If Armstrong and Aldrin had been stranded on the Moon

This is pretty chilling to read. This was the speech prepared for Richard Nixon in the event that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin had been stranded on the Moon (aka, left to die).

Queue comments about simply exiting stage right...

Oh that's creepy. I just thought of what it might be like to be told, "Okay, well, you're stuck on the moon. Forever. Good luck and godspeed."

Wow is that real? That's really weird to read that.

Yeah, it's real. Ike had two statements prepared for D-Day. The statement he gave praising the troops because it was successful, and the statement he never gave, praising the troops and accepting 100% of the blame for its failure. It goes to show how ballsy the moon thing was that the chance of failure was high enough to have this prepared.

Light reading for long layovers, the Apollo 11 press kit can be found here:

http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/a11/A11_PressKit.pdf

The initial assent burn put them in an orbit 10nm above the surface. Another burn put them at 45nm. Yet another burn put them at 60nm where they met up with the command module. If I'm reading it right, the entire process took about 3-1/2 hours. Probably felt pretty good to be back in the CSM with Collins.

Yeah, you know I knew that there must have been something prepared, it's just really eerie to read it! It really is amazing the risks these guys took on these missions. To think that space travel is routine is just absurd.

Thanks for posting! I love this kind of stuff! I'm sitting standby at a podunk airport in WI so I'll def get through some of that today!

I reread it a couple times, and really I think the most eerie and chilling part is the statement "These men know there is no hope for their recovery". It just paints such a depressing picture. I've heard and read the story about them breaking the switch that powered the motor for the ascent stage rocket, but imagine if that thing really never fired, and they were just stranded. What does a person do at that point? Staring up at the Earth, knowing they'd never make it back, and literally having a clock to their death in front of them (O2 levels). These guys were just beyond brave to take on missions like this.

I like what Gus Grissom (presciently) said.


"If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life."

I'd suit up and go out for a walk.

I wish that hadn't been forgotten.

I would imagine that there would be some kind of valve they could pop that would instantly kill them by dumping pressure/oxygen. I would think.

I know later Apollo crews carried cyanide pills, so I'd guess they had it then as well. Dumping the suit might be quicker though.

Two words: Capricorn One.......

Someone said that the whole lunar landing was filmed at the Old Tucson Studios..........