All language subtitles for Apollo Back to the Moon Series 1 1of2 Impossible Challenge 720p

(music)

Narrator: On July 20, 1969,
at 9:56 pm houston time,

American astronaut neil
armstrong sets foot

On the moon bringing to an end
an unprecedented scientific
race between the ussr

And the united states.

Matthew: People around the
world were glued to the images:

Showing neil armstrong stepping
off the ladder of the lunar

Module and taking the first
steps on the lunar surface.

Narrator: The moon landing
makes the apollo space program
the most ambitious in history.

It had cost nearly 140
billion dollars in today's
money and more than

400,000 people were involved.

It would be impossible to
reproduce such a project
on this scale today.

Even at the time, there was
no certainty that america
would succeed in beating

The russians to the moon.

Glynn: That was virtually
impossible to do.

In the time frame that we had.

Jeffrey: Nasa's budget is
currently $20 billion, compared
to that 60 billion back then.

Narrator: Since the end of the
apollo program, mankind has
never returned to the moon,

Only memories remain of this
phenomenal adventure,

Along with video footage
much degraded over time.

Ed: The original
pictures are really hard
to tell what's going on.

If you could see neil's foot
coming down on that picture,
you're a better man than I am.

Narrator: But now, using
new technology,

We can recreate the key steps
of this extraordinary

Space program to relive
the apollo story as it has
never been seen before.

Astronauts, flight directors
and engineers share their
memories of both the triumphs

And the tragedies during
the most intense years
of this space race.

Gene: We were startled by
screams coming from the crew,

And we listened to
our crew die.

Narrator: This is a story that
almost finished before it
began with the tragic deaths

Of the first apollo
astronauts and nearly
ended as dramatically

With an explosion
on apollo 13.

Fred: My instant feeling
was just a sick feeling
in the pit of my stomach,

Because I knew we
had lost the landing.

Jay: We're going to
get these guys back.

"failure is not an option."

Narrator: But in July
1969, apollo 11 had
a date with destiny.

It's the bet made by a
president and an
entire country.

Narrator: July 18, 1969,
55,000 miles from the moon.

American astronauts buzz
aldrin and neil armstrong
exit through the upper hatch

Of the apollo 11 command
module to go inspect the
lunar module, the eagle.

Jeffrey: The lunar module is
the most beautiful machine
ever engineered and built.

Some of the things that made
the lm such a challenge

Was that it had to be
a very powerful,

Very sturdy, very
robust machine.

But it couldn't weigh
anything at all.

Narrator: Two days later,
the incredible american
spacecraft must attempt

The first ever manned lunar
landing in history.

The mood is tense: The
23-foot-high lunar module
has never been fully tested

In real conditions.

And in mission control
in houston, many were
preparing for the worst.

Ed: I did not think
we were going to make
it on this mission.

I figured we would land,
probably, the fourth attempt.

Matthew: The united states was
prepared for the eventuality

That the astronauts would be
lost on the surface of the
moon.

Narrator: There's no
going back.

The apollo spacecraft attached
to the eagle lunar module is
hurtling toward the moon,

Preparing for its
entry into lunar orbit.

It was a journey apollo
missions 8 and 10 already
made some months earlier.

The difference this time,
though, is huge: Apollo 11
will have to land on the moon

And take off again.

Everything is going as
planned, but some confidential
information causes alarm

At nasa headquarters
in houston.

Matthew: At the same
time that apollo 11 was
launching toward the moon,

The soviet union was
readying and even launching
its own spacecraft

On a similar journey.

Narrator: Luna 15, an unmanned
soviet probe, was launched
three days before apollo 11.

It is already in orbit around
the moon and is preparing for
its lunar landing.

America is not the only nation
committed to conquering space.

The ussr is a formidable
adversary, willing to do
anything to be the first

On lunar ground.

A collision with luna
could be fatal to the
american astronauts.

And in the middle
of the cold war,

A dramatic event like this
would have unprecedented
consequences.

Matthew: Concerned that luna
15 would strike apollo, nasa
had one of its astronauts,

Frank borman, reach out to a
contact in the soviet union,

President of the soviet
academy of sciences,
vislak kelvish,

But was unable to have a
conversation with him

Because borman did not
speak russian and kelvish
did not speak english.

