Įlizabeth Howell (she/her), Ph.D., is a staff writer in the spaceflight channel since 2022 covering diversity, education and gaming as well. Reading Apollo 11: The Best New Books About the US Moon Landingsįollow Elizabeth Howell on Twitter.NASA's Historic Apollo 11 Moon Landing in Pictures.Catch These Events Celebrating Apollo 11 Moon Landing's 50th Anniversary.He still looks at the moon and wonders when we will go back, he said, but even if he doesn't live to see its successor, he's glad Apollo went. "It's one of the few times when the world was united and it was positive," he said. To him, he said, this shows that NASA is a place where just about anyone can work, because it takes on people with such different backgrounds.Īs for Apollo 11, Bales said he is glad nearly everyone living back then remembers where they were on that historic July 20, 1969. Among the people NASA brought aboard on his watch were Wayne Hale, who later became a flight director and the space shuttle's program manager, and Bill Gerstenmaier, who has held several senior spaceflight positions, including 15 years as NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations.īales left NASA in 1997, but he said he has been pleased to see mission controllers become more diverse, with more women and people of color stepping into the job. "I was lucky enough to see applications first" when deciding whom to hire for the division, Bales said. Late in his NASA career, Bales was in charge of an office that monitored systems in the space shuttle. Astronauts and mission controllers together solved the problem, allowing three crews to stay on board Skylab for months at a time. And also not use too much gas … that was wild."Īfter weeks of effort, controllers eventually found an attitude that would keep the space station somewhat stable until a rescue crew arrived led by Apollo 12's Pete Conrad. "We had to fly the crazy thing at a place we thought we'd never have to fly," he said, "so we wouldn't heat up the vehicle inside but still get us enough sunlight on the wing. The damaged space station survived and made it to orbit with one solar array missing and another solar array damaged.īales was there as NASA scrambled to save the space station from overheating. But Bales' focus quickly shifted to the Skylab space station, which encountered a series of its own problems.ĭuring launch on May 14, 1973, a micrometeoroid shield (which was supposed to act as a thermal blanket for Skylab and shield it from space debris) accidentally ripped open 63 seconds into the flight and tore away. "That was wild"īales worked on Apollo 12, and helped the guidance officer on Apollo 13, which experienced an explosion en route to the moon and had to abort, coming back to Earth. The six-part " Apollo's Moon Shot" premiered June 16 and continues through July 21 "The Day We Walked On the Moon" premiered July 7 at 9 p.m. That gave everyone the confidence and trust to rely on each other, instead of dissolving into finger-pointing and recriminations when complications arose, he said.īales spoke with in association with the Smithsonian Channel, which is airing original programming about the moon landings. Flight director Gene Kranz had told his controllers, "When we walk out of this room, whatever happens, we're walking out as a team," Bales recalled Kranz said. There were many factors behind Eagle's successful landing, which took place 50 years ago this July, and among them Bales points to the team feeling in Houston's mission control. After a few more similar error codes, Eagle touched down safely on the lunar surface. Garman told Bales, who told the flight director, and within moments the concerned Armstrong got his answer and proceeded with the landing process. The advisory meant that the computer was slightly overloaded, but did not indicate a risk of the spacecraft crashing. So, it was Garman, sitting in a back room, who found the list more quickly and could tell Bales that a 1202 alarm was not a concern.
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