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First men on Moon saw UFO
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Aldrin, now 76, narrated how he found to his dismay that a vital switch got damaged as one of the astronauts brushed against it in a bulky spacesuit.
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A new documentary reveals the US was so eager to show its one-upmanship over Russians during the Cold War that it launched the mission to Moon without much scientific precision or the required precautions.
The mission came to be launched in hope rather than in expectation. The doucmentary, Apollo 11: The Untold Story, brings out several lacunae that would have caused a disaster.
The uncertainty was so strong that the then US president Richard Nixon had even prepared an address to the nation announcing that the three astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins had died in a space mishap.
Aldrin, now 76, interviewed by the documentary makers, narrated how he found to his dismay that a vital switch got damaged as one of the astronauts brushed against it in a bulky spacesuit.
He said as he looked around some of the lunar dust on the floor, he found there was something that did not belong to the Moon a broken part of a circuit breaker. That was a vital link for the trio to return to the earth in safety.
"In the countdown procedure, I used a pen, one of several that we had on board that didn't have metal on the end, and we used that to push the circuit breaker in."
The documentary provides an account of the crisis when the landing module was thrown off course by a computer breakdown as it was about to land. Armstrong managed to land with just 15 seconds of fuel left.
There were problems about escape procedures for the astronauts. Classified documents that have been made public indicate Nasa never told the astronauts the escape procedures could be useless as they would work only if the Saturn V rocket that powered their craft had broken off.
The US government had ordered ground control to cut links with the astronauts if a disaster occurred. They was more concerned about the world watching.
Aldrin also revealed that he and other astronauts had reported seeing a UFO during the flight, but Nasa had covered it up. He said, "There was something out there, close enough to be observed, and what could it be?
Obviously, we weren't going to blurt out, 'Hey Houston, we've got something moving alongside of us and we don't know what it is,' you know?"
Story source indiatimes.com
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