxygen. >> but not enough. >> no. but if we could use it to get us back home again but if not, we were going to transmit as long as we could so that the people would have some idea of what to do to correct for ...

They were 200,000 miles from earth. and going in the wrong direction. did you ever actually think, "i might die"? >> well, we thought our chances were about 10%. >> did you really? >> oh, yeah, when we realized after we saw the oxygen escaping that things could be, you know, really bad. >> we have broken out into space. >> as the world watched, ground control in houston faced a formidable task. think of a way for the crew to fix their spaceship, test it, and then write up step-by-step procedures...