Some facts, figures and insights regarding the Apollo 11 mission:

1. The, er,  Snowcone has landed.

It’s true – the original name for the lunar module of Apollo 11 was Snowcone. Astronaut Jim Lovell, wearing his sensible shoes no doubt, is the one that suggested the name change to the universally known Eagle. And if you’re thinking the command module Columbia fared better, it didn’t – the original call sign was Haystack. Nice.

2. “In the event of moon disaster.”

Not everyone, it would seem, was confident of a successful landing and departure from the lunar surface. Documents exist named “In the event of a moon disaster”, which contain an address to the nation written for President Nixon should the Apollo 11 mission suffer disastrous failure and leave Armstrong and Aldrin stranded on the moon. It begins:

“Fate has ordained that the men who went to the Moon to explore in peace will stay on the Moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding…”

The address would have concluded with the poem “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke.

3. Closer to God.

Lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin took a special moment on the moon that was kept from the press. Following the landing Aldrin, a devout Catholic, received communion inside the Eagle. He prefaced this by radioing:

“This is the LM pilot. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.”

He carried a small vial of wine and a communion wafer in one of the compartments of his space suit.

At the time, NASA were being sued by an athiest named Madalyn Murray O’Hair. O’Hair had objected to the crew of Apollo 8 reading from the book of Genesis during their earlier mission. For this reason, Aldrin’s act of faith was kept quiet for many years following the landing.

4. A little piece of Scotland.

Aldrin was not the only one to stowaway items in his space suit: Commander Neil Armstrong carried a piece of Clan Armstrong tartan to the lunar surface.

Clan Armstrong tartan.

Armstrong also carried an astronaut pin given to him by Director of Flight Operations, Deke Slayton. Slayton was an Original 7 astronaut but had been grounded due to a heart condition. The crew of Apollo 1 had intended to give him a diamond astronaut pin following their mission, to signify he would always be an astronaut to them despite never having flown. Following the Apollo 1 disaster, the crew’s widows ensured Slayton received the pin, and he in turn passed it to Armstrong who placed it on the Sea of Tranquility.

5. The first man is the invisible man.

There are relatively few photographs of Armstrong on the moon; the vast majority are of Aldrin, with Armstrong sometimes reflected in his visor.

Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface, photographed by Neil Armstrong - who is just visible, reflected in Buzz's visor.

6. Not quite so tranquil.

The Eagle landed on a section of the moon named the Sea of Tranquility. The area was so named due to its apparently smooth appearance with very few boulders or craters, and was chosen as the landing site for these reasons. This impression was based on the somewhat basic photographs and scans of the lunar surface. However, Armstrong was to discover the reality was very different: the Eagle had to be flown two miles from its main landing target in search of flat ground.

7. Of all the times…

Charlie Duke, Apollo 11 CAPCOM.

Astronaut Charlie Duke was the CAPCOM for the Apollo 11 landing; he was the man in Mission Control charged with talking to the astronauts. Duke, who would later walk on the moon himself aboard Apollo 16, found himself overexcited following the landing. In his first transmission to the lunar surface, a gleeful Duke says “Twanquility” rather than “Tranquility”. Thankfully, he laughs about it now!

8. Astronaut graffiti.

Astronauts frequently became attached to their space craft, and Command Module Pilot Michael Collins was no different. Following the mission, as the crew were in their decontamination unit, Collins made his way down to Columbia and wrote in the engine bay:

“Spacecraft 107 — alias Apollo 11 — alias Columbia. The best ship to come down the line. God Bless Her. Michael Collins, CMP”

Collins would also later say that he observed uncharacteristic emotion from his crewmates later on in the mission, when the lunar module Eagle was jettisoned.

9. Note to astronauts: keep flag away from rocket engines.

We’ve all seen the famous pictures of the Apollo 11 astronauts planting the American flag; it remains one of the more striking images and concepts of the missions. However, if one were to venture to the Apollo 11 landing site, you’d struggle to find the flag from a distance. Armstrong and Aldrin placed it too near the Eagle’s ascent engines, and during the lift off from the surface, the flag can be seen falling over. Still, they probably had a lot else to think about like ensuring they didn’t explode the Eagle on landing…

10. … Oops.

During a landing on the lunar surface, engines beneath the lunar module fire to lower the space craft onto the moon in 1/6 gravity. In the seconds before touchdown, there was “contact”; when probes extending off the feet of the lunar module touched the surface. At this point, a light flashed on the control panel and the lunar module pilot called “contact!”. This was a signal for the Commander, Neil Armstrong for Apollo 11, to shut down the lunar module engines and allow the craft to fall the last few feet naturally. This was done as a precaution, so the lunar module was never sitting directly atop a lit rocket engine.

However, Armstrong… er… didn’t shut the engines off. In the distraction of a complicated landing, he missed the cue and the engines powered the Eagle fully onto the surface. Armstrong’s landing was, as a result, so light that the shock absorbers on the lunar module didn’t even need to depress.

11. “Leave the door open!”

When Aldrin joined Armstrong on the moon, he had to be especially careful not to close the hatch of the lunar module behind him. The reason? The hatch door had no handle on the outside; weight was everything in the LM’s design, and apparently the weight of a handle was seen more important than the very real chance of an accidental closure of the door, leaving the astronauts stranded.