13 Minutes to the Moon: 10. ‘For all mankind’

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The Eagle has landed.

What we wanted to do when we set out to make this podcast was to look at the landing of Apollo 11 from a fresh angle.

And we found that in the final 13 minutes.

From the moment they lit their engine to begin their descent to Armstrong's immortal words on the surface of a new world.

We wanted to take that audio, unpick and unravel every word, every phrase, every pause and every silence to tell you the stories behind the story.

So, this is what we've been building up to in this episode and the next one.

The 13 minutes in all its glory for you to listen to, hopefully, with fresh ears and the added insight that comes from the incredible cast of characters we've had the privilege to hear from.

Roger, you're taking it as a page now.

Roger.

I'm going to take you through the final descent from start to finish.

And every now and again, I'll pause the archive tape, and I'll share some of my reflections as we listen to NASA's recording of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin approaching their place in history.

And after that, some of the men and women who we've got to know through the series will talk about the legacy of what they've achieved.

Then, in episode 11, you'll get the chance to experience the descent to the moon the way Capcom Charlie Duke heard it, through his communication loop, from start to finish, without interruption.

We choose to go to the moon.

Capcom, we're go for landing.

Eagle, Gifa, you're go for landing over.

Plus, two foot.

Get the reading on the 12-foot through program alarm.

Hold to that 18-foot, we're gonna make it a thing.

Roger, low level.

60, 60 seconds.

We've had shutdown.

We copy you down, Eagle.

I'm Kevin Fong, and from the BBC World Service, this is 13 Minutes to the Moon.

Episode 10 for all mankind

So here we go.

Eagle is at 50,000 feet, 16,000 meters above the moon.

The powered descent is about to begin.

That's the descent propulsion system being armed.

Ignition, that's it.

That's the start of our 13 minutes of powered descent.

10% CCP.

Rog 10%.

Now when I first heard this, I thought it might be the sound of the engine firing, but it's not.

It's radiostatic, which they've been battling with for several minutes by this point.

Later, Armstrong would say that they'd rehearsed everything in simulation except for communication dropouts.

Okay, that's Capcom, Charlie Duke, calling up to Michael Collins in Columbia overhead, telling him Mission Control has lost contact with Eagle, asking Collins to pass a message to Armstrong and Aldrin to switch to a different antenna.

Turn on, we've got 20-foot-per-second residual as it's pointing to downtrack air.

I'll leave it in flu.

Relay to the 20-foot residual due to downtrack air.

Underneath all of that overlapping speech is guidance officer Steve Bales talking to flight director Gene Krantz as he spots for the first time that Eagles traveling too fast.

And I kind of like the respect, reverence almost, that Krantz has for the 26-year-old's words.

Meeting Steve Bales was a real highlight of this series.

He's, to me, kind of like the Luke Skywalker of the piece, a farm boy from Iowa who went out into his backyard, looked up at the stars and dreamed of space, and who battled his way to Houston to find himself here at the age of 26, center stage in the greatest drama in the history of exploration.

Eagle, we got you now.

He's looking good over.

Roger, GTC, go.

Flight control, we go.

FGP looks good.

Roger.

Eagle, that looks good.

Eagle, Houston, everything's looking good here over.

Roger, copy.

Eagle Houston, after yaw round, angles, S-band pitch, minus nine Earth, yaw, plus one eight.

So that's Charlie Duke instructing Armstrong and Aldrin to rotate Eagle and redirect their antenna in an effort to get a better line of sight to Earth.

And for me, that paints this picture of the crew like a family huddled around an old television set, twisting their aerial into position to try and get a better picture.

Fido, tell Gene Krantz that they've lost the signal from part of their communication system, the Manned Space Flight Network, or MISFIN.

Important, because this interferes with Mission Control's ability to monitor Eagle's progress from Earth.

With each of these failures, Krantz has to make a decision whether or not to proceed with the landing or abort.

Fido reassures him that he's got enough data.

This Doppler system is ingenious.

As Eagle moves through space, the frequency of its radio signals changes.

It's the the same effect that makes the pitch of an ambulance siren alter as it moves toward and then away from you.

The faster Eagle moves, the more the frequency changes.

This is the Doppler effect.

By measuring this shift in frequency with minute accuracy, mission control can determine Eagle's speed and direction of travel.

And Fido tells Krantz this system is still intact.

Looks good, sleep.

Roger.

Mags and things agree very quickly.

Roger.

Yep, thrust 9820.

Rog, thrust 9820.

Copy flight.

