My favourite part: Darren Maule talks #Apollo11

I for one love how they are marvelling at it, and broadcasting it at the Washington Square. Radio stations - including ours, broadcast the original launch broadcast as if it were real-time.

Everyone is getting goosebumps all over again. It was quite an amazing thing; the accomplishment and the live broadcast around the world. 

We marvelled at the accomplishment of the thousands of people who were involved in this successful moon landing, and the Apollo 11 mission.

You have to keep in mind the sheer scope of the thousands of physicists and rocket scientists who were involved. From propulsion to the engineers of the lunar module.

There were three satellite dishes around the world, as well, so as the world rotated we were able to track them.

One in Spain, one in Australia, and one in the US. So, as the globe rotated you could never lose contact with the guys on Apollo 11.

My favourite thing about this whole process was all the planning and expertise - the absolute best scientists, rocket scientists, and pilots, and the success of the launch - the travelling to the moon and establishing a geosynchronous orbit with it...

All of this preparation, from how much oxygen they would need and the mass of the lunar module once it landed on the moon - how many rocks they were able to take, would they have enough fuel for the thrust to leave the gravity of the moon and get back up onto the space shuttle to get themselves back to earth?

The planning was down to a hundredth of a gram as far as mass was concerned, and how much oxygen was necessary and what angle they would have to enter the earth’s atmosphere at.

There was so much planning from all over the world and when we landed on the moon, it wasn’t like the Americans landed on the moon, or Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. It was US! Mankind, the human race had landed on another body. It had its feet pressed against another object that wasn’t planet earth.

That wasn’t the surprising thing, though. The surprising thing was the one thing no one expected and no one planned for, and which took everyone’s breathe away...

As Apollo 11 was preparing to land in the Sea of Tranquillity (the target area on the moon), they experienced, for the very first time - AN EARTH RISE.

We have all seen sunrises and sunsets, and we have all seen the moon rise and setting.

But we didn’t think for a second what it would look like if you’re on the moon and you see a distant planet - EARTH, rising like a sun or like a moon. This beautiful blue globe in the distance provided the first earthrise witnessed by human eyes. It was completely breathtaking, and the best part is that no one anticipated it. No one had any idea what it would be like - everyone was universally surprised at the same time.

That’s my favourite bit, and you can see it here: 

Watch the video here: 

Also read: Darren Maule apologises to his Mouse on air!

Main Image courtesy of NASA