Do Go On - 7 - Apollo 11: Moon Landing

Episode Date: December 9, 2015

One small podcast for man...You've heard of the Moon landing, but do you know the whole story? Do you know how close they came to failure and certain death? Armstrong may have been first to walk on the Moon, but Buzz had a couple of his own firsts too. And how about the third astronaut that stayed behind and many people have forgotten? Hear about him and his flatulence. It's the Moon, the landing and the piss bags. Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] the show and get rewards like bonus episodes:www.patreon.com/DoGoOnPod  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amarna 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there. Canada, we are visiting you in September this year.

If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Hello and welcome to DoGo on another episode of our little podcast show, and that show is with me. Dave Warnocky, I'm here with Matt Stewart. Hi, Dave, how do you do? I do well.

That's quite formal of you. Thank you, Matthew. How are you? Yeah, good, thanks. Hey, Dave, I'd love to introduce you to my co-host. Oh, is it not me? Look, I'm confused by this. It's, yes, Perkins.

I almost put a soft J there. Hes Perkins. Hesse Perkins. Hesse. Hello, lads. How are you? We are bloody well. Great to see you here.

Hess Perkins. I don't think I'm Matt's co-host. I think we're all each other's co-host. Well, then, you are my co-hosts then, aren't you? Good point. Yeah. Good point. All right.

Well played. Many good points shall be made on this show where we pick a topic, one of the three of us. We write a report about it and then report back to the other two, try and teach them some interesting things. This week, it is my turn to talk the talk. And Dave, you are a little bit anxious, would you say, about this one? Well, there's a few reasons for that. Firstly, I got to mention the elephant in the room.

Is it Hesberg? Yes, Hesbuck. Oh, you call him Hesse an elephant? That's weird. I was actually talking about, in this space, it's a rehearsal space as well. An Auntie Donna of sketch comedy, Troop. Troop, yeah. Are rehearsing out of the back.

and they have a pretty loud brand of comedy. Dave put his foot down. He went out there and he said, rolled up the sleeves, pulled out the shotgun, said, look here, Zach. I blame you for the noise, which is one of the three guys there. And they were bloody lovely about it,

so hopefully they're not going to be too late in the background. But at the same time, you know, we're fans and supporters of their art. Big fans. So, you know, we want to support them in any way we can. And if one of those ways is asking them to be quiet for a bit, That's fair. And, you know, we're willing to do that.

But if our listeners can hear them a little bit in the background, well, you're welcome, because you're getting an insight into genius. That's right. And if you are thinking them in the background is funnier than what you're hearing on the show, which undoubtedly is, head over to YouTube and look up on Teton for some real comedy styles. They're amazing. But, you know, it's our time to shine. It is our time to shine.

The other thing I think Dave is anxious about is that he's written a super long report, and he's confident that there is no humour in it at all. And Matt has somewhere to be. So we need to power through it as well. I've written too long of what's two documentaries. I've spent about 10 hours online looking at this thing. It better be good, is what I'm saying. You know what, I'm sure it will be.

I have a lot of faith in you. And if you put in that much effort, then it's going to really show in your report. Yeah. Okay? And Matt and I are here for you and you say you want us to be the comedic relief? Well, sure, just you wait and see. Just you wait and see. And if not, there's always Auntie Donna in the background.

Exactly. Hopefully somebody pops in. So hopefully I'll get an A plus on the factual part of the research. And you guys can get an A for some comedy style. All right. Now, Dave, we normally kick off the show with a question to link us into the topic. What's the question this week? That's right, because we're all big trivia lovers. We start with a question.

My question is, what do you guys think was the first television broadcast to be viewed by more than 500 million? people, half a billion. Um, okay. Was it the Beatles when they're on that around the world thing? They played, uh, they debuted their song about love. Which one?

All you need is love? All you need is love, that's the one. A great guess and a good tie into an early episode of the show about the Beatles. Yeah, I was going to say like the Olympics. The Olympics? Well, since... Is it the Olympics? No, it is not the Olympics.

Since then it has been beaten by a few things. Oh, okay. The first one that was viewed by a lot of people. How many again? It was 500. Over 500. What are the things that have been televised? Was it a live telecast?

Live telecast. Was it sport? No, no, no, no. It's something that everybody's interested. It's probably the most. You're doing another episode about Academy Awards. It is probably the arguably the most famous, actually. Oh, wedding?

Is it a wedding? Well, it has since been beaten by Princess Charmed. Charles and Diana's wedding. Okay. $750 million. One of the most significant and hyped up events of the 20th century. Moon landing! It's the moon landing!

Yes! Yes, it is! Oh, this is so good. I love this. Do you love the moon? Because we are talking for the next 45, 50 minutes about the moon. And one of the documentaries that you watch was it the dish? No.

Because I went through a big phase of that movie. We studied space in grade four and it was when that movie had come out and we had to make diagrams and I just made the satellite dish in parks. I made a model of that, and I put sheep in it because there's like a joke that it's in the middle of a sheep paddock, and I put sheep in my diagram. Very good. And what mark did you get for this?

Like A plus, easily. Which is what's coming for you, buddy. We're talking the moon landing. I was at the dish a couple of months ago. You were? Yeah. Any sheep inside the dish? No sheep inside the dish.

Disappointing. And you made a diagram? Not a diagram. What's the word? Like I made a model. all of it. Oh, diorama. Diorama, thank you.

I was going to, I'm like, yeah, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, I made a diorama. It was huge. It was like a big satellite dish. I think my mum really enjoyed. All we did when I was in grade for our big project, because you would have been the same year, Jess, that was the year of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. And we all got to make a project on one sport.

And you got, no mark, but you got a gold, silver or bronze medal. Oh, I like that. I did mine on weight lifting, which is quite original. No one else did that. My dad did all of the projects. And we still only got a silver medal. Oh. Oh, well.

Yeah, I like my mum made the model of the dish. And I was like, can I help? No, no, no. She'll have a great time. You'll ruin it. We'll put sheep in it. That'll be funny. Comedy.

Great, great stuff. Anne Perkins. And Perkins. She's a great lady. Okay, so, and this is my final in the trilogy of very famous things that you think you know a lot about. But when you actually think about it, you don't actually know anything about it at all. So we started with the Mona Lisa. we had the Academy Awards

and now we are with the moon landing at Triptitch Ah, triptish. Just like my man Frederick McCubbin and his pioneer triptitch As discussed in the first episode

Because when I thought about it I was like the moon landing Like I say One of the most famous events Of the last century Then I thought about it I don't know how long it took them to get there I don't know how long they were there

Three weeks What they were there for a day and a half I've got no idea that is incorrect and we're going to get them. But you tried? Do you guys feel, I don't know, Jess, maybe you said you're obsessed with it, but I had no real, because you know when something you become so famous, you just accept it. There's no point in researching it.

You don't know the details. I already know the moon landing happened. Yeah. But then, because I wasn't alive in 1969 when it was on television, I have no idea about it. Yeah, cool. I think I'll know, like, little facts, but I'm sure you're going to surprise me. Matt, how you feeling? Yeah, look, I don't know much.

Cool. But I know I love you. I... I don't know. I don't know much, but I know what I like. I've seen Apollo 13, and that's the failed one. I think it... What was the successful one?

Apollo 11. I know that. I know Neil Armstrong was involved. Buzz Aldrin. I don't know the third guy's name. Oh, I do. We'll get there. Don't you worry.