They just saw the how you looking guys.

Right up and out 20 foot per second.

Rog.

No change is what you're saying.

No change.

That's downtrack and noise.

Roger.

Fly fight up.

Go fight them.

Reinitialize the filter.

We do have an altitude difference.

Rog.

Flight fighter, GTC right now.

AD voltage now.

Roger.

50 meter, maybe, huh?

Stand by.

That's looking good to us.

You're still looking good at three coming up three minutes.

Capcom Charlie Juke does more than simply repeat commands to the crew.

He's there to track the chatter in mission control, to get across all of that information and pass up the big picture, astronaut to astronaut.

Okay, control, let me know when he starts his yacht here.

Roger.

How's your miss been looking now, Fido?

We're good.

Okay, how about you guys?

Almost at 18, but we're gonna make it up

This is the sound of terror to a flight director.

Static on the airwaves rather than data.

The safety of the mission depends on Mission Control being able to track Eagle's progress and the health of its many systems and to communicate with the crew.

And so now, with nothing but white noise from the lunar module, once again, Krantz is at a decision point.

But it's not one that he makes alone.

I'll play controllers.

I'm going to

make your go-to-go's based on the data you had for an LOS.

I see we got it back in another few seconds.

Really aren't fine.

Okay, retro, go.

Fight off.

Go, guys, go.

Go ahead and officer Steve Bale's go-call still makes me laugh every time I hear it.

He told us that the VIPs in Mission Control had been forewarned about the way he shouted his calls to make them understand that when they heard it, there was nothing wrong.

It was just what Steve did.

Eagle, Houston, Europe to continue.

Did you get that thought?

You're a go to continue.

You're a go to continue power descent.

You're a go to continue power descent.

Okay, everybody on the same side, hopefully lining right on.

And Eagles Houston, we got data dropouts.

You're still looking good.

On the pings.

Roger, copy, guys.

After a fraught five minutes battling problems with the communications, things suddenly begin to settle down.

Okay, we got data back.

Radar flight looks good.

Raj, 2,000 feet.

Raj, 2,000 feet.

What's LH?

Me, no one accepts it, guys.

Top 3 lights out.

LA to minus 2,900.

Buzz has a moment to enjoy the view.

Roger, we copy.

That's the Earth right out our front window.

But not for long.

Kirsten, you're looking at our Delta H.

That's true.

1202.

Now, we've covered the 1202 program alarms a lot in this podcast, and that's been deliberate.

This wonderful, primordial computer, the ancestor of all we see in the digital world around us today, was absolutely critical to the mission.

I can't say it enough.

The astronauts couldn't have got to the moon without it.

But I want to take a moment here to explain why the computer was throwing up this unexpected alarm at this point in the mission

and four more times during the descent.

1202 alarm.

program alarm.

The Apollo guidance computer was a finely balanced piece of technology.

Small enough to fit inside the module, but just about powerful enough to guide the crew through the landing.

It was designed and built with just enough capacity to do the job and no more.

But for the Apollo 11 landing, Armstrong and Aldrin had decided to do something they had never done before in simulation.

They'd switched on the rendezvous radar, a system they'd need in case of an abort to help them get back to Mike Collins in Colombia.

Leaving that radar on would make their job easier should an emergency arise.

But they didn't anticipate that this innocuous extra task would be enough to nearly tip their computer over the edge.

And that's what the 1202 alarm is all about.

A computer system whose plate is already full, being asked to take something else on, and having to decide what it's going to have to drop.

Flight 50 control.

Rog.

There's so much going on here.

We've got discrepancies in the altitude monitored by mission control.

We've got the descent engine throttling down.

Eagle still hurtling towards the moon, and on top of all of that, the 1202 alarms.

All the while, the remarkable team in Mission Control are troubleshooting and solving those problems in parallel so that the mission can continue.

Same alarm, and it appears to come up when we have a 1668 on.

Roger, copy.

Okay, we'll monitor his delta H flight.

Roger.

I think that's what it's getting.

Okay.

Eagle Houston, we'll monitor your delta H.

Roger.

Delta H is beautiful.

Delta H is looking good now.

Roger, Delta H is looking good to us.

Okay, all flight controllers hang tight.

Should be throttling down pretty shortly.

Better than the simulator.

Rog.

Better than the simulator.

That was Aldrin.

How's it looking, guys?

Bikes and things look real close.

You want him to stay out of 68?

Uh, negative flight.

Uh, I just said we'll mark it alongs.

Okay.

Okay.

