Discovery Channel Documentaries

Apollo 11: The Untold Story (2006x16)

: 24, 2006

When Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon in July 1969, Apollo 11 was hailed as the supreme triumph of American technology. But behind the flag waving lies a very different story: the untold account of how close the mission came to disaster. Now, nearly forty years later, men on that mission reveal what really happened on the first voyage to the moon, and unpublished NASA documents are made public for the first time. It's a tale of how primitive computer technology coupled with human errors and mechanical failures nearly caused the tragic loss of the crew. Apollo 11: The Untold Story reveals how, in deep space, the lunar module lost all contact with earth, coming within seconds of crashing. By running off course, the lunar module became critically low on fuel over inhospitable boulder-strewn lunar terrain. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin recalls how the astronauts believed they saw a UFO some 200,000 miles from earth, an event covered up at NASA's insistence for over thirty years. We discover how Mission Control's total computing power was the equivalent of one of today's laptops while the power of the lunar module was equal to a modern digital watch. Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin reveals how a ballpoint pen saved him and Neil Armstrong from a lonely death stranded on the moon; and we discover how behind the scenes, so great were the fears that the crew wouldn't return that during the mission White House officials prepared a secret memorial speech for President Nixon to deliver to the world in the event of tragedy. Everybody thinks they know about Apollo 11: Neil Armstrong's "one small step for man", the stars and stripes planted firmly in the moon rock, the triumphant return to earth. This film, drawing on first hand testimonies from Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 flight director Gene Kranz and key personnel from the mission, reveals just how complicated that mission really was. For a group of pioneering men armed with experimental 1960s technology, Apollo 11 was