Oh, God, there's so much to learn. And I think that's about all I know. Oh, and also that it's a hoax. Oh, yeah. Also, I'm going to preface this by saying, I wanted to do a bit about it being a hoax, but the actual report went so long that if you think, if you are interested in hoax,

and I looked it up, there's heaps of conspiracy theory podcasts. So if you enter that, but we're just going to take it on face value. It actually happened because it was just too much. It was another separate report. It was not in a recording studio somewhere. No, it was on the moon, if you've ever heard of that.

The moon. The moon. The moon. Okay. Which moon? The moon. Background. Weird. There's a lot of moons.

Yeah, but ours is just moon. It's the moon. I think it's Neptune. All the moons of Neptune are named after Shakespeare characters. It's like 30 or 40 of them. That's kind of nice. There you go.

Okay, background. Background. Moon time. In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected as the 35th president of the United States. Rings a bell. Of course, you may have heard of this man.

It was an uncertain time of the 60s American history with being the height of the Cold War. People were pretty unsure as to what was going to happen with tension growing between the United States and the USSR, those Soviet guys. Back in the USSR. Another call back to the Beatles. Another call back. Beatles loved it. So Kennedy had been elected on a campaign that promised American superiority. He practiced his speech. superiority over the Soviet Union, particularly in fields of space exploration and missile defence. So that was his big selling point.

Now, the Apollo program that we've already talked slightly about had been initially conceived during the previous president, Dwight D. Eisenhower's time at the time. You know that guy? Dwight Eisenhower. The program was named Apollo after the Greek god of light music and the sun, and it was named by NASA manager Abe Silvesti, who later said,

I was naming the spacecraft like I'd name my baby. And Apollo is a terrible name for a child. I looked up Abe in real life and his children are actually called Joe and David, which are much more boring. Maybe... David is a shit, nah. David's a terrible name.

I think Apollo's alright. Apollo Creed. Remember him? Is that from... How would you shorten that? That's from Rocky, yeah. How would you shorten Apollo? Pol.

Polsky. Pole Poh. Let's hear you know Apollo? Oh, Pol. Oh my goodness. No? No, probably not. You said to bring the humor.

Yeah, thank you. Let's liken it to a Cambodian leader. Despite being elected on the promise of space exploration over the Soviets, JFK, I'm on first name terms for him. Or I am on initialism terms. Thank you. I just remember the word. JFK did not come to an immediate decision on the Apollo missions and whether they should go ahead.

So he was aming-a-ing-a-ing because it was going to cost a lot of money, and he knew that. I wonder why. But a bit of background here. The Americans were claiming that they were going to be superior in space exploration. But at this time, the US were definitely running second to the Soviets. So the space race began in 1957, when the Soviets launched the first satellite into space.

Any ideas what that's called? Probably heard of it. Sputnik. Sputnik. Sputnik won. I did know it. It was there. And the American public was super shocked that the Soviets had beaten them.

Then the US launched their own satellite. the next year, so they're a bit behind. Someone was called patriotic love missile. Oh my goodness, so many of the things are actually called stuff like that. That's great. So they put their thing out the next year, and then they decided they were going to one-up them, and they were like, getting a person into space is our next goal. But the Soviets beat them yet again when cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first...

I just said his name. Uri, that's right. Yuri. He was on first-name basis. I'm on initialism basis with YG. He became the first person into outer space and he went into orbits of the earth in 1961. So that was April.

The next month the US launched its first astronaut, Alan Shepard, into suborbital space as part of Project Mercury. He was aboard the craft, The Freedom Seven, which is a very American name. But he only went suborbital, which means he got into space

but didn't complete like a full orbit like YG from Russia. So it's kind of like having a number two hit. It's pretty impressive. Number one is how much better. Yeah, yeah. And then, I love, America is such a great country. 20 days after Alan Shepard became the first US person into space,

but still didn't do proper orbital, JFK gets up there and says to Congress, hey guys, I believe that this nation should commit ourselves to achieving the goal before this decade is out of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth. So, the famous speech. It is a famous speech. I think it was more compelling when he said it, but you did a good job.

And they're, I believe that our nation there. Before this decade is out. That's a pretty good impression of JFK. It's not bad. Yours, it's like, I can't quite put my finger on the accent that was sneaking into it. It was a little bit Irish, wasn't it? It was like a leopard court. Leopard.

Before I had a decade is out. I've got to put a bar out on the moon. Aera, I don't know I'm thinking about Irish. Anyway, so he's gone. Hey guys, we can't do the satellite. Hey guys, we can't get an astronaut into space first. Hey, guys, we're going to put a man on the moon. But don't you think, like, because the Soviets keep beating them.

So don't tell them what you're going to do. They've got better technology clearly. Yeah, and you're sort of saying, oh, before the decades out, this is the early 60s. So you're like, well, I'm giving us plenty of time. Yeah, exactly. He thinks he's got a long time. They're just going to beat you. Work quick, dudes.

So the cars are on the table, Americans. They've gone all. in, despite the fact they are a behind. And this is... So, 1962, this is. And then John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22nd, 1963. So we never saw people get to the moon. Sad.

So just keep that in the back of your mind. So landing the men on the moon, it's pretty ambitious and required a huge sudden burst of technological creativity. And it was the largest commitment of resources ever made by any nation during peacetime. So the US invested a whopping $24 billion, that's with the B, in the 60s, which is equal in 2014 to $356 billion. That's a lot of cash. That's a lot of cash. A lot of money.

At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people. What? Required the support of 20,000 industrial firms and universities. So it was a big spend, but it created a lot of jobs. Yeah, I was going to say, at least it is creating a lot of jobs, but at the end of the day, And while I'm certainly not, you know, saying it's not an impressive feat, but at the end of the day, all you're doing is like, can we do this? Oh, yeah, there we go, we did it.

No, I'm guessing they, like, anyway, keep going. I'm just shitting all over the moon landing. Like, what did you do? All you did is went to the moon, but a lot happened from that. I'm impressed, but then because I watch these two documentaries and I'm kind of obsessed with it. Like, it is a kind of cool thing, but, yeah, what is it really done? Yeah, but then I'm thinking,

Hey, it's all about beating the Russians. They would have learned a lot. They can run upside down and stuff, right upside down. Yeah, and then the Soviets, it's just like, use a pencil. Hey, we beat those Soviets. I say we. What do you mean, we? Hey.

You watch two documentaries and now you're an American. I am an American. Oh, my goodness. See, I also am happy that I'm doing this project because last night at my trivia night that I host, I heard a woman say, Neil Armstrong, he was British, right? Oh.

No, probably the most American. guy of all time. And then she goes, oh no, sorry, I'm thinking of Lance Armstrong. Also American. Also American. So did not excuse them. Please do not go to Trivian nights. Wait, no. I was thinking of Stretch Armstrong. Also, on American. He's a toy.

An American toy. He's a toy. I can never get that right. British, a toy. Thinking of my husband. No Australian. He's Australian. He's Australian. So the US completed a number of unmanned missions over the next six years, five or six years. It wasn't until

1967 that they had their first manned mission. This has since been known to history as Apollo 1. And it can't be described as anything other than horrific disaster. Oh boy. Oh man. That's deaf. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So it was supposed to be the first manned test flight of the Apollo command service module, which they call the CSM. That's the bit right at the front of the rocket where they sit. Oh, yeah. So right at the top. So they didn't have fuel in the rocket.

