APOLLO 11 - A HISTÓRIA NÃO CONTADA.

Video from the channel CANAL C. ESTÚDIO about Apollo 11, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 1:54:44. Language: Portuguese. Video type: Documentary.

Documentary in Portuguese that reconstructs the Apollo 11 mission with footage recovered from NASA's archives. It is accompanied by testimonies from participants and witnesses: astronaut Michael Collins; Fred Haise, backup pilot for the lunar module; Joan Morgan, an instrumentation controller in launch control; flight directors Gerry Griffin and Glynn Lunney; physician Bill Carpentier; journalist Jay Barbree, of NBC; and a childhood friend of Neil Armstrong. The account follows the mission from start to finish: launch, journey to the Moon, landing, return and quarantine.

The piece recalls the background: Gagarin's flight in April 1961, Kennedy's speech, the Mercury program with Glenn's Friendship 7, and the selection of test pilots as astronauts. Then came Gemini, with ten two-crew missions that tested spacewalks and dockings. Cooper and Conrad's Gemini 5 lasted eight days and showed that the human body could withstand a lunar trip. The Apollo 1 fire, which killed Grissom, White and Chaffee in a pure-oxygen atmosphere, forced a redesign of the spacecraft: an oxygen-nitrogen mix, non-flammable interior and a quick-opening outward hatch. By October 1968 the spacecraft was ready. Before that, the Ranger, Surveyor and Lunar Orbiter probes had explored the surface. The Surveyor, upon landing, showed there was no deep layer of dust, and after seven years of study the Sea of Tranquility was chosen.

The three-stage Saturn V lifted off at 13:32 from Pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, before more than a million spectators in Brevard County. Mission control had an average age of 27. After trans-lunar injection, Collins docked with and extracted the lunar module. Entering lunar orbit behind the Moon caused about 35 minutes without contact. Collins stayed in the Columbia while Armstrong and Aldrin descended in the Eagle. During the descent there were communication dropouts and the computer's 1201 and 1202 alarms went off, but mission control cleared them to continue. While capcom Charlie Duke called out the fuel remaining, Armstrong flew manually to avoid a crater. The landing took place on July 20, 1969, and more than five hundred million people watched the first step live. The walk lasted about two hours. After lifting off with the single ascent engine and rejoining Collins, the crew returned in three days, splashed down in the Pacific and was recovered by the USS Hornet. They then spent 21 days in quarantine at the Lunar Receiving Laboratory.