Narrator: By the time
nasa manages to get ahold
of luna 15's flight plans,

The fate of the two rival
missions is already sealed:

Apollo 11 and luna 15 will
never cross paths.

Narrator: The first
will make history.

The second, the soviet
mission, will crash into the
moon in the sea of crises,

13 hours after neil
armstrong's first step.

The incident marks the height
of space race tensions between
the soviets and the americans:

A competition that began
ten years earlier and
knew no bounds.

October 4, 1957.

A small probe some 23 inches
in diameter enters orbit
590 miles above the earth.

Its name is sputnik,
and it is russian.

S beep will taunt the
united states, amidst a cold
war where the scientific

Competition between
the two world powers is, in
reality, a military rivalry.

Matthew: The american
scientific and intelligence

Community knew that the
russians would launch a
satellite

Probably in 1957 or 1958.

It was also frightening
because the ability to launch
a satellite was the same

As the ability to lob
a nuclear warhead.

Narrator: America, as well,
must prove that space
belongs to it.

The vanguard program will
be its weapon against
the soviet satellite.

Almost two months to the day
after the success of sputnik,

America launches an attempt
in view of the entire
world's cameras.

Jay: It rose about 2 feet
off the ground,

And it, rocket crumbled and it
was thrown out in the weeds.

Narrator: When it explodes
3 feet off the ground, the
vanguard satellite

Is the disgrace of the
american superpower.

It is an excruciating failure.

Jeffrey: The russians
had already had sputnik,
and as a result,

The headline the next
day when vanguard blew
up was "kaputnik,"

Because we had just
disgraced ourselves.

So, we were in a footrace.

Narrator: Buoyed by their
success, the soviets
launch the luna program,

Then accomplish a
victory by sending the
first man into space.

Indisputably, the
ussr is a pioneer.

Jeffrey: Russia
had bigger rockets.

Russia had more
robust spacecraft.

Russia had flown higher.
They had flown further.

Yuri gagarin was the first
human being to go to space.

Narrator: But the united
states has a sizable
advantage: Money.

Behind the scenes, an army of
talent is making preparations
at a space agency

Created just three
years previously: Nasa.

The government agency in
charge of developing

And managing civil space
exploration projects.

John fitzgerald kennedy,
just sworn in as president,

Is to be the face of this
new, victorious america.

Narrator: On September 12, 1962
at rice university in houston,

Kennedy delivers a landmark
speech, one that galvanizes
an entire nation.

The apollo program is born.

Pres. Kennedy: We choose
to go to the moon.

We choose to go to the
moon in this decade and
do the other things,

Not because they are
easy but because they
are hard, because

Jeffrey: John kennedy spoke
millions of words in his
career as a public servant.

But in that speech,
there was one verb, it
was the verb "choose."

It said, "we choose
to go to the moon."

And that said something
very powerful about
american initiative,

About america's
pioneering experience.

Gene: We'd blown up our
second atlas rockets.

And we had launched alan shepard
so we had a total of 20 minutes
manned space flight experience.

We'd never been to orbit,
and we were challenged
to go to the moon.

Glynn: Our reaction
was, "my goodness!

The president has asked us to do
something that's impossible!"

So we said, "ok, but he
asked us to do it, so we
might as well go do it."

Narrator: A practically
impossible gamble for a program
that was already colossal,

And whose proposed budget was
met with resistance by kennedy.

Matthew: Shortly after
making his challenge, uh,
to land a man on the moon,

President kennedy tried to
walk back from this request,

Arguing that perhaps a moon
landing was so expensive and
dangerous.

Narrator: Kennedy, in the end,
goes as far as to declare that
america will be on the moon

Before the end of the 60s.

The president, however, won't
see his dream fulfilled.

Dent

Is assassinated in dallas,
texas.

But his call to
action had been heard.

And across the country, tens
of thousands of young people
already had one dream:

To be part of the adventure.

Jim: I answered an ad, um,
which was simply a picture
of the moon and it said:

Our job is to think our way
to the moon and back.

Glynn: When we landed on the
moon, the average age in the
control center

Of the core of people who made
technical decisions was 27
years old.

Jack: There was this whole
generation of kennedy's kids

That wanted to be
involved in science

And technology on the
space program.