There was just a test. They were just going to sit there and do a countdown. That's what they were going to do. So the plan was for them. Apollo won eventually after this test to be the first people to orbit Earth in the thing and then come back, launched on a big rocket called the Saturn 1B. It was a massive rocket. So on January 27, 1967, whilst undergoing a procedural launch simulation after five and a half

hours of delays. An electrical fire began in the cabin. Oh. Spread ridiculously quickly in the high pressure, 100% oxygen atmosphere that was around them. The three men in control lost radio contact with the NASA Tower after just 17 seconds. So went up in flames really quick. Pressure rose high enough from the fire that the cabin burst and the fire erupted onto the pad area, which frustrated attempts to rescue them. The astronauts were asphyxiated and then burnt before the hatch could be opened.

The hatch actually opened inward and was very complicated to get open in a disaster. So the three astronauts, Gus Grissom, Edward White, Roger Chafy, had no hope of survival. So it's massive tragedy, big disaster. It rocked the NASA mission, the Apollo mission. But it was like a dress rehearsal, wasn't it? They weren't even really taking up.

No, no, no. So they're just counting down. Something went wrong. It's super bad. And luckily it was a dress rehearsal because there's no fuel. otherwise it could have exploded. Which would have been terrifying. Still not great.

Oh, terrible. Awful. So the United States Congress were like, whoa, this is not good. They launched committee inquiry into NASA who did their own investigation into the incident. Man, that would have been so embarrassing.

Yeah, right. People were really... Check this out, USSR. We can do it too. And somebody just like didn't plug something in properly or just sparked. And they had a big investigation. They could not find the cause of the fire.

So this day then... A cigarette. Yeah, it's always a cigarette. And the US public were like, hey, we don't know everyone to do this. This is not a cool thing because three American heroes, as they say, have just died for nothing. Yeah, literally nothing. How are you going to get to the moon if you can't have them sit on the pad and count from 10 to zero? But eventually, after a big investigation and halting the mission, they decided to go ahead with the moon mission,

but they had a number of safety procedures that were amended. So they had new fireproof suits. Ah. It's a good invention. Good start. The removal of flammable material in the car. cabin. Excellent.

A hatch that could be quickly opened in an emergency. There we go. All things that in retrospect seem pretty common sense. You would hope so. So the deceased astronauts widows asked NASA that they name Apollo 1 or their name Apollo 1 be reserved for their flight, the flight that they never made. So it was decided in retrospect that what they were originally called AS 204, that that would be recorded as Apollo 1. out of respect for those guys. So at the time, they went, hey, we're Apollo 1.

They thought there was something else. Yeah. And since three unmanned Apollo missions before them had already taken place, which is AS 201, 202, 203, it was decided that the next mission, the first unmanned test of Saturn 5, the big rocket, that would be called Apollo 4. Okay. So, and everything else from then on is 5, 6, 7. So there's no such thing.

So there's no such thing as Apollo 2 or Apollo 3. Yeah, cool. So there you go. They just skip straight to four. Out of respect for those guys. That's nice. The missions continued on. Apollo 7 was the next manned flight.

So they did four, five and six. And Apollo 8 was the first manned flight to leave Earth's orbits. It reached the moon. And it made the crew the first humans to ever see the far side of the moon. And the Earth rise over the lunar horizon. Oh, that would have been so sick. That would have mean top notch. Having no idea what it would have really looked like, I guess.

Yes. Or did they have satellite? footage of that sort of stuff. Probably there had been satellites that went to the moon, but yeah. So that was a manned flight that went to the moon. Went to the moon, did it sort of went around and then came back. It didn't land on it. So there was already satellite

so maybe it wouldn't have been that cool to see. Oh, with your own eyes, I reckon it would be pretty cool. So Neil Armstrong wasn't even the first person to go to the moon. No, well, because the next one was Apollo 10 in May 1969. That was a dress rehearsal for the moon landing. The crew did everything the Apollo one

pardon me, the Apollo 11 mission would do, except they stopped just short of landing on the moon. So they got there, did a lap, got the lunar module, lowered it down to within 15 kilometres of the moon, and then this went straight back up and then went home. So a really cool thing to do, but they are like 15K away from being the people we all know. That's so strange.

It reminds me of Burke and Will's like almost, how far away were they? It was about 15Ks, I think. No, I think it was even less. I thought it were like 5Ks or something. Maybe it was, yeah, because they could taste the salt water. Yeah, yeah, that was such a short, and they're like, you know what, close enough, and back they go. They're the Birkenwills of the 20th century. And I think that this podcast could be the Birkenwills of the 21st century.

We could, we'll almost do well. We'll almost be someone. And we'll die of starvation before reaching the ultimate success. Yeah, fabulous. What's the ultimate success to you? Podcast glory. Podcast glory, yeah. Top of the charts

If I could have one thing It'd be podcast glory Please One thing One thing and one thing Okay so if Apollo 10's made it to the moon They've gotten real close But they've come home

Then we finally get To the Apollo 11 The famous moon mission So the three men chosen For the July 1969 moon landing Were Commander Neil Armstrong

The one we all know He was one month away from turning 40 So he's 39 at this time. It's old. He's a former... Hey, he's decorated. No, but like, you know what I mean. Like, you'd think...

It's fine. I guess you've also got to be... Like, they're all super smart guys, right? What do they need to know? They're some sort of science guys. They're pretty science. Robody guys. Well, he is...

Engineer type people. No, he's just a crazy good pilot. So he's a former officer in the US Navy. He was just a pilot. He had served in the Korean War. No. After the war, he served as a test pilot at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. I didn't know that.

There you go in a high-speed flight station where he'd logged 900 flights as like super-quick pilot dude. Super quick pilot dude is the technical term, obviously. Yes, thank you, Matthew. We'll hit you. I don't know why we both just turned on you down. No, I'm sorry, Matt. Because he said the word engineer and we're like, no, actually he's a super high-tech pilot. He's like heaps of flying.

Then he joined National Astronaut Corps in 1962 And before Apollo 11, he'd flown into space once in 1966 And he was technically the first American civilian to go into space Because he'd retired from the Navy, he was technically a civilian So there you go That's pretty cool Actually, I didn't know he was a pilot, so that's cool There you go, we're learning

Decorated Pilot 900 flights Then we have lunar module pilot Edwin Buzz Aldrin Jr. He was also 39 years old. He's a former US Air Force officer and command pilot. And in 1966, he had been one of the first people to complete a space walk. He's actually walked outside space before. Neil has not.

And sadly, the man that not many people remember is command module pilot. I reckon I'll know his name. Give me the first letter of his name. Is this guy an engineer? M. Michael? Michael. It's her name?

Starts with. C. Michael, no. No. Come on, Jess, you can do this. Michael. Do you want to have a guess? C, he starts with C.

Cranberry. That's pretty good. I reckon we'd often remember it. It's a really common name. That's the other thing that's against. It's like Chapman? Armstrong is awesome. Buzz, cool name.

This guy is Michael Collins. Collins. Oh. He's also like an Irish. Was he Irish? He had a movie made out about him, I think. Just for doing nothing. Or maybe that's just a different Michael.

It was probably different Michael Collins. For doing nothing. Well, he at 38 was the youngest of the crew. Oh, the baby. He'd been the fourth ever person to complete a spacewalk, even before Buzz. Oh, wow. He had also been in the US Air Force and later went on to be director of the National Air and Space Museum. Okay.

