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(dramatic music)

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October 4, 1957,

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the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I,

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the world's first satellite, and the space race was on.

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After jettisoning the nose faring

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and last stage of the carrier rocket,

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the Sputnik started circling the earth.

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Now, Sputnik was only the size of a volleyball

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and you could not see that with the naked eye.

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But what you did see very vividly

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was the booster rocket that put that satellite into orbit.

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And at 4:00 a.m. I walked out on my back porch

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with my daughter in my arms,

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and much to my utter amazement,

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that satellite came virtually over my house.

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In the early '60s there were the two superpowers,

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the Soviet Union and the U.S.

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There was a lot of anxiety or uncertainty,

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and the feeling at that time was that this was somehow

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a judgment of which was the better system.

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We choose to go to the moon in this decade

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and do the other things.

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Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

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When Kennedy started the program, for the first two years,

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we didn't know how we'd land on the moon.

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I was younger, I was a beginner to them,

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and they said, "Let's do it."

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We all had the confidence that we were just gonna do it.

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It was never really a question of failing.

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(flourishing music)

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In 1961, JFK began a dramatic expansion

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of the U.S. Space Program,

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partly in response to the Russians and Sputnik,

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and partly to inspire a nation to achieve greatness.

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Now it is time to take longer strides.

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Time for a great new American enterprise.

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Time for this nation to take a clearly leading role

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in space achievement,

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which in many ways may hold the key

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to our future on Earth.

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Kennedy's enthusiasm was joined

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by an elite team who shared his vision.

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Werner von Braun was a German aerospace engineer,

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known as the father of rocket science.

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Bob Siemens at NASA had the vision

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to bring the right team together.

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And Dr. Charles Stark Draper,

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who had pioneered inertial guidance.

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The Apollo program was born.

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(dramatic music)

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12, 11, 10, nine, ignition sequence start.

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Five, four, three, two, one, zero.

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Liftoff, we have a liftoff.

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Liftoff on Apollo 11.

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Four forward, drifting to the right a little.

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As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin

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prepared to go to the moon,

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they knew this mission was made possible

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by thousands of engineers, scientists, and technicians.

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At the height of the Apollo program,

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there were over 400,000 engineers, technicians,

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and scientists working around the country

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and around the clock to develop and invent

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all the new technology required

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to make a moon landing possible.

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Among the unsung heroes of Apollo

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are the engineers from Draper,

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formerly the MIT Instrumentation Lab.

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They designed the onboard computers

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and invented the software that made it technically possible

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to send men to the moon,

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and bring the crew safely back to earth.

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Eagle, Houston we see you on the steerable, over.

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Roger, how does it look?

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Roger.

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Landing, 3,000 feet.

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You're looking great.

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The lab's founder, Charles Stark Draper,

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went to great lengths to figure out

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how to guide a spacecraft to the moon.

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Draper, known as a navigational pioneer,

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had just proven his new inertial guidance technology

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for the military.

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He was now looking to space.

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It all started in World War II under fire control,

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which is what Doc Draper originally started

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in the instrumentation world,

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and from that was spawned the inertial

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navigation concept and systems.

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Everyone talks about Doc, he was a legend at the lab.

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The culture was kind of fluid

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and we were pretty free to work

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what hours were comfortable for us.

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Having that fluidity allowed us to be

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more productive, I think.

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Doc used to come down to almost

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every part of the laboratory.

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He was involved.

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He'd talk to each individual.

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He'd come down with his little green visor.

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And if there was an important job in the lane,

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he'd go over, look over the man's shoulder,

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comment, ask how it was going.

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(dramatic music)

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The 1960s marked a giant leap

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in technology firsts.

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This was the Apollo decade,

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and it would take a series of firsts

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to get man to the moon.

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NASA was inventing the whole mission, everything was new.

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And these actual animations from the time

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helped to explain this whole new concept

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of lunar orbit rendezvous.

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The computer was the the top of the list.

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A computer to provide guidance, navigation, and control.

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Without these three words, Neil Armstrong

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and the Apollo 11 crew would never have made it to the moon.

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Draper's probably most famous for

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the development of advanced guidance,

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navigation, and control systems,

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or as we shortened it down to GNC.

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Navigation is something that tells you where you are.

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And guidance tells you where you want to go.

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Control enables you to get there.

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It was actually a critical key element for us

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getting the Apollo contract.

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The job of designing the guidance system

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to take man to the moon was awarded to Draper.

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This was the very first Apollo contract,

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and the good news came via telegraph.

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This computer had to be able to withstand

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the rigors of space flight, including extreme temperatures

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and intense vibrations.

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It had to be perfect because human lives were at stake.

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Computer engineer Hal Lanning invented the code

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that was an easy to use new language

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for entering complex math equations into a computer.

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With so little available memory

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for the Apollo computer, and so many commands,

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it was Lanning's genius idea to create

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a priority system.

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The computer would prioritize and run

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the most important commands first.

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The less important jobs could run in the background.

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Lanning's unique computer language, ironically called MAC,

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or Machine Aided Cognition,

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turned the moon landing concept into reality.

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It was the MAC language that was developed

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here at the laboratory, an exquisite engineering language.

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It was critical that both the command module and the LM

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be able to compute solutions for maneuvers.

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We wanted to make sure that either

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the command module could get the LM,

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or the LM could get back to the command module.