Not just space, other areas too,
and it happened in technology,
it happened in medicine,

It happened across the
board because of this spirit
of: This is what we can do,

This what we're
capable of doing.

Narrator: In 1967, the
mercury and subsequent
gemini programs,

Launched with the
creation of nasa, have
met their objectives.

The american space agency is
confident, and apollo's test
flights with astronauts

Can now begin.

Mission as-204, later
renamed apollo 1, is
prepared for in record time.

Matthew: In their effort to
beat the soviet union to the
moon, nasa worked very quickly,

As did its contractors.

Astronauts described working
at nasa in this period as
succumbing to a kind of go

Fever, in which, recognizing
that the stakes were high,

Tried very hard to ready a
craft for travel as quickly
as possible.

Narrator: On January
27, 1967 the crew,
made up of gus grissom,

Ed white and roger chaffee,
begins a trial in the apollo
vessel on the ground

In real time, at the top
of the rocket.

The launch is scheduled to
take place one month later.

But as soon as they're
enclosed in the sealed command
module, the team realizes

That communication with
the ground teams is not
going well.

Gene: We had
difficulties with our
countdown procedures.

We had difficulty
with communications.

The crew reported noxious
odor inside the spacecraft.

And we'd call a halt, sort out
problems and then continue on.

Narrator: After five hours
running tests, a short circuit

Is detected in the
ectrical system.

Gene: At 6:27 that evening, we
again shut down the countdown
before we transferred

From external power on the
launchpad to internal
power on the spacecraft.

And four minutes after we
were startled by screams
coming from the crew,

And we listened to
our crew die.

Narrator: Within seconds, a
spark turns the oxygen-filled
spacecraft

Into a raging inferno.

The fire is so violent
that the three astronauts
are burned alive.

The following recording
contains the cockpit audio
at the time of the accident:

(melancholic music)

Narrator: Roger chaffee,
the youngest of them,
was about to turn 32.

Jay: Gus grissom who died
in the apollo 1 fire,

He talked to me 10 days before
he died in the fire.

He says. "that apollo
spacecraft is a lemon.

They got so many things wrong
with it, it's going in all
directions, it's not safe.

We gotta get that
straightened out."

Glynn: We thought we had
apollo fixed, um, and,

And there really were some
warning signs that it was not.

And we paid the price,
and the crew paid the ultimate
price for that overconfidence.

Narrator: Th the
spacecraft's interior
literally melted,

It took over two hours to
recover the bodies.

Jeffrey: Nasa knew, the
astronauts knew, the
administrators knew,

"we pushed too hard.

We pushed too fast.

And we all knew that this
spacecraft had problems,

That this spacecraft
could kill somebody."

And the very first one
before anyone flew,

The very first of those
spacecraft did kill somebody.

Narrator: Nasa is immediately
questioned over its handling
of the apollo program.

The public wants someone held
accountable, even if this
means the moon must wait.

Gene: We were the problem.
We did not do our job.

We must accept the
responsibility

For this accident,
the loss of the crew.

Narrator: At nasa, some
executives are ousted

And even abandoning kennedy's
dream is on the table.

Gene: We had to convince the
people, people of our nation,
our bosses, the politicians,

That we were smart enough
to continue this program that
would take people to the moon.

And this was the real challenge.

Narrator: In the end, the
apollo program is reviewed
from top to bottom

Over the course of
almost two years.

Among the details, a key
component stands out: The
command and service module,

Which must take the
astronauts to the moon.

And enable the success of a
mission that no one expected
to fly so soon:

Apollo 8.

That it had the most
successful spaceship
ever created:

The csm, or command and
service module, which
consisted of two basic parts.

One contained life support
supplies, fuel and the
propulsion system,

And the other housed the team.

Matthew: The apollo spacecraft
was an almost unimaginably

Complex collection of parts.

The instrument panel of
the command module itself

Had nearly 500 switches.

Narrator: Only the command
module will return to earth,

But the journey will
put it to the test.

It is a conundrum for
the company in charge
of its design.

Because, as few people know,
the agency only oversaw

The manufacture of the
apollo program's elements.

For the first time in history,
a space agency will mobilize

An unheard-of number of
subcontractors.

Matthew: People often forget
that 9 out of every 10 dollars

That nasa spent on the
moon race was spent on
american contractors.

There were in fact thousands of
contractors and subcontractors
all across the united states

That were responsible
for building every
component of apollo.

