A Ringside View of the Moon Shots, Part 3: The Countdown Kit

A copy of the press kit issued to NASA public affairs personnel during the Apollo program. (Courtesy of Steve Milner)

By Steve Milner
Contributing Writer

For this blog post series I referred to launch countdown information from my 50-year-old Apollo 11 press kit, which I and the world’s media quoted extensively. Following a precise schedule of the planned launch events, the Apollo 11 support team ran through all major pre-launch activities, looking for unexpected anomalies. There was a built-in countdown hold about nine hours before launch that lasted nine-and-a-half hours. Then some Launch Complex 39A pad personnel cleared the area, while propellants and their oxidizers were loaded onto the three-stage rocket. 

Diagram of the Apollo Saturn 5. (NASA, courtesy of Steve Milner) 

The first stage fuel was RP-1 (kerosene) and liquid oxygen. Second and third stage propellants were liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. Boeing built the huge first stage; North American Rockwell the second stage; and McDonnell Douglas built the third stage. IBM made the guidance or instrument unit, located between the third stage and the Apollo spacecraft’s service module.

The Apollo 11 Command/Service Module (CSM) are being mated to the Saturn V Lunar Module Adapter on April 11, 1969. (NASA Photo 69P-0247 via NASA on the Commons)

The Apollo 11 Instrument Unit is lowered into place atop the third stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle in the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy. Designed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the Instrument Unit served as the "nerve center" for the Saturn V, providing guidance and control, command and sequence of vehicle functions, telemetry and environmental control. Marshall designed, developed and managed the production of the Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the moon. (Marshall Space Flight Center via Flickr)

The S-IVB stage was developed under the direction of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and was powered by one J-2 engine capable of producing 225,000 pounds of thrust. Here, S-IVB-506, used on the Apollo 11 mission, is hoisted in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center for mating with the S-II, or second, stage of the Saturn V rocket. (Marshall Space Flight Center via Flickr)

The Saturn V's second stage being lowered into place atop the first stage in the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. (Marshall Space Flight Center via Flickr)

This view shows the Saturn V first stage thrust structure being placed for the final assembly. The Saturn IB and Saturn V first stages were manufactured at Michoud, located in New Orleans, Louisiana. The prime contractors, Chrysler and Boeing, jointly occupied Michoud. The basic manufacturing building boasted 43 acres under one roof. By 1964, NASA added a separate engineering and office building, vertical assembly building, and test stage building. By 1966, other changes to the site included enlarged barge facilities and other miscellaneous support buildings. All of this took place leading up to the Apollo 11 mission on July 16, 1969-launching astronauts to the Moon. (Marshall Space Flight Center via Flickr)

The Saturn V first stage, designed at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center and built at the Michoud Assembly Facility, was 138-feet-tall, nearly half the length of a football field.  In the photo on the left, a Saturn V's first stage (or S-IC) equipped with one dummy F-1 engine and four weights, is being lowered to the ground at Marshall after being vibrated and shaken to simulate the effects of an actual rocket launch.  On the right, a 70mm Airborne Lightweight Optical Tracking System (ALOTS) camera, mounted in a pod on a cargo door of a U.S. Air Force EC-135N aircraft, photographed the Saturn V second (S-II) and third (S-IVB) stages pull away from the expended first (S-1C) stage. Separation occurred at an altitude of about 38 miles, some 55 miles downrange from Cape Kennedy. (Marshall Space Flight Center via Flickr)

Continuing with my press kit data on launch morning, Astronauts Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins were awakened at 5:30 a.m., or four hours before their launch. They underwent a medical examination by flight surgeon, Dr. Alan Harter, and others. At that time, Dr. Harter also was the commanding officer of my U.S Air Force Reserve unit at Patrick Air Force Base. Next, the astronauts had the traditional steak-and-eggs breakfast with special visitors, who always included Donald “Deke” Slayton, the Chief of Flight Crew Operations, and Shepard, who headed the Astronaut Office. Slayton, didn’t fly during the Mercury Program due to a suspected heart murmur, but was launched into Earth orbit six years later with Tom Stafford and Vance Brand on the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP). During the ASTP mission, their Apollo spacecraft rendezvoused, docked and provided an in-space corridor to visit the Soviet spacecraft, and vice-versa, demonstrating détente between the two nations. Slayton and Shepard were always informal, cordial guys when they visited KSC’s Headquarters Building, where my office was located. During launch preparations they worked next door, in the Manned Spacecraft Operations Building, which also housed the astronauts’ crew quarters and an Apollo spacecraft checkout area, prior to its move to the huge Vehicle Assembly Building, where it was mated to the 36-story-tall Saturn V rocket.

Three hours before their launch, Neil Armstrong waves as he leaves the crew quarters and boards the transfer van with fellow crew members Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin for the 15-minute trip to Pad 39. (Marshall Space Flight Center via Flickr)

In preparing for their flight, the Apollo 11 crew suited up, left the Manned Space Center Operations Building and went in a transfer van to the launch site, eight miles from their crew quarters. About two-and-a-half hours before launch, they entered their Apollo spacecraft and spent their remaining time on Earth checking on-board systems with the KSC launch team, and with Mission Control in Houston.

Approximately two-and-a-half hours before launch, Neil Armstrong leads his crew across Swing Arm 9 to the "White Room" connected to the command module "Columbia," 320 feet above the ground, carrying his portable oxygen supply. (NASA Photo KSC-69PC-399via History.NASA.Gov)

The Apollo 11 space vehicle’s final checks were done at six minutes before launch, and the space vehicle’s launch automatic sequence started at nine seconds before launch. At T-minus two seconds all five of its first-stage engines were running, and at T-zero, Apollo 11 lifted off. I’ll skip the times for intervening steps, as the launch vehicle’s second and third stages ignited, sending the Apollo 11 astronauts into Earth orbit 11 minutes after their liftoff. And following maneuvers in Earth orbit, their command and service modules joined with their lunar module for the voyage to the Moon.

The general Apollo site access badge and my Apollo 11 press site access badge signed by astronaut Frank Borman.  (Courtesy of Steve Milner)

Some 3,500 news personnel, including those representing several foreign nations, were accredited for the Apollo 11 launch. And thousands of everyday persons, many of whom had camped overnight near the space center, witnessed this historic event. 

At the press site, thousands of news reporters from the world over watched, taking many pictures, as the Saturn V launch vehicle (AS-506) lifted off to start Apollo 11 on its historic mission to land on the Moon. The total number of news people officially registered to cover the launch was 3,497. The craft lifted off from launch pad 39 at Kennedy Space Flight Center (KSC) on July 16, 1969. (NASA photo courtesy of Steve Milner)

Personnel within the Launch Control Center at Kennedy Space Center watch the Apollo 11 liftoff from Launch Complex 39A today at the start of the historic lunar landing mission. The LCC is located three-and-one-half miles from the launch pad. (NASA Photo SPD-KSCMA-KSC-69PC-3 87 via NASA on the Commons)

Editor's Note: In addition to serving as public affairs officer for 17 years at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, Steve Milner was also a public affairs contractor with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at Cape Canaveral during the manned Gemini, Apollo and Skylab programs.