Fly control looking, that's good.

Flight Rodge.

Go, guys.

So 968 now, well, may be the problem here, and we can monitor Delta H.

Roger.

Flight fighter, looking real good.

Roger Fighter, good.

At seven minutes, you're looking great to us, Eagle.

They're still watching the communications like hawks here, but for now, they're looking great.

Tell come how you look at it.

Okay, I'm still on the flu,

so we may tend to lose as we gradually pitch over.

Let me try auto again now, see what happens.

Roger getting done.

Tell people.

Okay, looks like you told them.

Roger, we got good data.

We on sterile dungeon?

That's a vertical flight, and it's holding in there pretty good.

Rog.

Okay, everybody, hang tight.

Seven and a half minutes.

Flight gun, just landing radars.

Fixture velocity is beautiful.

Roger.

Flight control, descent.

Two fuel.

Descent to fuel crit.

Descent.

Two fuel only.

Two critical.

He didn't want to say critical.

Roger.

Descent two fuel.

Eagle Houston is descent to fuel to monitor over.

32.

Light photo looking real good.

Roger.

Give us an estimated switchover time, please.

You

Roger, stand by.

You're looking great at eight minutes.

You got an estimated, what's our T go, Gaiden?

30 seconds to P64.

Roger,

so you got 30 seconds to P64.

The switchover from P63, the program that controlled the braking phase, to P64, the program that controlled the approach to landing, was of more than passing interest to Armstrong.

It was the moment at which the lunar module would rise from the horizontal position to the near vertical, and at around 7,000 feet, a little over 2,000 meters, the first time he'd get a proper look at the landing site.

Okay, we've still got landing radar, guys.

Okay.

Light photo, we're going to look real good.

Raj, Fido.

Eagle Houston, coming up 830, you're looking great.

364.

Okay, they got 64.

64.

Tigo's good.

Raj, Tigo's go.

We have position two on LR.

Rog, position two, all flight controllers, 20 seconds to go no go for landing.

Eagle, you're looking great.

Coming up nine minutes.

Once again, Krantz gets ready to consult his flight controllers, this time asking all of them in turn if they're still good to proceed with the landing.

And this is how mission control works even today.

Krantz has to integrate all of the information from his team in real time and use that to make a mission-critical decision.

Okay, off-flight controllers, gonna go for landing.

Retro, go!

Khido, go!

Go!

Control!

Go!

GMC!

Go!

Surgeon!

Go!

Capcom, Commerce.

Go for landing.

Eagle Houston.

You're a go for landing over.

Roger Understand.

Go for landing.

3,000 feet.

Type.

More computer alarms.

Armstrong would later say that those alarms became a distraction, drawing his and Aldrin's attention inside the cabin at precisely the moment when it should have been outside, focused on a survey of the landing site.

1201.

1201.

Roger, 1201 alarm.

1201 alarm.

Same type, we're go, flight.

We're go, same type.

We're go.

Flight set or right.

2,000 feet.

Into the egg, 47 degrees.

Roger.

47 degrees.

How's our margin looking, Bob?

He looks okay.

We've got four and a half.

Roger.

Eagle looking great.

You're go.

How's it 20 eggs?

Looks good.

Roger.

Roger 1202, we copy it.

That's the last of the computer alarms, and by this point, they sound almost blasé about them.

Such a contrast from when the first appeared earlier in their descent.

And this is another remarkable feature of the landing: an example of a team of people who are learning about their vehicle and its state-of-the-art systems literally on the fly.

And they understand now that the 1202 holds no threat.

We're looking good here at 5.0.

700 feet, 21 down, 33 degrees.

100 feet down at 19.

540 feet down at 30 and at 15.

Attitude home.

Okay, at hold.

I think we better be quiet.

400 feet down at 9.

Okay, the only call outs from now on will be.

350 feet down at 4.

33 and down.

They're uh banked on

horizontal lockery.

As a medical doctor, I sometimes fly as part of an air ambulance crew.

Occasionally, I sit in the rear cabin of a helicopter while a pair of pilots land at night in unfamiliar territory.

And so that call out of altitudes and rates of descent from Aldrin to Armstrong is strangely familiar.

I know that sound.

It's the sound of a flight crew working hard as everything around them changes second by second, knowing that right now it is all on the line.

300 feet down, 3.5.

47 forward.

Hold up.

I've won a minute.

One and a half down.

Got the Shadow out there.

I got shadow out there, says Altron.

They're close enough to the lunar surface to be able to see Eagle Shadow being cast below them.

