TEN THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE APOLLO 11 MOON LANDING

TEN THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT THE APOLLO 11 MOON LANDING By Craig Nelson  Popular Science July 13, 2009 http://www.popsci.com/military-aviation-amp-space/article/2009-06/40-years-l ater-ten-things-you-didnt-know-about-apollo-ii-moon-landing This month marks the 40th anniversary of humankind's first steps on the moon. Auspiciously timed is Craig Nelson's new book, Rocket Men <http://bit.ly/16qwwf> -- one of the most detailed accounts of the period leading up to the first manned moon mission. Here, we have ten little-known Apollo 11 facts unearthed by Nelson during his research. 1. The Apollo¹s Saturn rockets were packed with enough fuel to throw 100-pound shrapnel three miles, and NASA couldn¹t rule out the possibility that they might explode on takeoff. NASA seated its VIP spectators three and a half miles from the launchpad. 2. The Apollo computers had less processing power than a cellphone. 3. Drinking water was a fuel-cell by-product, but Apollo 11¹s hydrogen-gas filters didn¹t work, making every drink bubbly. Urinating and defecating in zero gravity, meanwhile, had not been figured out; the latter was so troublesome that at least one astronaut spent his entire mission on an anti-diarrhea drug to avoid it. 4. When Apollo 11¹s lunar lander, the Eagle, separated from the orbiter, the cabin wasn¹t fully depressurized, resulting in a burst of gas equivalent to popping a champagne cork. It threw the module¹s landing four miles off-target. 5. Pilot Neil Armstrong nearly ran out of fuel landing the Eagle, and many at mission control worried he might crash. Apollo engineer Milton Silveira, however, was relieved: His tests had shown that there was a small chance the exhaust could shoot back into the rocket as it landed and ignite the remaining propellant. 6. The "one small step for man" wasn¹t actually that small. Armstrong set the ship down so gently that its shock absorbers didn¹t compress. He had to hop 3.5 feet from the Eagle¹s ladder to the surface. 7. When Buzz Aldrin joined Armstrong on the surface, he had to make sure not to lock the Eagle's door because there was no outer handle. 8. The toughest moonwalk task? Planting the flag. NASA¹s studies suggested that the lunar soil was soft, but Armstrong and Aldrin found the surface to be a thin wisp of dust over hard rock. They managed to drive the flagpole a few inches into the ground and film it for broadcast, and then took care not to accidentally knock it over. 9. The flag was made by Sears, but NASA refused to acknowledge this because they didn¹t want "another Tang." 10. The inner bladder of the space suits -- the airtight liner that keeps the astronaut¹s body under Earth-like pressure -- and the ship¹s computer¹s ROM chips were handmade by teams of ³little old ladies.² Craig Nelson uncovered these facts in various NASA archives while researching his new book, Rocket Men (Viking; $28): http://bit.ly/16qwwf ------------      SomaLife International Specializing in Health and Wealth 24 7 One SomaLife at a time! http://SomaLife.net/Roy1