So multifaceted Michael Collins. He's a pretty cool guy. They're all pretty cool. qualified guys. But he was the one who stayed in the ship. That's right. He stayed in the module. Well, they went down.

I don't know if it's such a bad result for him. Somebody had to. You know, he's still got to be there. He just wouldn't have had all the bullshit afterwards. Yeah, true. What kind of bullshit do you foresee them going through? Oh, like Buzz Aldrin. He can't go down the shops without the kids.

The kids, because he is like the number one, most followed person on Twitter, Instagram. People are going crazy. No time he would have been. Equivalent of Twitter in 1969, which was magazines. Playboy. I'm going to look up if Buzz Aldrin has Twitter. He does.

I'm following him. They would have been all over him. He would have been so famous. Neil Armstrong, even worse. Oh, he would have the most famous person. He has 900,000 followers. That doesn't feel like enough. Well, 900,000 and one now.

He's got one now. After the show, I pledge a little. allegiance, that I will follow Buzz Aldrin. Do you reckon I'll get a follow back, probably? Probably. Let's tweet him when the show goes out. Yes! It's probably nice for Buzz to be followed now after following Neil that day.

He's a famous follower. He's a sheep. And now, yeah, really, that's all he was. Come on, mate. Let's chat our own path. You know, we know what the saddest part here is that if you look up Michael Collins and Twitter, there's probably like 8,000 people with that name. Oh, yeah.

no good call, I'll never find him. It's sad. It is sad. Okay, so we've got the actual mission. The three dudes, they're ready to rock. They're really qualified. They've all been in space. Now, before this mission, the crew of Apollo 10 had named their spacecraft

Charlie Brown and Snoopy. Adorable. So NASA was like, hey, this is actually going to the moon. We want you to name the craft after something a bit more mature this time. So the command module, the bit that Michael Collins gets to hang out in. They called that Columbia, after the Columbiad, which is the giant cannon shell spacecraft fired by a giant cannon in a Jules Verne novel, from the Earth to the Moon.

Okay, too complicated. So a bit of a reference there that no one was getting. I think a Peanuts reference everybody got at the least. Yeah. I thought it was just Christopher Columbus, like an explorer. Good grief is all I can say to that. Good. Good.

The lunar module, the bit that actually goes down in the moon, you've probably seen as a weird looking sort of goldy. It looks like it's covered in tinfoil. that was called Eagle. Probably heard the phrase. The Eagle is landed. That's what they meant. That's right.

Also, Eagles, very American. Sure. There we go. So, the rocket that was, to get them off the ground was called the Saturn 5. The Saturn 5. It's the tallest,

the heaviest, and most powerful rocket ever brought to operational status. It was 111 meters tall. And the three men sat at the top of it. 11 meters. That's tall. That's quite tall.

And they're at the top, three of them sitting facing strapped upwards. So they're looking towards the side. That would be quite, that'd be quite a sweet feeling. If you like. Being launched in a space, that'd be pretty cool, right? Probably. Yeah, probably.

You ever thought about that? Top five feel. That's what I think it would feel like. Just being shaken. That sounds like you were gargowing. Yeah. And just to prove that every episode references Nazis in some ways, the Saturn 5 was designed by Werner von Braun,

It was a Nazi poached by the USA after World War II during Operation Paperclip. It sounds like something out of the Avengers. Operation Paperclip. Or just that they, yeah, and that they like snatched a Nazi. Yeah, they snatched thousands of them after. Maybe we could do an episode about this. They gave like diplomatic community to really clever people. Diplomatic immunity.

That were working on German rockets. Hey, these are Nazis. I know, I was just creating lethal weapon. It's the only way I can ever hear the words diplomatic community. Yeah. Were you thinking the same thing? Yeah. So anyway, so they, Operation Paperclip,

they got heaps of Nazi people that were really clever guys to come over and work for the United States. And this guy, Werner von Braun, he is often described as the godfather of rocket science. The godfather of rocket science. Correct. Mark found it funny. Correct.

So they're at the top of the astronaut. Before the launch, the three astronauts went into quarantine. And whilst there, they filled some of their time, by taking out a sort of life insurance policy on their life. So they looked into life insurance, really dangerous job being an astronaut. It's going to cost them $50,000 a year in 1969 money. So not really worth insuring your life for that.

So they knew what they were doing was very dangerous. They could possibly die. Actually, pretty likely they're going to die. So what they did was they signed hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of autographs on these little envelopes. Amazing. All three of them on the same one. And then what they did was they gave it to their friend who was an astronaut.

And on the day that they were going to launch in 1969, he took them to the post office. And they all got stamps with the date. And then he distributed them, their friend, to their three families. So if they died, their families could sell something because they'd be worth a heap's more because they were the three astronauts that died. Oh, my goodness. Spoiler alert.

They did not die. Oh. Never been disappointed that somebody lived. Just wrap it up there. Still, these envelopes these days can fetch up to $30,000 each. Wow. There you go. So was a collector's item after all?

It probably is a better collector's item because they didn't die, right? Yeah. But afterwards, they signed thousands of autographs because they were heroes. Totally. For free. So there you go. Wow. That's genius, though.

That's so clever. So they're sitting at the top of the rocket. They're pretty happy. They're probably going to die, but their family's going to make a lot of money. They're okay. Everyone's going to be okay. Surely that wasn't in their minds. We're probably going to die, was it?

I think they must have thought about it. They must have been like... They're trying to go to the... It's really... I can't say this enough. It's really dangerous. Is it though? I mean, they did it.

It's not just like flying to Sydney. Oh, sorry. Yeah, I keep thinking... Well, I mean, it's just like flying to Sydney. Yeah, yeah. But it's not like that. There's an air hostess and she gives you a meal. And it's not the best meal, but it's fine.

Just to put into context where you're Matt, they are sitting on top of hundreds of meals. millions of litres of fuel. Yeah. And three years... You'll need that? Yeah, you will. And less than three years earlier, their mates had died in a fire at the top of that thing.

And there was no fuel on board. So they needed the fuel. That's lesson one that I've got out of this so far. Fuel is good. Always have fuel. Always have. No, no, if they had fuel, they would have blown up the half of Florida. Well, look, on the information you've given me, no fuel, big fire, fuel, no fire.

think. No fire and glory. Statistically, when they had no fuel, 100% of the time, they call fire. My God. Never thought about that. Yeah. Too soon, Dave. Sorry, guys.

All right, so Apollo 11 launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on July 16th, 1969, at 932am, local time. It entered Earth. It entered Earth orbit. Well, they're super specific about everything. Well, they were two minutes late because it was supposed to be 9.30. Get that on Jet Star. People will bloody...

Oh, they're... Oh, they're going to crack the shits. It's because people have brought in too much hand luggage. 11 kilos, you really think you're going to get that on board? Get stow that shit, Neil. So it took off 9.32am, and this is how quick it is. It entered Earth orbit just 12 minutes later. So it's so quick.

The Saturn 5, the big rockets. Faster than getting to bloody Sydney. Takes an hour. Yeah, cop that just. The Saturn 5 had three stages. This is the big rocket that the Nazi designed. It fell away from the rocket. So eventually.

each stage it gets a little bit smaller and it's got these little rocket engines at the bottom keep getting smaller and smaller until eventually it's just the front of the rockets. How long do you reckon they travelled in space before they hit the moon? I was thinking, well, I said three weeks. I know that's wrong. No. It was... Two weeks.