50 down and 2.5.

19 forward.

Okay, altitude.

3.5 down.

220 feet.

13 forward.

11 forward comes down nicely, 200 feet.

4.5 down, 5.5 pounds.

They're low over the moon now and fast running out of fuel.

But Armstrong is still flying across the surface, hunting around for a safe place to land.

160, 6.5 down, 5.5 down.

9 forward.

Low level?

That almost casual low-level call from Bob Colton actually means they have just 120 seconds of fuel left, and in that time, Armstrong has to either abort or land.

18575 feet,

looking good, down and a half,

forward, sixty, sixty seconds.

60 seconds.

Python.

Notice that the chatter has died down.

Apart from the updates about fuel levels, there are no interruptions.

In these final seconds, you can almost feel the mission control team melting away from the piece.

For the first time in the mission, Armstrong and Aldrin are almost on their own.

Down two and a half.

Forward.

Forward.

Yep.

40 feet down, two and a half.

Breaking up some dust.

30 feet, two and a half down.

Take shadow.

Four forward.

More forward.

Drifting to the right level.

30.

30 seconds.

30 seconds.

This is it.

And everyone in mission control knows it.

The hopes and dreams of a nation, the outrageous efforts of an army of people across the decade.

All of that lives or dies here.

And they can do nothing more now than hold their breath.

Contact light.

Okay, engine stop.

APA at a detent.

Engine command override off.

Engine arm off.

413 is in.

we've had a shutdown we copy you down eagle

everybody t1 stand by t1 tranquility base here the eagle has landed roger twink tranquility we copy you on the ground you got a bunch of guys about to turn blue we're breathing again thanks a lot

In many ways, this podcast has been a voyage of discovery for us, too.

We've learned so much about the technology and the people who made Apollo 11's first landing on the Moon possible.

In a sense, every single person who was part of Project Apollo found themselves standing on the moon on July the 20th, 1969.

Afterwards, they fell back to Earth to live out their lives, having been part of one of the greatest adventures of all time.

We went in search of them, and it was a genuine privilege to be able to share in their memories and thoughts of that incredible decade of effort.

Project Apollo was of its time.

A programme that found its origins in the long shadows of war, but one that made its way out of the darkness to finish in the brightest light.

Today we can marvel at the technology and the science that underpinned it, and at the people who gave everything to make all of that happen.

But what does it it mean to those people today?

And what has it come to mean for all of us?

We're going to start with perspectives and memories of people outside the world of space exploration.

First, the man who created this podcast's wonderful music, Hans Zimmer.

Hans, great to see you.

It seems a long time since we had our Skype conference over the phone to talk about the theme music for 13 Minutes ago.

So I want to start now by asking you about your memories of 20th July 1969 and the landing of Apollo 11.

I vividly remember sitting there and the black and white television and watching something that,

you know, moments before, none of us thought we could possibly even imagine seeing.

It's an unforgettable event, and if you think about the unforgettable events that most of us remember from television, they're all dark and gruesome.

And this one was quite the opposite.

This one was like a ray of light in the inventiveness and genius of humanity.

And what does it mean to you today?

I mean, you have a vivid memory of the day itself.

What does it continue to mean to you even today?

If we really set our mind to things, we can do it.

Now I look at it as sort of a sort of crazy preposterous piece of art that it's like this amazing painting in the sky that might

give us some hope that you know we might be okay at the end of the day.

We've been genuinely overwhelmed by your response to this podcast.

We've loved hearing from all of you, and it feels like you've been along for the ride all the way.

And so, we wanted to include some of your thoughts and memories about Apollo 11.

My name is Jane Mickleborough and I live in Brittany in northwest France.

I was 17 at the time and I remember the day they landed.

There were about 15 of us, teenagers, all together in the apartment in Washington DC.

And we were all sitting there and the curtains were drawn and it was so exciting.

And the overwhelming memory is that the Columbia Pike, which is the road outside, which was always sirens and cars and things, was absolutely silent.

There wasn't a breath of traffic out there.

I just think it was just such an amazing achievement.

I think my father kept telling me just how precarious it was.

He was in the military and had some idea, I think, of just

how near the edge it was.

But I think the national pride amongst my American friends just carried us along.

It was tremendous.

I'm Mike Pavasovich.

I'm from Duckingfield, just east of Manchester in England, UK, and I'm 62.

My interest in space travel was as a result of Yuri Gagarin going into orbit on my fourth birthday.

I couldn't get enough of the Apollo programme and I bombarded NASA with letters.

