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9: Did he or didn’t he?

On leaving the LM, Armstrong famously said: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind”. The tautological sentence has since been the subject of great debate, much of it questioning whether he actually said “one small step for a man”. Despite valiant attempts to prove he said this, many commentators agree he didn't but that nevertheless his intention was clear. Interestingly, Buzz repeated the sentence during a broadcast on the journey back to Earth, quoting Neil as having said “a man”.

8: Watching the time

The spacecraft’s mission timer was faulty. To ensure they had a reliable timer available to them during the launch from the surface, Neil left his wristwatch in the cabin during their historic walk on the Moon. Only Buzz wore a watch on the lunar surface, a standard-issue Omega Speedmaster Professional, that he considered to be inadequate for the job. After the mission, Aldrin sent it to a national museum – but it never arrived and to this day its whereabouts are unknown.

How US was nearly pipped to first moon rock samples

Sir Bernard Lovell tells Erica Wagner how he listened from Jodrell Bank to the drama, with the original audio from 1969

BACKGROUND

• DIY on the Moon: how Buzz saved the launch back to Earth

• Moon rock of ages

• Apollo Gadgets: Can you guess what they were for?

• The Moon: Gods, myths and legends

Related Internet Links

• Moon landing 40th anniversary special supplement

• The 21 best space toys

7: NASA’s great mystery

Three giant satellite dishes were able to receive TV pictures sent from the Moon, one in California, one in Madrid and another in Australia. California was expected to be best placed to receive the images, but Armstrong and Aldrin took so long to get ready for the moonwalk that by the time they left the spacecraft the Earth had rotated and California had to give way to Australia. There, the images were recorded in the raw and then converted to domestic frame-rates. The raw (ie clearest) images were later lost and today NASA are still looking for them.

6: The ‘absent photos’

Rumours still abound suggesting there are no pictures of Armstrong on the Moon. The iconic full-frontal image of an Apollo 11 astronaut looking directly into the camera is actually Buzz Aldrin. For a while it was thought that he forgot to snap Armstrong at all – yet in fact Neil appears in half a dozen images. None are especially clear, but suggestions that Aldrin deliberately ignored his commander are incorrect.

5: Moment of madness

Put yourself in the boots of the Apollo 11 crew. You have just two hours and 40 minutes to explore a tiny section of the Moon. You have experiments to set up, a flag to erect, a plaque to unveil, samples to collect, TV equipment to operate, photos to take, observations to note and exercises to perform. While the world looks on, you must complete everything before your oxygen runs out. A natural urge would be to suspend everything and run off and explore, and indeed Armstrong managed to do just that. He ran to a crater 200 feet away from the spacecraft from where he took startling images of the stark terrain.

4: Alone in space

Armstrong and Aldrin remained on the surface for a little over 21 hours, and during that time Collins continued to orbit above them. During each two-hour orbit, he spent 48 minutes behind the Moon, where he was out of contact with Mission Control. Alone and unable to talk to a single human being, he loved the experience, describing it as giving him a sense of confidence, “almost exultation”. While passing above his crew-mates, he frequently tried to locate them on the lunar surface but Armstrong and Aldrin weren’t sure of their position and Collins never once spotted the LM on the ground.

3: The smell of space

On returning to the LM following the moonwalk, astronauts on all lunar missions noticed a peculiar smell. Aldrin described it as slightly “metallic”, Armstrong as “wet ashes”. Some have since associated this smell with moondust but in fact a similar odour has been noticed by astronauts who’ve never gone to the Moon. In the years prior to and following the lunar missions, a smell resembling gunpowder was discovered inside various spacecraft after they had docked with other spacecraft. Today researchers are investigating its cause.

2: Broken switch

After Armstrong and Aldrin returned to the LM, they noticed a switch lying on the floor. It had been knocked off an instrument panel while they were strapping on their backpacks, and it controlled an essential function during the launch from the Moon. Without it, electrical power could not be carried to the engine ignition system. Buzz found that a felt-tipped pen fitted the hole left by the switch and this improvisation enabled them to leave the Moon on schedule. Other solutions would have been possible, but for both men it was a stressful time.

1: Tranquility Base today

Next time you take a look at the Moon, look for a dark circular region above and to the right of the centre. This is the Sea of Tranquility and in the bottom left-hand corner is the spot where Apollo 11 landed, known as Tranquility Base. Today the site looks as it did on the day Armstrong and Aldrin left. Tiny pieces of foil, ripped off the descent stage of the LM during the launch of the ascent stage, lie scattered over discarded bags of equipment. The footprints, the TV camera and abandoned over-boots are still there, as are personal mementoes left by the men. Maybe one day someone will return to the Moon – and even possibly inspect the spot where lunar exploration began.

Moonshot, published by Ebury, accompanies a major factual drama of the same name, produced by Dangerous Films and due to be shown on ITV1, on Monday, July 20. Both mark the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11, the mission that first took men to the Moon.

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