K t I’d ter .I n et y

lace sion ould er it nited

t be own rth. ut or ch it tting his office from the White House. I didn’t know it was going to be the President.

A very nice congratulatory message from the President on behalf of everyone who had been working on the project. And that was a very pleasant surprise. And again there was work to be done, so get back to the job.

NASA officials limited our surface working time to two and three quarter hours on that first surface exploration to assure that we would not expire of hyperthermia. We were operating in a near perfect vacuum.

The temperature was well above 200 degrees Fahrenheit, with the local gravity only one sixth that of Earth.

Because normal air conditioning is inadequate for lunar conditions, we were required to use cold water to cool the interior of our suits.

There was just far too little time to do the variety of things that we would have liked to have done.

There were rocks in the boulder field that were three to four feet in size, very likely pieces of the lunar bedrock. It would have been very interesting to go over and get some samples of those. It would have been nice from our point of view to have had more time to ourselves so that we could have gone out and looked around a little bit.

The ascent to the Colombia command module had a characteristic unlike any other portion of the flight.

The rockets would fire and move the vehicle upward then they would shut off, and we would be pushed the other way, then they would kick in again. The whole thing was like a rocking chair through the entire ascent trajectory. It’s a pretty spectacular ride.

Watch 8 Days: To The Moon

And Back on BBC iplayer

ent Nixon PICTURE PERFECT Reflection of Armstrong in Buzz Aldrin’s space helmet SALUTE Astronauts planted the US flag on the surface WALKING ON THE MOON Aldrin with seismic gear GOLDEN GLOBE Armstrong was wowed by the horizon