I even got a reply from the crew of Apollo 7.

Despite my interest, I wasn't allowed to stay up and watch the first moonwalk live.

I was gutted.

I was packed off to bed and had to catch up the following day.

But the thrill has never left me.

Flickering pictures of two men on the lunar surface in the shadow of what was effectively a giant firework that resembled a spider.

I still get my sons to look up at the moon and I say to them, Can you believe there have been men up there?

And even half a century after Apollo 11, they find it just as incredible as their aging dad.

My name is Orlando Gilvez Aguayo and I am from Quilpue, Chile.

I think that the success of Apollo program, having put men on the moon for the first time in history, shows to us that we're up to the challenge to go beyond the limits of our planet and travel to other worlds.

That human spaceflight is not relegated to science fiction books and movies, but is a real way to explore our surroundings.

And finally, it proved that working together hard and being brave, humans can fulfill difficult tasks and turn the dream of visiting other planets into a reality.

Hi, my name is Catherine Crowe, and I'm a NASA engineer in Huntsville, Alabama.

I think the moon landing was significant because we got to see that when we work together as a single team towards a single purpose, there's really nothing that's beyond the bounds of human capability to accomplish.

You know, that was a very important lesson for us to learn in the 1960s, and I think it might be an even more important lesson for us to remember now as we face new and immense challenges, such as developing better and cleaner energy sources.

And what has it come to mean to the people who were actually there?

The people who guided Armstrong and Aldrin through those final 13 minutes of descent?

First, the man who taught them down from 50,000 feet above the moon, Capcom, Charlie Duke.

The technological explosion that happened during Apollo so that we could get there was tremendous and that's reaping benefits today that is incalculable.

Then on the other hand, to me the importance of the Apollo legacy was that

we were challenged to do something nobody thought was possible by President Kennedy.

We had bold leadership bringing the whole ability of the United States to bear on this one problem, one program, to bring our country together, because on the other hand, we had the Vietnam War going on,

and it was pulling the country apart.

So the unity that came from Apollo in our country, I think, was very, very important emotionally, psychologically, and politically.

To me,

it wasn't just an incredible technical achievement.

I think it was an incredible achievement in terms of teamwork.

Poppy Northcott, the first female engineer in mission control.

I don't know how many people worked on that program, but it was thousands and thousands and thousands, and they were spread all over the world.

There were people that were working on Ascension Island, recovery teams here, tracking teams there, and the teamwork that was involved to focus on that one object

of

getting a human being on the on the moon and safely returning to earth was just an amazing thing that all of these people all over the world were working on this same object.

I think every one of them knew that this was going to be an incredible achievement for humankind.

Saying it didn't really happen for the Americans, it happened for humanity.

Well, it might have turned out that way, but

that was not what was going on while we were doing it.

Flight controller, John Aaron, Ecom.

I mean, the Americans decided to do it.

The Americans took all the risks to do it.

They did all the funding for it.

And it was for the purpose of mitigating a threat, and that was the Soviet Union.

And the threat that we may not, from an engineering standpoint,

have the proudness we thought we had.

We had to restore the confidence in the country.

But the most amazing thing about from my standpoint,

and that's saying a lot because there's a lot of amazing standpoints you can take.

We went to the moon to learn about the moon.

Well, probably the more important thing for humanity was we found a new way to look at the earth.

On Apollo 8, the crew saw Earthrise.

Oh, God, look at that picture over there.

You You see the Earth coming up.

Wow, isn't that pretty?

That blue marble

rising above that barren lunar landscape.

Astronaut Jim Lovell.

When I looked at the Earth 240,000 miles away,

you know, I started to think, wow, that's home.

And as we came around farther, I could go to the window and put up my thumb, and I could completely hide the earth behind my thumb.

It's one little

blue and white ball set against the backdrop of a totally black universe.

And there it is, sitting all by itself.

All those people and all those governments, they're in this little cocoon.

We're all in this together.

I'm not a very religious person,

but my perspective is that God has given mankind a stage

upon which to perform.

How the plate turns out is up to us.

Apollo computer programmer Margaret Hamilton.

50 years on from Project Apollo, what do you think its place in history is?

How important do you think it's been to wider society?

Discovery.

To me, probably the most exciting part of it is discovering new worlds beyond.

And it makes us want to go on and discover more.

I've run into people so many times who said, I wish we had something to inspire us like that.

It was inspiring, and we were all dedicated.

The world was into it.

It was unifying.

Do you think we're capable of that today?