Roger: The direct numbers
associated with the apollo
program at the height

Of the program in the
mid-1960s and were about

36,000 nasa employees

And about 360,000
contractors, so we're
approaching 400,000 people.

Narrator: Among them, north
american aviation,

The company that won the
contract for the apollo
spacecraft.

But its production is
so burdensome that
delays build up,

And in 1965 nasa demands that
the module be ready for 1967.

The deadly apollo 1
accident hits the brakes
on its manufacture.

But it also allows the
redesign of the vessel and
the attainment in the end,

Of perfection.

The apollo program
can continue.

But after several successful
test missions, a piece of
confidential information

Interrupts nasa's plans.

The agency decides to
take a foolhardy risk.

Spring 1968.

The cia learns that the
ussr is preparing to launch
a manned zond mission

Around the moon by
the end of the year.

The news is a
bombshell for nasa.

Roger: The russians looked
like they were making a
push to send a cosmonaut

To the moon in time for the
anniversary in October
of the soviet

Bolshevik revolution and the
americans were concerned

That they might stick
somebody on there and send
them to the moon and beat us.

Bill: Keep in mind
that apollo was not a
program of exploration.

It was a program to
beat the soviet union.

Matthew: The rocket
was ready; the apollo
command module was ready.

But the apollo lunar
module was not.

As a result, a decision
was made to shuffle the test
missions that were scheduled,

And to try to launch
astronauts to the moon
as quickly as possible.

Narrator: The lunar module, the
final link in the program which
must detach from the spacecraft

And go down to the
moon, is far from ready.

It will be impossible to
do a test run in space.

And so, for the united states
to be the first to send a crew
into orbit around the moon,

Nasa decides to go without
the lunar module and
to move up its timeline.

Testing must wait, and
against all expectations,

Apollo 8 is entrusted with a
then-inconceivable goal.

Jeffrey: Nasa made
the outrageous,
improbable decision

To move apollo 9 up to
apollo 8, not to make it
an earth-orbit flight,

And just to say to these
guys, "you know our schedule.

Take this ship out to the
moon. Orbit it ten times.

And come home.

That will change our program
and will change humanity."

Narrator: Bill anders,
slated to test the lunar
module in flight,

Accepts the mission with james
lovell and frank borman.

The crew was supposed
to spend christmas with
family in acapulco.

Instead, they are to
orbit the moon, with no
guarantee of success.

Not far from the launch pad
where apollo 1's men died
only two years earlier.

7:51 am, saturn v lifts off.

Bill: We had simulated almost
every aspect of the mission,

With every failure
you could imagine,

But we did not simulate
the actual stresses

In vibrations of the
initial liftoff.

It was just unbelievable.

It was so loud, uh, you
couldn't hear yourself think;

It was so violent that
it just threw you

Around like a rat in
the jaws of a terrier.

But I thought to myself,
"my gosh, if we missed that
part of the simulation,

What else have we missed?"

Gene: That, I think, was
probably the riskiest mission
that we'd ever flown

In the history of the apollo
program.

Because, uh, we were doing
everything for the first time.

All the software
on board the spacecraft
and in mission control,

All the techniques that we
used for navigation had to
be, essentially, proven.

Narrator: After 9 minutes
in flight, the spacecraft
separates from the first

Two stages and enters
earth orbit.

Then it pulls itself away
from earth's gravity, heading
straight for the moon.

After 25 hours in flight,

Houston's capcom, responsible
for communicating with the
crew, read the newspaper

Headlines to the astronauts
as they experience life in
zero gravity.

Bill: When I got out of
my seat, I wanted to see
how zero gravity felt.

Narrator: But even as the
astronauts enjoy the pleasures
of space, on the ground,

The engineers are very
concerned: Apollo 8 still
has a critical ment

In store for the crew.

Philippe: On apollo 8 for the
first time a spacecraft is
going to go behind the moon.

Since there is no satellite
beyond the moon to transmit
communications,

Communication is cut
off, as the moon becomes,
essentially, a shield.

Narrator: The astronauts never
speak openly about their fears.

For 32 minutes, the three men
will be cut off from the world
and left on their own in space.

But what if things
don't go as planned?

Jack: Apollo 8 was everything,
oh my god what if something

Goes wrong so we're going
to the moon for the first
time with humans.

