These men are from Moon

On May 25, 1961 John F. Kennedy launched what he admitted was “the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked'' a manned expedition to the Moon.

Between 1968 and 1972, nine American spacecraft would go on that great adventure, most famously Apollo 11, crewed by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

The men of the Apollo programme who have been interviewed for a remarkable documentary, In the Shadow of the Moon remain the only human beings to have visited another world.

Even today, as America and China eye a return trip, their achievement remains utterly breathtaking.

Yet Apollo almost never got off the ground. In 1967, during the build-up to the launch of Apollo 1, Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were testing the command module that sat atop the spacecraft.

Just after 6.30pm, a voltage flicker was recorded, caused by a spark in the highly pressurised, pure oxygen environment.

Chaffee yelled: “We've got a bad fire! Let's get out! We're burning up! We're on fire! Get us out of here!'' Witnesses saw White on the television monitors, reaching for the hatch release handle.

Seconds later, the transmission ended abruptly with a scream. All three died.

“We're burying our guys at Arlington and I wasn't sure if we were burying the entire Apollo programme,'' recalls Gene Cernan, who would be the last man to walk on the Moon.

But by December 1968, the Saturn V rocket was ready to carry a crew for the first time in an orbit around the Earth.

However, Nasa heard from the CIA that the Russians were preparing to send a manned spacecraft around the Moon to upstage them.

So the flight plan was hurriedly changed. “It was a bold move,'' says Jim Lovell, who would later command Apollo 13. “It had some risks to it. But it was a time when we made bold moves.''

His team was mesmerised by their lunar encounter. “We were just 60 miles above the craters and we were like three schoolkids looking through the candy store window.

"We took photographs as much as we could and, of course, we took the photograph of the famous Earthrise around the Moon.''

On Christmas Eve, as they emerged from the Moon's shadow, the astronauts began to read from the Book of Genesis, which they had stored on fireproof paper in their flight manual.

Ready to land

After two further test flights, Nasa felt ready to attempt the first landing in July 1969.

Aldrin felt a pang of sympathy for Collins, who would have to remain in the command module as he and Armstrong — described by Charlie Duke of Apollo 16 as “the coolest under pressure of anyone that I had ever had the privilege of flying with'' — descended.

“I discovered later that I was described as the loneliest man ever in the universe ... ,'' Collins says, “which really is a lot of baloney. I had Mission Control yakking in my ear half the time. Everything was going well with the command module, I had my happy little home, I had the bright lights on and everything was fine.''

The men knew they were going to make history. “I don't think anybody slept too well the night before,'' Aldrin says. “You're just wondering whether you can get enough rest for what you need to possibly do.''

But once the mission was under way, there was no time to dwell on its wider significance.

Collins describes the frenetic initial stages: “You go up into Earth orbit and go around the Earth once. That's a busy time because you want to make sure that everything on board is working properly before you set sail for the Moon.

"Then you get word that you're going for TLI [trans-lunar injection], and that means you can ignite the motor and head off to the Moon. You do, you go, and that's it.''

As he tells it, there was no fear, but lot of worry. “You're not sure all these things are going to work properly ... a lot of them in a very fragile daisy chain. You don't want any of those links to break, because downstream from that broken link they are all useless — so yes, you are worried.''

Once in orbit around the Moon, he still felt a sense of foreboding. “When the Sun is shining on the surface at a very shallow angle, the craters cast long shadows and the Moon's surface seems very inhospitable. Forbidding, almost.''

Watching from above as the lander descended, Collins sensed something more — there was a problem.

“It seemed like Neil was having a difficult time finding a suitable spot to put it down. I got a little worried then because they didn't have a lot of extra fuel.''

The guidance system was carrying them into a boulder field, so Armstrong had to traverse the landscape rapidly. “Some of these boulders were the size of Volkswagens. It was a little iffy right there at the very end.''

The world held its breath, but four days, six hours, 45 minutes and 39 seconds into the flight, the lander reached the surface safely. “Stand by,'' Mission Control said.

Armstrong said: “I'm at the foot of the ladder. The LM [lunar module] foot pads are — only depressed about one to two inches, although the surface appears to be very, very fine-grained ... OK, I'm going to step off the LM now.''

Then, that famous phrase: “That's one small step for man. One giant leap for mankind.''

More pressing concerns

Aldrin's response to reaching the lunar surface was altogether more down to earth.

“I decided to take that period of time … to take care of a bodily function ... so that I wouldn't be troubled with having to do that later on. Everybody has their firsts on the Moon, and that one hasn't been disputed by anybody.''

Collins was by now anxious about the next step: “I didn't have any great feeling of ‘We've done it' — I was a lot more worried about getting them up off the Moon than I was about getting them down … If something went wrong [with the motor on the lunar module] they were dead men: There was no other way for them to leave.''

Indeed, a speech had been prepared in case the module failed to lift off. Collins recalls the words: “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.''

But the launch from the lunar surface was flawless and Collins watched as the module returned to the mothership.

“Oh God, it's beautiful ... you see the module, a little golden bug among the craters, and it gets slowly bigger and bigger…. Finally they got back into the command module and I grabbed Buzz by both ears and was going to kiss him on the forehead ....'' Although he settled for a more manly greeting, there were few congratulations: “You don't have time to sit around and reminisce, because you've got TEI [trans-Earth injection] coming up.''

There was one more critical point: during re-entry, when the command module roared back to Earth at up to 26,000 miles an hour.

“Your heat shield is on fire and its fragments are streaming out behind you. It's like being inside a gigantic light bulb,'' Collins says.

After the flight, the three went on a round-the-world trip. “Instead of saying ‘You Americans did it', everywhere they said ‘We did it — we, humankind','' Collins recalls.

“I'd never heard people in different countries use this word ‘we, we, we' as emphatically… I thought that was a wonderful thing. Ephemeral, but wonderful.''

Directed by David Sington, In the Shadow of the Moon premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the World Cinema Audience Award.