Shorter? Isn't it shorter days? It's shorter than two weeks, that's correct. It's less than a week? It's three days. I'm again remembering it from the dish. Well, it just three days. Are you claiming less than a week?

week is the right answer. Well, you said three weeks, and I said less than a week, and the answer was three days, so you know, I win. Dave, do go on. Thank you so much. So they got there, July 19th. They passed the moon and fired a surface propulsion engine, which made them enter lunar orbits, and now they're going around and round around the moon.

So that's good. Then the next day, on July 20, the lunar module, known as Eagle, we had before, separated from the command module, and Armstrong and all-jolm. we're in the eagle leaving Collins alone sort of going around and around pick us up in half of see in a bit he's like I'll just then let's the car park

I'll pick you up out the front see you guys just text me when you're done yeah I'll just do laps unless I see a really good one unless I see a really good part then I'll let you know where I am I'll send you my coordinates

GPS this shit all right so Collins is alone probably I reckon eating all their supplies I'd be hoeing down on Twix. Space food, Twix. Yeah, you've just been a lot, you've been in a thing

with two other dudes for three days and now you've got some alone time. You'd fart. The first thing you'd do is fart. There'd be so many things you'd do. I learned. I actually read this thing and I can't tell it was true or not, that's why I wasn't going to put it in, but you've brought it up,

that Michael Collins, when he was on the way there, took heaps and heaps of, like, a modium anti-dairia things to sort of pack himself up so he didn't have to shit in space. But it just resulted in him farting over and over and over again inside the control module. So I was right. You were right. Bonus point for Jess.

Thank you. We're doing points now, by the way. It's suddenly become... Matt? It's one nil. And I'm winning. You're on zero. Still catch up. They wanted to land on a part of the moon called the Sea of Tranquility. Sounds like the perfect spot.

Yeah. It was that or the Desert of Death. So they thought... Oh, which one? Both of them look pretty rocky. The Sea of Tranquility. That sounds nice. Free Spar Upgrade. And as the descent towards the moon below began, Armstrong and Aldrin found they were passing landmarks on the surface four seconds too early. This is how specific these dudes are. They're like, hang on, that rocks, that's four seconds early.

And they reported that they were going to land long and that they thought they were going to land miles west of the Sea of Tranquility. Desert of Death is where they're... Oh, no. So five minutes into the descent, just 1,800 metres. It was not very far above the surface of the moon. The Eagles navigation and guidance computer distracted the crew with the first of several unexpected program alarm. So it was just going alarm, alarm, alarm, well, they're trying to concentrate on really quite a dangerous thing.

Back in Houston, Texas, they had no idea what was going on. They were like, but then this 24-year-old computer program whiz kid. Bill Gates. Well, his name's Jack Garman. He might have to, you know, Garmin. in the GPS. Oh. Had nothing to do with it.

Oh, disappointing. Spelled it differently. But he told the astronauts, hey guys, I've seen it before. I've written down what to do. What you do is you ignore it and keep going. That was his advice. He was like...

He's like the IT guy. Just turn it off and back on again. That was actually what he said, if it doesn't happen again, you're going to be sweet. But then it happened again over and over and over again. And in hindsight, what they've worked out is,

because this is happening in seconds. They can't work it out because their computers are shit ass at the time. They worked out that what had was the computer felt it was being overworked. It couldn't complete all of its tasks. So it was just saying, I'm just going to reboot. Give me a break.

Give me a break. So it was just crashed and reboot. It was over and over again. The alarms were going off. And just a bit of a side note here. The lunar module, whilst it was state of the art, 1969 computing technology, $24 billion worth, the computer on board only had 65 kilobytes of memory,

which just to put into context, The newly released iPhone 6S has two gigabytes of memory or RAM, which is equal to 2 million kilobytes. Oh my goodness. So their computer, Buzz Aldrin has described it since as having the same memory as a modern digital watch. That's incredible. Our phones are more powerful memory-wise, yeah, by a lot. Thousands of times more powerful.

But sometimes my phone just freezes for no reason. and I'll have to turn it off and back on again. And they got to the moon. And imagine it happens in the life or death situation. This is like the time, this is the bit that they haven't done yet. Because they've gotten there. This is the bit, Matt. This is what they've done the dress rehearsal before.

And now they're at the bit. And the alarm's going off saying, hey. Hang on. And they're on the ground. They're this close to saying abort. We don't want to risk these guys live. Because the thing is, if they get there and they get stuck, no one can rescue them.

It's it. That's over. They're going to just die there. So Armstrong looked outside. He saw that the computer's landing target was actually going to be in a boulder-strone area. So there's boulders everywhere. And just east of a 300-meter diameter crater. And he was like, I don't trust this computer anymore.

He realized it was low on fuel. They only had two minutes before that they were going to completely run out of fuel. So Armstrong, super badass, took it into semi-automatic control. and with Aldrin calling out altitude and velocity data and quietly shitting his pants on his lap. He didn't have the constipation thing.

No, he really should have. Because I've actually in a post interview that I've read, I saw with Aldrin, he was saying that he didn't want to take over Neil's concentration. I didn't want to break his... But at the same time,

he was trying to use body language to imply, hey Neil, we kind of got to get this thing on the ground. Because now the guys back in Texas, they've got to stop watch. that says two minutes left of fuel and they've decided to go silent to not control, to disrupt Neil's memory

but all they're calling out is minute 30, minute 15 of how much fuel is left Neil lands at 817pm with 15 seconds of fuel left. Oh boy. So it's super close. He lands it, takes it down and Armstrong says

Houston Tranquility Base here the eagle has landed and that's actually improvised calling themselves Tranquility Base Oh Did that on the fly A bit of Neil Armstrong magic

He's good A bit of crowd work We could learn from Neil Armstrong The very nervous ground control dude replied Roger Twang Tranquility He stuffed that up

We copy you on the ground You got a lot of guys About to turn blue here We're breathing again Thanks a lot And then everyone starts clapping Going yeah We're on the moon

Imagine being in that room Like not only Imagine being like the three guys in space, how you'd feel like you hadn't breathed for a very long time. But imagine being in the room on Earth. That'd be amazing. I would have felt so sick. Would they be pop and champagne at that stage, or do they wait?

I don't know. Well, speaking of champagne. Buzz Radio to Earth, he said this is the LM pilot, lunar module pilot. I'd like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and give thanks in his or her own way.

It's very nice. See, Aldrin is a very religious man. It's a Presbyterian, and he wanted to mention God, but at the time NASA was still fighting a big lawsuit brought by outspoken and world-famous atheist Madeline Murray O'Hare. And she'd sued and objected to Apollo 8, the crew reading from the Book of Genesis and in early missions, NASA was like, hey, Boz, maybe don't mention the G word.

No God. I quite like how he said it, though. So he said that. In his or her own way. So I think that's very good. It's accessible to everyone. That's lovely. Then, Aldrin took a secret communion on board the module, which he'd smuggled on.

Also known as Co-moon. No, get out. Yes. Yes, I wrote that down. Pretty good. Pretty good. So what did you do? Sitting in the lunar module.

Aldrin, he opened up a little plastic package with wine and bread inside it. He poured the wine into a shellace from his Presbyterian church. And later wrote that in the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up to the side of the cup. That'd be rad. And he read himself the scripture, I am the vine. You are the branches. Whose ever abides in me will bring forth much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing.

And then he drank the wine. So the first thing ever drunk on the moon, was wine. Yeah. And I reckon Neil is sitting next door to him going, can I have a bit of that? Yeah. I should have brought a beer.

