XPost: alt.space, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.politics.usa

Science Channel : "Apollo - The Forgotten Films" :

Fair review of Apollo 11 and what led up to it. Long
forgotten/missing vids included along with comments
by surviving NASA/astronaut staff.

Armstrong WAS indeed The Guy - kind of a "Capt Scully"
type - the more extreme the situation the calmer and
more focused he became. Bear in mind A-11 was like
fifteen or twenty SECONDS from an abort - or death.

The designated landing area was CRAP - full of huge
nasty boulders. The 60s micro-computer kept screwing
up during the whole descent. Important switches got
broken off. Armstrong had to manually fly it down, a
big fragile spacecraft balanced over a single engine.
That doesn't always work so well for probes even now.

In short it BARELY worked. If we hadn't been keen
on out-doing the USSR it'd have not been done
at all. The tech really wasn't quite there.

As for Armstrong ... he was never quite normal after
that trip. He became very withdrawn and developed
an interest in 'aliens'.

Some of the new 'alien' shows say he switched to
an alt channel and reported that "They" were
watching from the crater rim. True or false,
actual meaning ... hard to say. Aldrin had a
different personality, went on to do many
other things, and never said (or admitted)
anything about 'aliens'.

Interesting sub-section of the doc ... how astronauts
were taken to extreme desert and jungle areas to train
for survival should their landing be seriously off-target.
Snake was reported to be pretty tasty - IF you were
hungry enough :-)

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