First words spoken on the Moon?

stoneill

Question at pub quiz was what were the first words spoken from the surface of the moon.
I figured it was a trick question and couldn’t be the obvious One Small Step for Man,
and said it the first words were Tranquilty Base here, the Eagle has landed.
The more pendantic in the group were saying stuff like engine shutdown or engine off.

Anyway the quiz master went with One Small Step, I say he’s wrong. What do you think?

Rulmeq

If they were being pedantic that it was spoken by someone from the surface of the moon, then they are wrong, because he spoke it from the steps of the LM, not the surface of the moon*. Also, as an aside, he's pointed out that he made a mistake in those words. He meant to say "A small step for a man..." which of course makes far more sense than what he said.


*I'm basing this on the assumption that the sound track/video are in correctly in sync, it's possible they are not.

tricky D

Contact light.
Ok, engines stop.

were the first words from the landed module.

Around 4.43

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_OD2V6fMLQ

coylemj

Rulmeq wrote: »

If they were being pedantic that it was spoken by someone from the surface of the moon, then they are wrong, because he spoke it from the steps of the LM, not the surface of the moon*.

I'm pretty certain that Armstrong said the 'that's one small step...' stuff after he stepped onto the surface, not while he was still on the LM steps.

emo72

coylemj wrote: »

I'm pretty certain that Armstrong said the 'that's one small step...' stuff after he stepped onto the surface, not while he was still on the LM steps.

I thought he started that sentence as he was walking down the ladder?

Rulmeq

coylemj wrote: »

I'm pretty certain that Armstrong said the 'that's one small step...' stuff after he stepped onto the surface, not while he was still on the LM steps.

It's possible, but my recollection of the video is that he was saying it as he was descending.

valoren

Contact Light

Buzz Aldrin said the first words. He was monitoring a blue indicator light in the Lunar Module which would light up when one of the landing probes on the lander's 'legs' touched the surface of the moon, when seeing this, the flight plan stated that he would call out 'Contact Light' which was to prompt Armstrong to immediately switch off the descent engine and allow the lander to fall the last few feet.

An episode of QI went about this same question.

The logic is that if you are sitting in a car and you talk are you not on Earth, are you not talking on Earth?
You don't need to be in physical contact with the surface of a celestial body to be on it.

The first words from the surface we all know.

I remember another ambiguous quiz question which asked what the largest organ in the human body was. The answer is Skin but the quizzer said it was the Liver, it was supposed to be a trick question. You answer skin but it's not inside hurr hurr.

However, as above, would the inside of the skin (the under side) not be deemed to be inside the body? The question was scrapped.

coylemj

Rulmeq wrote: »

It's possible, but my recollection of the video is that he was saying it as he was descending.

He paused for a while at the foot of the ladder (standing on one of the 'footpads') and told Mission Control: 'I'm at the foot of the ladder, the LEM footpads are only depressed in the surface about one or two inches'.

He gave a description of the surface ('powdery'), then said: 'going to step off the LEM now'. He then stepped onto the lunar surface and said 'that's one small step.....'


Jump to 1:30 ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtwSgvstl8c

rushfan

Before I read down the thread I was thinking "Contact ", I'll stick with that.

coylemj

If I was setting a quiz, this is one that I would definitely steer clear of. To avoid a riot you'd end up caving in and giving the point to anyone who said 'Houston, Tranquillity base here...' or 'that's one small step.....' and you'd just look like a fool.

And we now know that 'Houston, Tranquillity base here.... is not the correct answer since the 'contact light...' words were spoken from inside the LM at the point of touchdown.

Wibbs

I'd personally go with "Ok, engines stop.". When Buzz called "Contact light" they were still technically in flight, well fall.

Funny enough and from what I recall "Ok, engines stop." was the least said of any of the Apollo landings. On the rest of the missions they went through more of the landing checklist after landing. So more like: Pro, engine arm off, Descent engine command override off, cycle main shutoff valve, Bus B closed, Regs closed, Master arm on, Descent vented, kinda thing.

My fave "first words" are from Pete Conrad: "Whoopie!!!! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but it's a long one for me". Pete was shorter than Neill so he had longer to drop from the ladder to the footpad...

That drop was unexpected as they had thought the landing legs would have been compressed a little more so the drop wouldn't have been as long. When Neill made his way to the pad he then jumped back up to the first rung to make sure he could.

IIRC a couple of them noted the sun being very bright and one chap, I can't recall who, noted "boy, that pad is very loose isn't it?" Being of a nervy disposition my reaction to that would have been along the lines of What did you say?

tricky D

Wibbs wrote: »

Funny enough and from what I recall "Ok, engines stop." was the least said of any of the Apollo landings. On the rest of the missions they went through more of the landing checklist after landing. So more like: Pro, engine arm off, Descent engine command override off, cycle main shutoff valve, Bus B closed, Regs closed, Master arm on, Descent vented, kinda thing.

A11 might have had a greater imperative to shut down as they only had 25ish seconds of fuel left. Actually more due to sloshing in the tank.