Should have cracked a beer. I'm not really as religious as you, but... Yeah. Have a few bruskees. On the moon skis. On the moon skis. Oh, so moon communion is not fine. Communion was much worse than bruskies on the moon skis.

The schedule for the mission then called for the astronauts to follow the landing with a five-hour sleep period. And it's like, bullshit. Have a nap. We just landed on the moon. there's no way that we're going to go to bed now. Like they've got to be, you know when you get to a holiday destination, and even though you're jet lagged as shit,

you still want to take a bit of a trip around the hotel, see what's out there. Get straight in the pool. I'm in Beijing. I want to see what Beijing's like. Yeah, I'm not going to have a nap. I can't sleep now. But it's like that, but you've traveled like half a million miles. Yeah.

Which is way further than Beijing. It's at least twice as far as Beijing. Somewhere that nobody else has ever been. Like heaps of people have been to Beijing. Oh, yeah. Nobody's been to the moon. Well, they have, but they haven't landed on it. Yeah.

Well, they have landed. As far as we know, I mean, the... Aliens. There's, like, been such a long history. Do we know that the dinosaurs never did? Good point. I don't know. Just a question.

His face is so high and mighty. Do we... Did you research that, Dave? Fuck. Prove it. Prove they haven't. So, Armstrong and Alternative, they were like, hey, can we sort of bump up the schedule here?

We want to get out there. So once they were ready to go outside, so a couple hours went past, but Nass was like, all right, we're excited too. You're excited. Everyone's a little excited. Let's get you out there. Really, even though the TV networks would have been like, can we hold it off to prime time? That's what I was super worried. I also thought about that. It's like, hang on, don't they have a billion dollar television deals going out? I think so. I do vaguely remember something like that in the dish where they're like, they're going. They're going to do it. And everybody's watching in their PJs. Right. Early or late at night?

It probably depends on where you are. Well, I've got the times. I've got the times. But we'll get to that. There's a big bit about the dish and the thing coming up. Get excited, Jess. I'm so excited. I know you like the dish. Is it a good movie? Should I say it? Yeah, it's a good movie. It's got Sam Neal. I like Working Dog. Yeah, it's got Sam Neal. It's got a lot of good lines in it.

It's got putty from Seinfeld. Is putty in it? Yeah, I think putty's in it. Does he play an American Massacre? Speak Real, Slow. Oh, I didn't know he was. in Seinfeld. I forgot that guy's name,

but I really like him. He's great in it too. He's very funny. Good old putty. The mechanic. So, they're ready to go outside. Eagle was depressurized. The hatch was opened,

and Armstrong made his way down the ladder first. There's been a lot of rumours since that Buzz was supposed to go first, and that Armstrong pulled rank, was like, I'm the captain, I'm going out. But in reality, it's a really tiny, tiny module,

and he was closest to the door. So Buzz couldn't get out. Amazing. That's the reason that Armstrong went first. Sure. At the bottom of the ladder, Armstrong turned and set his left boot on the surface, then spoke. That immortal phrase, some of the most famous words in human history, that's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.

Do you think he thought about that a lot? Well, there's also been rumours about that. Some people claim that he went down the ladder because he'd been thinking about it a lot and people had given him all these phrases like say something from Shakespeare, say something from the Bible and some people claim that he improvised it on the way down.

I always assumed it was written for him, but that's cool. Then his brother said that he found it in a diary. Okay. That was his words. So it's one of those things. But what Armstrong has always claimed, or did always claim was that he'd said that's one small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind,

but that it had cut out on the transmission on the A. So it probably makes more sense. Yeah, one small step for A man, one giant leap for mankind. So that's what he was trying to say in his words. But he's listened to it back and said, yeah, I can't hear it either, but I swear I said it. Yeah. Because it doesn't make sense, man and mankind in that sense is the same thing, right? If it's not A man.

I always read it as a man anyway. Yeah, like I'm just one man making a little step, but, you know, what a big step we've all taken as a civilization. Good job, everybody. And then there's a, there's a rumor that he said something after that. Are you going to talk about that at all? Yeah, he said, let's all get fucking wasted. Bring out the communion. Boom!

Brewskies on the moonskies. Let's get this party started. No one can stop me. I can do whatever I want. I do what I want. You know my mum, buzz? Some of that. Something like that. What is it?

No, I, you're talking about what you've heard. There was something, I don't remember the exact words, all the name. It was something like he said, I don't remember it at all. No, he made a reference to Mr. Vane? Yes, I have come across this. It's made up. Yeah, yeah, that's disappointing.

It's obviously bad. There's a reference to, is that way where the song, it was about Mr. Vane. Mr. Bain, the song we were singing earlier today. It is not Mr. What's the myth? What's the myth line? That he says... He actually said, supposedly said,

good luck, Mr. Gorski. Gorski. The story behind that is that when he was a child, he was playing baseball through an open window, he heard Mrs. Gorski yell at her husband, oral sex. You want oral sex? When the kid next door walks on the moon.

Oh, yeah. But it's just a myth. Yep. So there you go, but it's a cool myth. When the kid next door walks on the moon. moon. So it's like pigs fly, you know. Yeah, yeah.

And that's... It's not quite as snappy as pigs fly. Exactly. When the kid next door, that guy there, Neil Armstrong. That kid playing baseball. He's rubbish at that, but he'll be a great pilot someday. Yeah, it's too specific, isn't it? It is, yeah.

It's ridiculous. Yeah, right. But two cameras on the module filmed the event, and amazingly broadcast in black and white Armstrong's first steps live around the world. So there's a camera actually mounted on the module. That's how they filmed it. Wow. Because of random skepticism.

Probably like an early GoPro, yeah? Well, it was tiny. It had to run on seven watts of power, which the guy that invented it said is equal to one Christmas light. Oh, wow. So it had to be, and it also had to withstand

temperatures of plus 250 degrees minus 250 degrees. That's quite a range. That's Fahrenheit, but that's still... Quite a range. Oh, so Fahrenheit. Still hot. Still really hot.

It's warm. And, you know, mild. It's mild. We get that on a good day here in Melbourne. Oh, yeah. Because of rampant skepticism, NASA, even at the time, thought people are going to disbelieve this. So that's why they wanted it to be live. They want people to watch it live.

So the video was transmitted to a tracking station here in Australia, yeah. Then back up to a satellite, then back to Earth in Houston, and then around the world. So it has to go a long way. So from the moon to Australia, back up to satellite to Houston, then around the world. You know they have interviews with celebrities in Hollywood, and there's that satellite delay? What kind of delay were they getting from the moon?

Probably longish. It probably was. You're saying that... Longish is, again, the technical term. Science is a bunch of science. You keep banging on about live. I don't think so. I don't think I don't buy it.

Well, an estimated 530 million people watch that delayed bullet. shit. That is incredible. 530, which at the time is 14% of the entire population on Earth. Wow. Despite the fact that the first

moonwalk took place in the middle of the night in Europe, so in the UK was 256 in the morning. France, Germany, Italy was 356. It was not broadcast at all in the eastern block because the USSR were like,

whoa, let's not show that. Except Romania and Poland got to go. They could see. Cool. This is a fact there. 20 minutes later, Mr. Boz Aldrin

joined Armstrong on the surface. Why do you take so long? Neil's just sort of wandering around. I reckon Buzz was sitting there going, if there's aliens that are going to eat him, they'll probably strike within the first 20 minutes. Good call. Nah, good call.

