" I should say I mean we had a 90 percent chance of set out back to Earth on that flight , " the first man on the Moon , Neil Armstrong , articulate a rareinterviewin 2012 , " but only a 50 - 50 fortune of making a successful landing on the first attempt . "
Landing a spacecraft on the Moon was always going to be dangerous , and the trip-up was not without its hairy moment . TheEaglelander ’s computer aimed itself at a volcanic crater full of bowlder the " size of auto " , requiring Armstrong to take manual control , touch on down with very minuscule fuel go out to do the maneuver .
In one specially hairy minute , Buzz Aldrin spotted an anomaly that could have killed not only the full crew of Apollo 11 , but that of three other Apollo missions .
The incident happened on the crew ’s return to Earth , three days after leaving theMoon . Ahead of the final origin into the Earth ’s atmosphere , the Command and Service Modulesseparated , with the crew remain in the Command Module quick for re - entry . The last matter you need as you hurtle through the atmosphere is to see another piece of spacecraft debris hurtling directly after you . For this reason the Service Module was think to allow off a little thrust and manoeuvre itself away from the Command Module , and re - enter the Earth ’s atm later and far from the Apollo 11 crew .
That ’s how it should have go .
" Houston , we got the inspection and repair module go by . A small gamey and a niggling turn to the rightfield , " Buzz Aldrin toldNASAon the ground , later adding , " It ’s coming across now from right to left . "
The problem was n’t point out for what it was at the time , with Aldrin remarking that it was " rotating just like it should be " and that the thrusters were firing . An electrical engineer who work on on the Apollo program toldNancy Atkinson , source ofEight long time to the Moon : The account of the Apollo Missions , that the Service Module should have been " absolutely nowhere secretive to the dictation module",Business Insiderreports .
Meanwhile on the priming coat , a pilot look out as the Service Module " shatter into pieces " , create an even greater hazard of collision with the spaceman ’s module .
" I see the two of them , one above the other . One is the Command Module ; the other is the Service Module , " Frank A. Brown suppose , in areportfound by Atkinson . " I see the track behind them – what a spectacle ! you’re able to see the snatch flying off . "
The work party , as you be intimate , made it back to Earth , where an investigation into the incident took place . NASA found that Apollo 8 and Apollo 10 had had the same job . The spaceman had n’t spotted it , but radio detection and ranging had picked up that the two modules came dangerously confining to colliding .
According to Atkinson , NASA identified the " serious anomaly " happened because of a job in the controller on control panel the Service Module . She says that they went beforehand with Apollo 12 with the job still in place due to a lack of time to repair it .
The problem was fixed in time for Apollo 13 , but – famously – other job cropped up .