As for 'Contact light' vs 'Ok, engines stop.', what counts as down: the probes touching (first contact = reached the Moon) or weight borne on the pads (down and landed). Pedantic (happily so) stuff or what....:P

mickmackey1

I would say 'one small step' otherwise Neil and Buzz were both first on the moon and Neil wouldn't be more famous lol.

Wibbs

tricky D wrote: »

A11 might have had a greater imperative to shut down as they only had 25ish seconds of fuel left. Actually more due to sloshing in the tank.

Not really. All missions called for immediate shutdown of the engine on "contact light". There had been a concern of dust/rock blowback and back pressure in the engine bell if the engine stayed on until actual touchdown.

They weren't that low on fuel either. They had 20 odd seconds of fuel for landing and as you say the sloshing in the tanks - not fixed until after 12 IIRC - was giving off low fuel warnings. The original plan had been to have about 120 seconds left on landing shutdown as a margin, but Neill had to increase the time in Program 66(when the computers gave manual attitude control on final approach) to overfly the original landing zone as there were too many rocks. They had separate Abort fuel. That Abort would have been triggered automatically if the seconds of landing fuel had run out. They also had separate lunar lift off ascent stage fuel.

So yeah what with the 1202 program alarms pinging on the way down, the low fuel alarms, Houston in their ears counting down, both guys watching the clocks and readings and it being the first with the world's expectations on them and their craft, it was tense and the two guys had nerves of steel, but 20 seconds of fuel in hand when you're a few feet away from touchdown was "plenty".

As for 'Contact light' vs 'Ok, engines stop.', what counts as down: the probes touching (first contact = reached the Moon) or weight borne on the pads (down and landed). Pedantic (happily so) stuff or what....:P

I'd still say down and landed myself. They were on the moon, not above barely touching it.

Capt'n Midnight

Wibbs wrote: »

Not really. All missions called for immediate shutdown of the engine on "contact light". There had been a concern of dust/rock blowback and back pressure in the engine bell if the engine stayed on until actual touchdown.

The Russians had a very different philosophy for engines on their lander.

The US used two stages each with one engine.

The Russians used one stage with two engines. The main engine had the central nozzle. The second engine split into two nozzles on either side of the main one.

So a lot more deadweight but a possibility of continuing if one engine couldn't be used.

coylemj

That number of seconds of fuel being quoted..... was that actual seconds before the tank ran dry and the engine stopped? Or was it the number of seconds before they reached a level of fuel whereby they had to land i.e. couldn't abort and return to the CM?

My understanding is that once the count ran to zero, they still had fuel to continue searching for a landing spot but not enough to return to the CM.

stoneill

At least the "Good luck Mr Gorski" reference hasn't come up yet.

SOPHIE THE DOG

coylemj wrote: »

That number of seconds of fuel being quoted..... was that actual seconds before the tank ran dry and the engine stopped? Or was it the number of seconds before they reached a level of fuel whereby they had to land i.e. couldn't abort and return to the CM?

My understanding is that once the count ran to zero, they still had fuel to continue searching for a landing spot but not enough to return to the CM.

==================================================

Once the count ran to zero, they had to stop searching for a landing spot, jettison the descent engine and fire the ascent engine so that they could to return to the CM.

Zubeneschamali

Their interest in the depth the footpad sank and the powdery surface is because there was a theory that the Moon could have deep pools of moondust which in a vacuum might behave like a liquid, and the lander or astronauts might sink some distance into it.

coylemj

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Their interest in the depth the footpad sank and the powdery surface is because there was a theory that the Moon could have deep pools of moondust which in a vacuum might behave like a liquid, and the lander or astronauts might sink some distance into it.

Lots of US and Russian unmanned probes had soft landed on the Moon before Apollo 11, they knew the surface was firm and able to bear the weight of the LM.

Surely a vacuum would make a powdery surface even more firm than if there was an atmosphere? No gas molecules would force the grains of powder closer together into an almost solid mass.

Zubeneschamali

coylemj wrote: »

Lots of US and Russian unmanned probes had soft landed on the Moon before Apollo 11, they knew the surface was firm and able to bear the weight of the LM.

Surely a vacuum would make a powdery surface even more firm than if there was an atmosphere? No gas molecules would force the grains of powder closer together into an almost solid mass.

The fear was that the dust might be in pools - previous probes might not hit a pool, doesn't mean this one won't.

Yes, the dust would be very dense, but the theory was it would flow like a liquid in the absence of air to blow it around or suspend it. The lander would then have floated in the dust, but the feet would have sunk in.

Capt'n Midnight

coylemj wrote: »

That number of seconds of fuel being quoted..... was that actual seconds before the tank ran dry and the engine stopped? Or was it the number of seconds before they reached a level of fuel whereby they had to land i.e. couldn't abort and return to the CM?

My understanding is that once the count ran to zero, they still had fuel to continue searching for a landing spot but not enough to return to the CM.

That was the previous mission where they dropped down in the LM to have a close look.

The powers that be decided the astronauts couldn't be trusted not to land accidentally on purpose so they deliberatley didn't give them enough fuel.