Word: journey
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...ground: "You are go for PDI [powered descent insertion]." Again Eagle's descent engine fired, beginning a twelve-minute burn that was scheduled to end only when the craft was within two yards of the lunar surface. One of the most dangerous parts of Apollo 11 's long journey had begun...
Other stages of the flight had been ?and would be?dangerous enough. At any point during the eight-day journey, a massive failure of the electrical or oxygen systems, or a collision with a large meteor would almost surely result in tragedy. But lift-off was the most nerve-racking part of the mission. If the ascent engine had failed to start, Eagle would have been stranded on the lunar surface. Too short a burn would have tossed the module into a trajectory that would send it smashing back onto the lunar surface. Had the LM achieved an orbit...
...early part of Apollo 11 's epic journey had been as uneventful as the later part was suspenseful. Lift-off was nearly perfect. Rising Phoenix-like above its own exhaust flames, a scant 724 milliseconds behind schedule, the giant rocket shook loose some 1,300 Ibs. of ice that had frozen on its white sides. Although it was the heaviest space vehicle ever fired aloft?6,484,289 Ibs. at ignition?it cleared the launch tower in twelve seconds...
...embrace and send it toward the moon. At a point 43,495 miles from the moon, lunar gravity exerted a force equal to the gravity of the earth, then some 200,000 miles distant. Beyond that crest, lunar gravity predominated, and Apollo was on the "downhill" leg of its journey...
Thus did Armstrong and Aldrin set out on that last, epochal one-hundredth of 1% of the outbound journey. Some nine hours later, while Columbia was out of contact on the far side of the moon, Armstrong and Aldrin stepped down from the ungainly looking Eagle?and into history. It was a moment that would surely survive long after the criticism that has accompanied every step of the space program is forgotten?understandable as that criticism may be in view of the pressing problems back on earth. It was, too, a moment that symbolized man's wondrous capacity for questing...