That is smart. God, Buzz is good. Buzz is real good. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, I find that those sort of things would have been crazy at the time for a deeply religious guy

who all like, traditionally religion was like, you know, God created everything, that sort of stuff. How do you explain that to you? yourself, the moon and this huge... Space. Huge space, which I like to call.

Space. Well, yeah, space, sure, that's, that'll do. Yeah, it just seems like at the time... Technical, great. At the time, that would have been, like, would have just, would have made me ask a lot of questions as a religious guy. I think it must be such an overwhelming thing. To see the Earth looking back?

It's got to make you think there's something. out there, right? Yeah. All of a sudden, you're probably thinking less about it than the centre of the universe. It's another word for space. Makes your own issues seem a little silly, hey?

It does. Yeah. Can't drive a manual. Feel like a bit of a goose. Well, there's a lot more out there. Yeah. I don't know why that's why example. Can't drive a manual.

Can't drive a manual. Neither can I. Should I be questioning my life choice? Is that what you're saying? No, no. Because of the moon. Question them briefly, but then realize that they're insignificant. Yeah.

Because of the moon. Because moon. It's one of those things. You take it, I reckon you take it two ways. You either go, wow, I am so insignificant. I'll do nothing with my life. Who cares? Or, wow, I've been to the moon.

Let's just do some stuff with, you know what I mean? I can do anything. Anything's possible. Yeah. But we haven't been to the moon and never will. I can safely say I'll never be to never be to the moon. Yeah, you're not passing the test. I'll never go.

I'll never be to the moon. be to the moon. Yeah, that's part of the first NASA test for intelligence. What's wrong with this sentence? I will never be to the moon. And you're going, trick question, it's fine. Absolutely fine. I have a journalism degree.

Do you? You've just cheapen that somewhat, I think. I'll never be to the moon. What university was it? Deakin, so it doesn't really count. Sorry, Deakin. Sorry, Deakin. So Neil Armstrong went buzz. They're headed out to explore the moon. This is great.

I had to remember not to fully close the door. on the landing module behind them. Oh my God. The door was closed to prevent heat escaping from the cabin, but not completely in case the cabin somehow repressurised, which would make it difficult for them to get back inside. Oh, imagine. And Aldrin and Armstrong even made a joke about leaving the door open.

Aldrin said, okay, now I want to go back up and partially close the hatch, long pause. Making sure not to lock it on my way out, Armstrong laughs. A particularly good thought. Classic comedy. Comedy. God, these two. The moon comedy club, they're playing to, no one.

No one. Except some aliens. On his way down the ladder, Armstrong had an uncovered a plaque mounted on the lunar module. Oh, so you were going to say on the surfaces of the moon. Oh, that would have been a bigger story. The plaque was already, hey, there's a plaque here. Probably the Dutch. They always beat everyone to everything.

Captain Cook's like, yeah, the Dutch got there and they're like, no, you know what? This is in a Inhabitable. I am also never going to be into the moon. That's true. I also referred to something as the biscuit before. Yeah. So none of us are going to be to the moon.

We're not going to be the three. What's the word I was trying to say? Inhabitable. Inhabitable? Inhabitable. Inhabitable. Is that it? That's not a word.

I don't think it is. Oh no. Oh my goodness Well thankfully Good old Neil He left a plaque there to signify all the human kinds The Western and Eastern Hemisphere is on a map And it's an inscription from President Nixon

Sorry, the signature of President Nixon at the time So Richard Nixon's president by the way And it said, Here men from the planet Earth first set put Oh God B to the moon Be to the moon Here, men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969.

We came in peace for all mankind. That's so the alien seat and go, oh, that's okay. Okay, cool. Because they left the module there, so the plaque on the ladder is still hanging out. Cool. They also... Right, so that foil thing's still up there. Yeah, they left so much shit up there.

Wow. Didn't even clean up their own litter. Not at all. They left, there's bags of urine and stuff up there. Ew. Still there. I got to pay somewhere, I guess. Yeah.

Well, here's a fact. Buzz Aldrin. Wasn't the first man to step... foot on the moon, but first man to piss on the moon. All right. You heard it here first. Are they also flanted the... Flanted?

That could be a thing. Go on, finish off the sentence. They also flanted the flag of the United States of America. The flag used on this mission had a metal rod to hold it horizontal from the pole, so pretty standard. But the rod did not fully extend properly. the flag was tightly folded and packed during the journey,

so the flag ended up with a slightly wavy appearance as if there was a breeze. That's what they tell the conspiracy people that say, why was it blowing on the moon with no wind? If I was a conspiracy theorist, that would not be enough to make me go, oh, yeah, oh, of course. Oh, my bad. You rolled it up in the thing. That's cool.

It wouldn't be enough, but I don't, I'm not in this case, I'm a conspiracy theorist, so I'm cool with that. But if I was, I'd be like, fuck off. Yeah, yeah, totally. All right, mate. All right, mate. Pull the other one, mate. Give me some, mate.

Give me some credit. It was not born yesterday, mate. Armstrong collected samples of the moon. Meanwhile, Buzz copped a lot of flack because on the live broadcast, it looked like that he was just running around like a crazy man, doing what he later claims to be a kangaroo hop. This was actually, so he looks like a crazy guy, but it was actually organized with NASA.

His job was to work out what it was like to move around. Wow. That was his job. But he just looks crazy. Buzz, just run around for a bit. Neil's hanging out, like, digging up samples, and Buzz is just doing laps. It looks awesome.

I'd prefer that job. Yeah. Just bounce around for a bit. Let's just bounce around. In total, the astronauts walked around one kilometer on the surface, but they never strayed more than 60 meters from the lunar module. So they're really close the whole time. Yeah.

Because there is no wind on the surface of the moon. moon. The foot imprints they left other than Collins. Yes. I guess he wasn't on the surface. So fair enough. Go on. Do go on. Do go on. The foot imprints that they left are still there. Wow. That's pretty cool. Pretty impressive, Matt. Come on. Give him some credit, Matt. You are being a skeptic about it. No, no, I love it. It's all really, really cool. I would like to be on the moon someday. Hey, has, are you going to get to, like, post this thing at all? A little bit, a little quick wrap up. I will do. Because I'm curious to know, I have no idea if anyone's been there since,

if the Russians ever made it. I've got the answers for that. Great. But as well as flags and the module itself, the astronauts left behind what is called the Apollo Goodwill Messages. So these are... They just left a DVD of Goodwill Hunting. I wanted the Academy Award.

Yeah, yeah. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck won. Very good. There you go. Leave that there. Or the MTV Award, which is an astronaut, guys. Oh! You look as smug then as you did with communion.

Thank you. I don't think Matt Damon won a video music award. I don't think so, no. There are statements from the leaders of 73 countries around the world at the time on a little disc. It's about the size of a US 50 cent piece. Who was the Australian PM at the time? Did he get again? I've got his message.

Oh. So it was printed on a piece of silicon. The world leaders' messages were photographed and then reduced to one, two hundredth of their size. So each message is the size of a pinprick. So the Australian message from the then Prime Minister, John Gorton, his message said, Australians are pleased and proud to have played a part in helping to make it possible for the first man from Earth to land on the moon.

