50TH ANNIVERSARY LUNAR LANDING
32 | July• 2019
pressurisation, environmental control,
communications, range safety. There
were people concerned with each
engine in every stage of the Saturn V.
Others concentrated on instrumenta-
tion packs, cabling, hydraulic swivel
actuators, antennas, computers.
To the calm launch director, there
was “an enormous amount of static”
in the room, and the tension would
get worse, he knew. Cryogenic fuels
- the volatile liquid oxy-
gen and hydrogen – were
still being loaded, flood-
ing into the tanks at 8500
gallons [32,176 litres]
a minute. It was tricky:
to stay in liquid form,
they had to be held at
incredibly low tempera-
tures – minus 145°C for
oxygen, minus 217°C for
hydrogen.
Apollo’s crew was now
on board, the hatch still open. They
were checking their communication
with the ground. The excitement was
building. Looking out over his tech-
nicians, Petrone thought:In a few
minutes now we’ll really begin earn-
ing our pay.
THE EXCITEMENT, THE TENSION,
had spread to the waiting throngs.
There were dignitaries and diplomats,
and ordinary people who had jour-
neyed from throughout the US, from
countries around the world. Along the
beaches and on the bluffs, thousands
of telescopes were focused on the gi-
ant Apollo 11. The camping grounds
were black with sightseers sitting on
the tops of cars and caravans.
On the roads outside the Space
Center, several hundred motor-
ists gave up trying to reach vantage
points and, stopping their cars, simply
got out and climbed on to the roofs.
At the Center, in the VIP stands, admit-
tance-checking systems broke down.
But with the countdown
entering its last minutes,
who sat next to whom
did not seem to mat-
ter to the hundreds of
US congressmen, sena-
tors, governors, mayors,
Supreme Court and
Cabinet members, the
69 ambassadors, 100
foreign science ministers
and military attaches – or
even to former US Pres-
ident Lyndon Johnson and his wife.
Nearby, the press stand was jammed
with almost 3000 reporters, telephone
lines open, filing last-minute stories in
30 languages.
In Launch Room 1 the countdown
had reached minus 30 minutes. The
hatch had been closed, the crew was
isolated. The rocket escape tower on
Apollo 11’s nose was armed.
Petrone’s green clock showed mi-
nus 22 minutes. For 14 minutes liquid
oxygen now was permitted to flow
into the bowels of the great engines to
condition their liquid-oxygen pumps,Smoke billowed
out from under
Apollo. Orange
and red flames
slammed out of
the great enginesPHOTOS: GETTY IMAGES