Williamsburg Regional Library

Landing Eagle, Inside the cockpit during the first moon landing, by Michael Engle

eng

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

Landing Eagle

1101969056

by Michael Engle

Inside the cockpit during the first moon landing

Fifty years ago, in a small, fragile spacecraft designed for only one purpose--landing on the Moon--two American astronauts prepared to fly that spacecraft from its 10 mile high orbit above the Moon down to a landing on the Sea of Tranquility. It was a sea in name only. It was actually a bone dry, ancient dusty basin pockmarked with craters and littered with rocks and boulders. Somewhere in that 500 mile diameter basin, the astronauts would attempt to make Mankind's first landing on the Moon.Neil Armstrong would pilot the Lunar Module "Eagle" during its twelve minute descent from orbit down to a landing. Col. Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin would assist him. On the way down they would encounter a host of problems, any one of which could have potentially caused them to have to call off the landing, or, even worse, die making the attempt. The problems were all technical-communications problems, computer problems, guidance problems, sensor problems. Armstrong and Aldrin faced the very real risk of dying by the very same technical sword that they had to live by in order to accomplish the enormous task of landing on the Moon for the first time.Yet the human skills Armstrong and Aldrin employed would be more than equal to the task

adult