Forty Years Ago Today V

One more day:

After a rigorous training schedule, the astronauts held a unique televised press conference while in quarantine at KSC, some 15 miles away from their questioners. "We're willing and ready to achieve our national goal," Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong told the press. When asked if they were afraid, there was a long pause while each waited for the other to answer. Armstrong finally said, "I wouldn't say fear is an unknown emotion to us. There is knowledge that there may be something you haven't thought of...or can't cope with. But as a crew ... we have no fear of launching out on this expedition," he said.

Forty years later, I think we have mostly forgotten just how complicated and dangerous it was to put three men on top of a 6.4 million pound rocket and ignite it. The launch team was confident after several successful Apollo launches, but everyone knew that there was a risk of something going disastrously wrong and the crew dying a fiery death. Instead of celebrating the first men to land on the moon in five more days we could have been watching a solemn memorial service.

In the meantime, the launch team continued the many tasks needed to bring the rocket to launch ready status. Starting on the evening of the 15th, the fueling task was begun(described in more detail here). The first stage of the rocket burned a kerosene/liquid oxygen mix and the millions of pounds of kerosene was loaded first. Later in the night/early morning of the 16th, they would begin filling the cryogenic tanks with liquid oxygen and hydrogen and maintain those at low pressure until just before liftoff.