It's like, anything you're
doing for the first time.

You're worried about
every step of the way not
just this one or this one.

That's the case here, we
worried about all of it.

Jeffrey: There's
a pilot's code.

If any of the other
guys had had a moment
of crisis or panic,

They wouldn't talk about it.

And they never
will talk about it.

Narrator: Apollo 8 will be
the mission to allow humans
to see, with their own eyes,

The far side of the moon, the
side never visible from earth.

Bill: We were surprised that,
whereas the front side of the
moon is relatively smooth.

The backside was very rough,
and there's still some debate
as to why that's the case.

Narrator: Lovell and anders
are so captivated when they
see the far side of the moon

That borman has to remind
them to focus on an extremely
delicate maneuver.

In the flight's 69th
hour, the spacecraft
must enter lunar orbit.

To do this, the engines
will be turned back on for
a little over four minutes.

Bill: The lunar orbit
insertion maneuver was
a very dangerous event.

If we burned too long, we would
crash into the moon before we
came out on the other side.

If we didn't burn enough,
we'd go off into space
around the moon and

God knows where we'd go.

Narrator: The astronauts will
go on to describe this episode

As the longest four
minutes of their lives.

But it all goes as planned.

They do some reconnaissance
work to scope out

Possible landing spots
for future missions,

But they never have the
chance to land on the moon.

From their cockpit, their
consolation prize is found
in the breathtaking views,

So spectacular that
after several orbits
around the moon,

The commander imposes
mandatory sleeping
hours to the crew.

Philippe: So, will
anders grumbles, he
doesn't agree with him,

He stays there looking
out the window, but
borman tells him:

"now, no arguing. Go to bed."

Narrator: The sight they've
just taken in is, indeed,
one never before seen by man.

The astonished crew takes
some 700 photographs.

One exceptnal shot will
be seen around the world.

Narrator: During their fourth
trip around the moon, the
astronauts of apollo 8

Happen upon an overwhelming
sight: An "earthrise."

Jeffrey: I think it was
borman who spotted it
first, and said,

"look at that!
It's beautiful!

We've got the earth."

Bill: Lovell sent me, grabbed
me some color film,

And I started taking pictures.

Jeffrey: They take
a bunch of pictures.

And then the scene changes
and the shot is lost.

They did not know what
they had in that camera.

Narrator: One of these
photographs, said to be
taken by bill anders,

Will become an iconic image.

And yet, some historians
can't say conclusively
who the photographer was.

Matthew: One astronaut of the
crew, and to this day we're
still not entirely sure

Who, managed to take the
iconic earth rise image,

Which was immediately
celebrated by the public

Around the world
as a staggering image.

Narrator: Dozens of shots were
taken, but within a few months,

This one came to represent
an entire mission.

And our world.

Fred: It did show obviously
the whole earth with the
small halo around it

That represents
our atmosphere.

And a rather beautiful
body, compared to
looking at the moon.

Jeffrey: When you look at that
fragile sphere, where all of
human history has taken place,

Where horrors have
played out, and where
great acts of kindness

And love have played out,
it's all on that ball.

And we must tend to it,
or we will break it.

Narrator: Nasa quickly sees
the value in filming and
broadcasting images

From space.

But its goal was not
simply to put on a show.

It also needed to justify
the billions spent on this
race to the moon.

Roger: Movies was an important
part of that process and they
realized that in the mercury

Mission when john glenn
flew in which he bought
his own camera,

A 35 millimeter camera at
a drug store and took it
with him into space.

They had not provided
anything like that for him

And he took these pictures,
brought them back,

They were developed and they
became very iconic images.

Matthew: Nasa always felt the
need to explain to the public
and particularly to congress

Why americans were spending
the money that they were
to travel through space.

And it found the
astronauts to be the best
spokespeople to do this.

Narrator: So, on December 24,
nasa decides to live broadcast
the crew of apollo 8

To the entire world: The 1968
space version of reality tv.

The shots of the lunar module
and the moon through the
spacecraft windows

Will be watched by a billion
men and women in 64 different
countries.

It is such a success that
nasa decides to include
video coverage in all

Of the apollo
program missions.

To close out this
groundbreaking live footage,

The agency asks commander
frank borman to choose
something to read from space.