Yes.

Because of the people, the young people I've run into

who wish they had something like that.

And they'll make something like that happen.

The youth have more hope than some of us who got spoiled in our youth, and it's not like it used to be, but it could be because of youth.

Former director of Johnson Space Center George Abbey.

The accomplishments of Apollo considering the state of the world at that time and our capabilities got to go down in the history of the world is one of the greatest achievements of all time.

It I think shows that if you have the will and

great young people that are coming out of our educational facilities and education, I think, is a key to it all.

And

if you look at what we did with Apollo, we did it because we had a great you of educated young people.

And I think look to the future and be sure that as we look at solving the energy problems, the environmental problems, and all the problems, in addition to going into space again, that we understand that we got to put that emphasis on education, bring our young people along and be willing to invest in them.

Apollo 11's command module pilot, Mike Collins.

The subject of nationalism comes up frequently today

and it is sometimes applied to the Apollo program.

I think that is way wrong.

I'm hearkening back to the trip that the crew of Apollo 11, the three of us, took around the world

after the flight.

And before the trip, I thought that the overall reaction would be well you Americans finally did it didn't you instead of that everywhere we went it was unanimous we did it we did it

that is the part of Apollo that I think is really the wonderful part of it

no matter where your country no matter what your religion

people everywhere

The reception we got was unanimous.

We humanity, we human beings, we did this wonderful thing.

And our final thoughts are from NASA flight surgeon Bill Carpentier, who helped retrieve Mike Collins, Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrin immediately after their capsule splashed down in the ocean and who spent more than a fortnight in quarantine with the Apollo 11 crew.

One of the things that I think is impressive, very impressive,

that on the leg of the lunar module

that is still on the moon is a plaque.

And on that plaque it said, here men from planet Earth first set foot on the moon, July 1969 AD.

We came in peace for all mankind.

Also left on the moon was a silicon disc.

on which there were messages from four U.S.

presidents and I think it was 79 other leaders of the world and they all expressed the hope and congratulations and the desire peace for all mankind.

Bill later helped to commission a musical work, an oratorio, to celebrate the achievement of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

The poet that composed the text to the oratorio wove the mythology of Apollo, the god of the sun, his twin sister Artemis, the goddess of the moon, all the way through this.

It followed the flight from liftoff to the moon, to the landing, and the return to Earth.

In the oratorio, I think there were eight lines that I still remember that I think sum up this important concept of the Apollo program.

As the oratorio is coming to an end, the music stops and a narrator says these eight lines:

In the white light of Artemis, from the lonely mirror of her face,

man looked down upon the blue splendor of the earth, and for the first time, he saw his home.

In the bright light of Apollo, he looked into his brother's eyes, and with reverence and awe, he saw himself.

Now, let's take you to the desk of Capcom Charlie Duke in the Mission Operations Control Room, July the 20th, 1969, for episode 11.

The 13 Minutes to the Moon without interruption in real time.

13 Minutes to the Moon is an original podcast from the BBC World Service.

13 Minutes to the Moon is produced by Andrew Luck Baker of the BBC Radio Science Unit.

Our theme music is by Hun Zimmer.

Extra production and research is by Sue Norton and Madeleine Finley.

The series editor is Rami Zabar and the podcast editor John Mannell.

Thanks to NASA for the archive recording of Apollo 11's final descent.

And thanks to you for telling us what you think of the series and and sharing your own Apollo memories with us on social media.

Keep them coming, we're still listening.

Our hashtag is 13 Minutes to the Moon.

That's all as one word.

And if you haven't done it already, why not give us a review or rating wherever you get your podcasts?

And don't forget, there are some great Apollo videos, photos and documents to enjoy on our website, including one on the stopwatch that flight controller Bob Carlton used to time Eagle's dwindling fuel levels.

That's BBC WorldService.com slash 13 minutes.

I'm Kevin Fong, and thanks for listening.

This is History's Heroes.

People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War.

You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you.

Join me, Alex von Tunselmann, for History's Heroes.

Subscribe to History's Heroes, wherever you get your podcasts.

Suffs, the new musical has made Tony award-winning history on Broadway.

We demand to be hurt.

Winner, best score.

We demand to be seen.

Winner, best book.

We demand to be quality.

It's a theatrical masterpiece that's thrilling, inspiring, dazzlingly entertaining, and unquestionably the most emotionally stirring musical this season.

Suffs, playing the Orpheum Theater, October 22nd through November 9th.

Tickets at BroadwaySF.com.