![]() Not - curiously enough - at the Smithsonian Institution, which has moon rocks on display, but none from Apollo 11, says James Gooding, NASA's lunar sample curator since 1992. Which they did - roughly 47.4 pounds worth. ![]() But after that, he scooped up a few rocks and stuck them in a pocket on the left leg of his spacesuit.įor beyond ensuring the astronauts' safety, the most important goal of the Apollo 11 mission was bringing back moon rocks. What was the first thing Neil Armstrong did when he set foot on the moon? Well, the first thing he did was botch a mini-speech he'd been working on for days (he later admitted he meant to say, "That's one small step for a man."). Rechtin, who agrees that forgoing live coverage would have been a colossal blunder. "The argument went on for so long that by the time they got there, all they could do, at least reasonably easily, was black and white," says Dr. He says the space agency could have had color pictures of the moon landing, if only the decision had been made earlier. Kraft, who recalls making the decision in March, roughly four months before the flight.īut couldn't NASA have done something to send a better picture back to Earth?Įberhardt Rechtin, a professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California, worked with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in designing communications systems for Apollo. "I told them to go ahead and figure out how we can take the television camera] along," says Mr. Kraft refers to the arguments against live television - it had no scientific relevance, it was extra weight the lunar excursion module could do without, the astronauts could simply bring pictures back with them - as "ludicrous."Īnd since both he and Apollo Program Manager George Low were firm believers in live TV, it's not hard to figure how this dispute ended.
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