Frank: And from the crew
of apollo 8, we close with
good night, good luck,

A merry christmas, and
god bless all of you, all
of you on the good earth.

Jeffrey: Frank borman
still laughs about this,
uh, he was told, "you know,

A billion people
are gonna watch us.

That's one-third of every
human being on this planet
is going to be watching you.

It will be the largest
television audience for a
single event in history.

You guys have to figure
out something to say."

Narrator: Borman will
think long and hard without
finding inspiration.

In the end, his wife will be
the one to give him the idea of
a text no one had considered.

Jeffrey: He was in his kitchen
at about 4 in the morning, and
his wife came in,

And his wife came in and said,
"it's gonna be christmas eve.

What about genesis?"

And he said, "perfect."

Frank: "in the beginning
god created the
heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form,
and void; and darkness was upon
the face of the deep."

Narrator: This reading
of genesis from space
would go down in history.

A moment of grace that would
almost erase an unknown
episode during apollo 8,

One that could have put a
premature end to the mission.

Narrator: The astronauts
of apollo 8 took off just
18 hours ago.

The commander is exhausted;
the first hours were taxing.

Bill: Frank borman decided he
would take a rest, 'cause he
was the commander

And that was a lot of
stress on him

More than the other of us had.

He took a sleeping pill
and he went to go to sleep.

Pretty soon he said, "uh-oh, I'm
sorry," and he had explosive
vomiting and diarrhea.

Narrator: Within the confined
spacecraft, panic sets in.

Bill: And I grabbed an oxygen
mask and put it on lovell.

And he said, "you're
not supposed to use
that, that's for fire."

I said, "I'm going to use it
because it smells so bad."

And so there were little
bits of stuff everywhere.

And we had little uh, paper
towels that you use on an
airplane to rub, you know,

Dry your hands.

So we started grabbing those and
trying to catch these particles
like netting butterflies.

Philippe: Borman's one of
the first astronauts

To get what we today
call space sickness.

When you move around in low
gravity, its disorienting,

The inner ear has trouble
getting its bearings

And it can bring on nausea.

Narrator: Against the better
judgement of lovell and anders,
borman insists on hiding

The incident from capcom.

The reason is simple: He knows
perfectly well that houston wil
immediately abort the mission

For sanitation reasons.

After several long minutes, he
allows nasa to be informed, but
through a confidential channel,

One that the public would
never have access to.

Jeffrey: They did report
it on a private loop,
nobody else could hear it.

The flight surgeon did
say, "I'm calling an abort.

I want you guys to turn
around and come home."

And the fact was, within
24 hours, as often happens
with motion sickness,

He had acclimated.

Roger: No pilot anywhere wants
to admit to a flight surgeon
anywhere that they cannot fly.

Wally sheragh was sick
during apollo 7,

Frank borman was sick during
apollo 8.

Armstrong and lovell had the
sniffles basically when they
came back from the moon.

There's lots of other instances
of these sorts of things

Although they're not going
to admit it very much.

Narrator: This space sickness
would become the reality for
most of the crews;

Indeed, life far from earth
presents unusual challenges.

For the apollo 8 crew, on
December 25th, it is now time o
initiate the return to earth.

One of the most intricate
stages of the mission.

After circling the moon 10
times, the astronauts must
turn the engine back on

To pull out of lunar orbit.

If they fail, apollo 8
will become a permanent
lunar satellite,

With the three astronauts'
corpses floating inside.

The engine works perfectly,
launching apollo 8 back
toward earth.

Jack: When you're coming at
that speed, the temperature
build-up is sufficient

To melt iron, very,
very high.

It's like a fire and
it interferes

With all the communications,
all that gas is coming

Around it and so you can't
talk during re-entry at all.

Narrator: The spacecraft then
jettisons the service module,

Which will burn out
in the atmosphere.

The command module and its
crew will head straight
into the pacific ocean.

Jean-françois: In low earth
orbit, you're moving at
about 5 miles per second,

17,000 miles per hour.

When you come back from
the moon, you're doing
about 7 mile per second,

So that's more than a
third faster than the
speeds encountered

In low earth orbit.

Jack: If you imagine the earth
is a big ball with some you
know atmosphere around it

And the spacecraft is
coming back from the
moon toward the earth,

The only thing that will
slow it down is the earth's
atmosphere itself.

