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13 Minutes to the Moon: 3. Long Island Eagle

The extraordinary story of the Eagle spacecraft. Built by Long Island engineers, it took astronauts through to the final 13 minutes descent to the Moon landing.

The extraordinary story of the ‘Eagle’ spacecraft, which landed astronauts on the Moon. Built by Long Island engineers, it was a spacecraft like no other - one designed to land on another world. The result was the spidery lunar module, a spacecraft that was “difficult to fly and easy to crash”. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent hundreds of hours in the simulator to prepare for every possible manoeuvre required for the daring, final thirteen-minute descent to the lunar surface.

Hosted by Kevin Fong.

Starring:
Charlie Duke
Dick Dunne
John Devaney
Alan Contessa
Neil Armstrong courtesy of the Johnson Space Center Oral History Project
Tom Kelly courtesy of the MIT Museum Collections

Archive:
Johnson Space Center Oral History Project
Archive: MIT Museum Collections

Theme music by Hans Zimmer for Bleeding Fingers Music

#13MinutestotheMoon
www.bbcworldservice.com/13minutes

Available now

43 minutes

Broadcasts

  • Wed 29 May 2019 10:32GMT
  • Wed 29 May 2019 17:32GMT
  • Wed 29 May 2019 21:32GMT
  • Wed 29 May 2019 22:32GMT
  • Thu 30 May 2019 01:32GMT
  • Sun 2 Jun 2019 17:32GMT

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