And what is their part, signing this little thing? No, our part was parks. Fair enough. I suppose we've done the video part. That's fine. This is a dramatic... A pretty big part. A dramatic fulfilment of man's urge to go always a little further.

to explore and to know the formerly unknown, to strive, to seek to find, and to not yield. Where the high courage and the technical genius which made this achievement possible be so used in the future that all mankind will live in the universe in which peace, self-expression, and the chance of dangerous adventures are available to all. I like that.

It's pretty Aussie, the chance for dangerous adventures. Yeah, I like that. That's nice. Signed John Gorton, Prime Minister of Australia. His speechwriter was very good. Yeah. I love that because he probably... Probably had nothing to do with it. Absolutely nothing. He just signed it.

So then it was time to come back to Earth after just two and a half hours walking on the moon. All right. Home time. They were a bit worried about how long their cooling system would work. They went to, if you go on the moon, when you get really hot, you close to the sun, all this kind of stuff.

Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin returned to the eagle. But whilst moving around in their bulky space suits, Buzz Aldrin accidentally snapped off a switch of a circuit breaker. they could not take off again without it. They were a bit panicked, but Aldrin improvised by jamming the end of a felt tip pen into the hole where the switch had been broken. He jammed it in, the astronaut's landing module was able to lift off and they left the moon's surface. Felt tip pens is like a texter.

So they left because he jammed a pen into a hole. Really? Otherwise... They would have been stuck on the moon. Man. I love all those tiny little things that have to go right. Yeah. Or they'd just... Someone else is there going.

Ugh. Yeah. Well, I'm not going to use a feltip pen. That'd be ridiculous. What else we got? I'm an astronaut. So they rejoined Collins aboard Columbia. He's a bag of urine.

Let's give it a go. This is handy. Buzz, did you eat the entire communion wave? What the fuck? You're supposed to have a nibble. My God. I ate the whole body of Christ here. Jesus.

The lunar modules thrust on the way up. It knocked over the American flag that they just played. So subsequent Apollo missions, so they do go to them in later on. They usually plant the American flag at least 30 metres away from the lunar module to prevent it being knocked over. Did anybody straighten theirs up? Or did it just like drift off into space? No, it would just be sitting there. I think that they probably...

They probably picked it up, right? Surely. The next people, they were like, oh, we'll just straighten that up for you. There you go. So they left the moon all. All good. The three men headed back for Earth. And on July 24,

the Columbia splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. They'd been gone for eight days, three hours, 18 minutes, and 35 seconds. So that's how specific NASA is. They'd traveled 953,000 miles, or over 1.5 million kilometers. When they launched the rocket, they'd weighed 100,000 pounds or 45,000 kilos, but what came back was just 10,000 pounds or 4,000 kilos. Wow. So most of it was never...

came back. That Nazi bloke had made it so everything was sort of disposable. So clever. I never talks about the Nazi the Nazi involvement in this. No, but like Australia takes a big chunk of like, yeah, no, we had a big part to do with it.

The dish and we're also not Nazis. That's two ticks for us. Go Australia. Only one tick for him. Ozzie, go. The three men were picked up. They were put in quarantine suits just in case they'd brought back any pathogens.

People were a bit worried that they'd bring back disease from the moon. They had to fill out a customs-like form. No. But declaring that they were bringing samples of moon rock and moon dust into the country, I will say that many have speculated that these forms were in fact a joke filled out weeks later. Yeah, that does feel like a joke. But Buzz has tweeted about it and tweeted a photo of it.

After they were put into quarantine for 18 days just in case, and the crew were released. they were fettered across the United States, I love that word, fetid across the US, and around the world as a part of the 40-day giant leap tour, brought the astronauts to 25 foreign countries, and they included visits with prominent leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II. 18 days, they just sort of had to sit.

Just hang out. The president came, there's a famous photo of Richard Nixon talking to them through the glass, saying, you've done a great job, but you've got to stay in the box. That's fascinating. but do you think like the hype would settle down and that's a long time

special features and magazines all over the place or on the cover of everything Apollo 11 commemorative stamps and coins all over the planet all three of them were I think it would depend on the cover Michael Collins got to go

I'm imagining and I don't know if this is bad taste but when they were finally let out I'm kind of imagining it like when the Beaconsfield miners got out and everybody's just like waiting for like the footage at the at the door.

When they came out, they were like, yeah, and everybody's like, whoo! Different circumstances. Yes, they probably had a timer, unlike the Beaconsville people. It was like 18 days, so the camera crew knows when to come back. Good point, yeah, yeah.

But so they were heroes, really famous guys. Now, future trips to the moon, in asking you question, Matt, five subsequent Apollo missions landed Ben on the Moon. Apollo 13 was supposed to have a go, but that was an emergency. Yeah, seen in the film. Tom Hanks never quite made it.

The last time... Spoilers. The last time men went to moon was the 1972 mission. So only three years later. And in total, 12 men have walked on the moon. Right. Russian people never got there. But we haven't gone for a really long time.

And then they lost interest. We should check back in. Was it because it just became very expensive and the people weren't... Yeah, there was supposed to be more missions, but it was just getting too expensive. So they just pulled the plug on Apollo in 1972. Though people have seen... sent satellites up there and collected data. It feels like now we're beyond sending humans places.

We just send, like, we send robots and shit to Mars and whatever. Isn't that, that's the way to go now, right? Yeah. They can do, like, the best robots can probably do more than what a... Though... Human can and you can just have a human controlling them from here. Neil Armstrong did say that he, when he returned, that he thought that people will now go to Mars.

That's the next thing. Yeah. So that's what he thought. So just to finish it off here, at the time of recording, Buzz Aldrin is Alive, H-85, rocking it on Twitter. Yep, cool, good. And Michael Collins is alive H-84.

Neil Armstrong died in 2012 at H-82. 2012? Yeah, it feels like I should remember that. I was about to say, why don't I remember that? You don't remember that? Well, still considered... It would have been big news at the time. Must have been.

But I just don't recall it. Still considered an American hero, and throughout the United States, there are more than a dozen elementary, middle and high schools named in his honour. That's nice. So there you go. How many of Collins got named after him? Bloody none.

Just Colin Street here in Melbourne. Yeah. It's named after him. Wow. So that's the story of the moon landing. Great topic. Thank you kindly. Because it's once again one of those things that I thought I knew a lot about,

but then when I realised I knew nothing about it, I thought I had to talk about it. Yeah. Yeah, and I didn't know most of that. I knew heaps. Because of The Dish. Hey, if anyone's interested, go rent the Diss from your local blockbuster. I'm going to watch that. That's the next movie I'm going to see.

Okay. And text me your thoughts. We'll do. Good. I'll tweet them to you. You and Buzz. Yeah, great. Yeah, so good.

So that's The Moon Landing. We'll be back next week with Matt's report on The Moon Landing, a conspiracy. With Matt's review of The Dish. That'll be your report. No, you've got me interested in. some other things, but maybe not the moon. But a couple of things you talked about today, I'm thinking about, I've been thinking.

Nazis? I've got some ideas. Oh. Piss bags. Bags of urine. History. How a piss bag works. Yeah. Brief history of piss bags. I love it.

I love it. Well, I'll be interested. I'll be here. Jess, you'll be here. Oh, I'm always here. Matt, I dare say you'll be here. And he'll be going on. Auntie Donna might be in the background making noise. Who knows?

Who knows? But thanks for listening in and we'll check in with you next time. Bye. Later's. I know what I want and I want it now. I want you because I'm Mr. Vane. Vane, Vain, Vain, Vain, Ving. Fuck off. That's Live Aid.

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