Too shallow, you went too
far, too steep you went too
deep and it was allowed,

I think about a degree and a
half difference that's it.

Philippe: The definitive
critical element, of course,

Is the opening of
the parachutes.

There have been cases in the
history of space exploration
where this didn't go well,

For example the first soyuz
flight, soyuz 1 with russian
astronaut vladimir komarov,

The parachute didn't open
so the spacrecraft crashed,
and the astronaut died.

Narrator: On December 27,
1968, apollo 8 becomes a
legend, and frank borman,

James lovell and bill anders
become national heroes.

Bill: When apollo 8 was
launched,

The moon was very new; it
was just a thin crescent.

So even today, when, if I
look up at the moon during
that time of the month,

I get a little bit of
the hair on the back
of my neck stands up.

It reminds me, uh, that
we actually went there.

Narrator: Riding high on this
success, nasa decides it is
ready to land on the moon,

Following two other tests.

The agency then schedules
12 more missions,
through apollo 20,

To send 20 astronauts
in total to the moon.

But the story doesn't
go exactly as planned.

The three astronauts who
have a date with destiny
are michael collins,

Apollo 11's command
module pilot, buzz aldrin,
and neil armstrong,

The mission's commander who
will have to land the
astounding lunar module,

The eagle, on the moon.

To test the moon landing on
earth, nasa develops a strange
contraption, effective,

But hard to control and
particularly dangerous.

Philippe: They had to create
a pret unique spacecraft

That would fly in the
earth's atmosphere

So they could test it on
earth,

But one that would also
recreate the sensation

And the reactions it would
have during a lunar approach.

But this spacecraft was
very dangerous, there
were several accidents,

Including one during a flight
piloted by neil armstrong.

Narrator: On may 6,
1968, the future hero of
apollo 11 is in flight,

But the test spacecraft
stops responding.

Armstrong's calm composure
will save his life.

Jean-françois: If he had
ejected one or two seconds
later, he would have died.

So, he knew to make the right
decision instantaneously

Without the slightest hint of
panic or doubt in his voice.

Narrator: With grace under
pressure, neil armstrong calmly
navigates the eagle landing,

Which could have
ended in tragedy.

This extraordinary trait
will be one of nasa's
selection criteria.

In 1966, during the gemini
program, which preceded
the apollo program,

Neil armstrong became a hero.

For the first time.

Nasa thought it had lost
its crew after they lost
control of the capsule,

But armstrong's composure
would save the mission.

Who else, then, to save
apollo 11 to land on
the moon?

July 20, 1969.

Neil armstrong and buzz
aldrin have just landed
the eagle on the moon.

Ed: I was sitting there but
I wasn't touching anything.

My feet were not touching
the floor,

My backside was not
touching the chair,

And neither were my arms
touching the armrest.

I felt like I was
levitating over the chair.

Narrator: 500 million
people worldwide have
front-row seats to the show,

Thanks to satellite
broadcasting.

The whole world
holds its breath.

Matthew: People around
the world were glued
to the images:

Haunting black and white images
transmitted by radio signal to
a variety of antennas,

And then rebroadcast
around the world,

Showing a ghostly form,

Neil armstrong stepping off
the ladder of the lunar module

And taking the first steps
on the lunar surface.

Jean-françois: My parents
came to wake my sister,
my twin brother and me,

And they sat us down in front
of the television that they
had bought just for this

A few weeks earlier.

And that really left
an impression on
me in my childhood,

Left me with the desire to
go to space to experience

An extraordinary
adventure like that one.

Narrator: That July in 1969,
america won the space race.

And humanity had just
accomplished one of
the greatest feats

Of the 20th century.

Gene: It was incredible
payoff for all of the
work that we had done.

The payoff day was the
day that neil armstrong

Stepped outside the
spacecraft and got on
the surface of the moon.

Narrator: On lunar soil, even
as america cries with joy,

Neil armstrong utters a
legendary sentence,

Inspired by this magic
moment.

Neil: That's one small
step for a man, one
giant leap for mankind.

Narrator: Upon his return
to earth, he will say he
improvised it all.

These words, like apollo
11, have become legendary

And continue to generate
controversy

Even after the
astronaut's death.

(music)

(music)

Captioned by subtitlepro llc