Fifty years after the Apollo 11 mission, it was revealed in the BBC documentary-drama ‘8 Days: To the Moon and Back’ that the astronauts had to actually fly backwards. It said: “As they begin their approach, the Lunar Module will turn 180 degrees. With their backs to the Moon, the astronauts will be flying blind.”
In extraordinary audio recordings from inside the spacecraft, one of the astronauts can be heard exclaiming: “Got the Earth right out of our front window!”
In 1973, the total cost of the Apollo programme was reported to Congress as $25billion, around £20billion or £323billion in today’s money.
Not only did the mission cost a vast sum, it was also a culmination of decades of hard work from thousands of people.
As a result, there was a lot of pressure on the pilots to succeed.
READ MORE: Moon landing: Armstrong and Aldrin nearly stranded on Moon
Flying backwards wasn’t the only difficulty facing Commander Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin either.
By the time they turned the Lunar Module around, they had realised they were flying long and may miss their landing site.
Then, with just a couple of minutes to go, a programme alarm started going off which the astronauts had never encountered in training.
Mr Armstrong radioed down to Mission Control in Houston, Texas and asked: “Give us a reading on the 1202 programme alarm.”
Mr Armstrong and Mr Aldrin were alone in the Lunar Module, named the Eagle, and had just once chance to land or the whole mission would have to be aborted.
At one point, they had just 60 seconds to land the plane or head home unsuccessful.
As one TV presenter said at the time: “The hard part of course is to get that close and then have to commit to leaving after all this work.
“And I think that pressure is probably the greatest pressure any crew will ever have.”
Fortunately, they successfully landed on the surface of the Moon.
Mr Armstrong climbed down the ladder onto the lunar surface and spoke the famous words: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
They then had just over two hours to take photographs and samples, as well as having a brief conversation with US President Richard Nixon.
Then, they took off from the Moon and joined up with their colleague Michael Collins in the Command Module and flew back to Earth.
