Magnificent Desolation

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Book: Read Magnificent Desolation for Free Online
Authors: Buzz Aldrin
anticipated venturing out onto the surface. I remember, right before cabin depressurization, a passing thought I voiced as I put on my helmet, which ended up on the transmission to Houston: “Sure wish I had shaved last night.” I was about to walk on the moon for a one-night stand on a stage before the world, so appearances were on my mind! In final preparation, Neil glanced at a printedchecklist attached on his left wrist and forearm, facing inside just above his gloved hand, that would remind him of the tasks he had to perform during our short time on the moon. I had a similar checklist sewn onto my suit.
    When Neil and I had completed connecting all of our life-support equipment, and had made sure all our systems were functioning correctly, we depressurized the
Eagle’s
cabin so we could open the door to the outside world. I watched carefully as the gauge eased down to zero. I attempted to reach down and open the hatch, but it wouldn’t release. The cabin still wasn’t quite empty of oxygen. Amazingly, just a tiny bit of oxygen pressure would keep that hatch from opening inward. I made a mental note of that, since I would be the last man out of the LM. If there was any oxygen remaining in the
Eagle
when I stepped out, and the hatch should close, we’d have a hard time getting back in our ride home. The pressure inside would seal the hatch closed. That’s a good thing when you’re on the inside; not so good if you’re stranded outside, trying to get back in.
    Finally, seven hours after we had landed on the surface of the moon, we were ready. Neil opened the hatch and I helped guide him as he backed out on his hands and knees onto the small, shelflike “porch” just above the ladder attached to the forward landing leg, which steadied the LM on the surface.
    Neil moved slowly down the ladder, making sure he was securely on each step before allowing his foot to move to the next. He took a strap with him, similar to a clothesline, that was fastened to a pulley, so when he got down to the bottom of the ladder I could put the still camera on the pulley and send it down to Neil. We would later use that same conveyor system to load the lunar samples and the boxes of rocks we collected from the surface and planned to take back to Earth with us. While I guided Neil out, and he was backing down, he reached over to the side of the spacecraft and pulled a lever, causing the equipment-bay side of the lander to open up like a desktop. The desktop fell open, revealing all our tools on it, including a television camera that was pointed at the
Eagle.
I pushed in the circuit breaker, and suddenly Neilwas on live TV. “We’re getting a picture on the TV,” the new Capcom, Bruce McCandless, exclaimed. It was a good thing that the signal went to Mission Control first; as Neil was coming down the ladder, the video image was upside down. The experts at Mission Control quickly righted the image, and beamed it to the television networks, which sent it around the world. I had another 16-millimeter color movie camera loaded with film in my window, so I set that at one frame per second, to capture Neil’s first step on the lunar surface and everything that he did, albeit in a herky-jerky old home-movie sort of way. This same camera would shoot the color footage of Neil and me planting the American flag on the moon.
    “I’m at the foot of the ladder,” Neil said. “The LM footpads are only depressed in the surface about one or two inches.” That was an intriguing point, since some scientists had speculated that the lunar surface could house a lot of dust, and that our landing pads might sink deep down into the dirt, possibly even dangerously deep.
    “I’m going to step off the LM now,” Neil said, confidently but tentatively. It was 10:56 p.m. (EDT), and the world was watching the black-and-white live broadcast on their TV sets. I watched, too, from the window as Neil, with his right hand firmly grasping the ladder, moved his left

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