Apollo 11: Disaster Waiting to Happen?

I was watching a documentary, called First on the Moon: The Untold Story (2005). Maybe it was over-dramatized, but it was interesting and included interviews with Buzz Aldrin and Andrew Chaikin. "Most people don't know just how close Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong came to death on their historic voyage. Now, with the discovery of a lost tape, insight from top scientists, and previously unreleased documents, we present the untold story." Apparently, the astronauts caught sight of aliens, saw strange flashes, and could have crashed during the lunar descent. However, there is a website refuting the documentary's claims, here (I guess it just goes to show how important it is to verify facts because one cannot necessarily trust a documentary just because it is on the Science Channel).

The documentary began by discussing the launch escape tower. If one of the first-stage rockets failed to start properly during launch, causing the rocket to veer into the launch tower, it would have been unlikely that the astronauts would have been able to fly free from the craft. It took two seconds from the detection of the problem to signaling the escape tower to abort the launch, but by that time, the entire craft would already be engulfed in flame.

Then, once the astronauts were in orbit around the earth, they caught sight of something strange out the window, looming in the distance. They were hesitant to say anything to mission control because they knew that all kinds of people would be listening to their radio transmission. So they cryptically asked about the location of their S-IVB rocket, which they had recently ejected. Mission control radioed back to say that the rocket was some 6,000 miles away. The film exclaimed that since it was not the rocket, it could only be a UFO, implying aliens. Now, what the documentary did not mention was that the astronauts concluded that the object was one of the panels which had been ejected from the upper stage.

After the UFO incident, the astronauts were attempting to sleep, but they kept seeing these bright flashes of light. These were attributed to "high-Z" particles, which is now something we understand better. They are subatomic particles that interact with the retina, causing a visual sensation.

Now for the most difficult part of the journey: landing on the lunar surface. The Eagle's computer had little more computing power than a digital watch, but it was in control of steering the spacecraft to the surface. Neil Armstrong had to take manual control when he realized that the computer was taking them towards a rough crater filled with giant boulders.

Maybe the mission was risky, but I do not think it was as dramatic as the film made it out to be. "Against all odds, Apollo 11 was coming home."