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It was a breakthrough in all of computing

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for what was going on,

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both the hardware and the software.

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People today can't believe it.

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It was all done with punch cards and key punches.

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Most kids today don't know what a punch card looks like.

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You program, you go in and you punched it on a key punch

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and put a batch of cards and ran it through a card reader

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into those big IBM computers.

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So you had to make sure they were done right,

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no little errors, no cards out of order and so on.

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The result was the Apollo Guidance Computer.

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The first portable computer that guided man to the moon.

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The Apollo Guidance Computer was no more powerful

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than a calculator, but used a real-time operating system

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to control the spacecraft.

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Apollo Guidance Computer, at that day it was replacing

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banks of computers that filled the whole room.

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The Guidance Computer was really an advance.

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And the only way to get the weight and the size down

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was to go to integrated circuits.

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That's something that hadn't been done before.

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You could not build a computer out of transistors

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to do the job that was needed to be done

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without filling up the whole command module.

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Integrated circuits were the way to go,

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and one time we were testing 1/3 of all

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the integrated circuits that were being

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manufactured in the United States.

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We were pretty closely linked

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to the real beginning of computing.

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The heart of the Apollo Guidance System

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was the IMU, or Inertial Measurement Unit.

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The IMU was a three gimbled system

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containing three gyroscopes and three accelerometers.

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And the purpose of it was to provide a stabilized platform

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with accelerometers that would measure the acceleration

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and be used in the guidance equations.

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Data was fed to the Guidance Computer

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so that the crew could control and navigate the spacecraft.

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The system was so precise, that no matter what

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the position of the spacecraft was,

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hurdling through space, the orientation was always stable.

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While primary navigation of the spacecraft

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would be done from the ground,

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an onboard inertial navigation system with a sextant

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was developed for the crews.

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Operating independently from all other navigational systems,

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the sextant consists of two lines of sight:

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a wide-angle scanning telescope

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and a 28-hour narrow field of view space sextant.

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This made it possible for the astronauts

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to check their navigation settings and stay on course.

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The IMU was packaged in a spherical case,

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a ball of wizardry and magic conceived by Doc Draper.

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For the first time ever, pilots would fly a craft

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with all digital controls.

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The software that we developed to control these vehicles,

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the command module, the lunar module,

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and the combinations of those things,

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that had never been done with a digital computer

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up to that point in time.

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Simulators tested the software end to end.

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It's an enormous amount of testing to do

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because at that point you were testing

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the complete sequence, say from the lunar orbit,

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the descent, to landing on the moon.

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We simulated the dickens out of that thing.

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The Apollo spacecraft would travel to the moon

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with revolutionary technology.

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The first ever digital flight control system,

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known as digital fly-by-wire.

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Fly-by-wire is how we got to the moon and back.

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There was no manual stick.

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You had to let the computer do all the process for you.

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The computer controlled the hydraulics

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and controlled jets that you turned on to rotate.

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Turned on engines, it was all very cutting edge.

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(dramatic music)

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As the Apollo 11 team are just months away

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from a moon landing, we are reminded of the man

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who set the challenge and who sadly not be present

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for the historic moment.

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This remarkable footage shows JFK's last visit

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to Cape Canaveral in 1963,

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just one week shy of his assassination.

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No single space project in this period

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will be more impressive to mankind

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or more important for the long range exploration of space.

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And none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.

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He would never see man walk on the moon.

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But the team of visionaries he assembled

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risked all to fulfill his dream.

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(intense music)

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July 16, 1969, with over a half billion people

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around the world watching,

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Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin

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are set to leave Earth.

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And for the first time in history

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set down on another planetary body.

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The defining moment of the Apollo program

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was the moon landing.

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Yet, it almost didn't happen.

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Apollo 11 was our first attempt at landing

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on the moon.

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The guidance and navigation system was probably

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one of the most complex subsystems

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the flight crews had to work with.

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One evening, after a long's days work,

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I cam out of my office and walked outside

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and there in the sky above me

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was the real full moon itself.

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It just kind of overwhelmed me to think

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00:13:28,540 --> 00:13:30,990
that's where we're going.

269
00:13:30,990 --> 00:13:33,750
And I have a part in it.

270
00:13:33,750 --> 00:13:35,960
Ignition sequence start.

271
00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:40,960
Three, two, one, zero, all engine running.

272
00:13:41,820 --> 00:13:43,643
Liftoff, we have a liftoff.

273
00:13:44,740 --> 00:13:46,187
Liftoff on Apollo 11.

274
00:13:50,617 --> 00:13:52,668
There it is, the Earth, see it?

275
00:13:52,668 --> 00:13:53,918
Just beautiful.

276
00:13:55,170 --> 00:13:57,500
After a two day journey to the moon

277
00:13:57,500 --> 00:14:00,520
the crew of three are captured into lunar orbit.

278
00:14:00,520 --> 00:14:02,050
During this critical phase,

279
00:14:02,050 --> 00:14:05,100
called trans-lunar injection, or TLI,

280
00:14:05,100 --> 00:14:08,053
the crew loses communication with Mission Control.

281
00:14:09,581 --> 00:14:12,070
(dramatic music)

282
00:14:12,070 --> 00:14:15,100
During the blackout, Mission Control awaits anxiously

283
00:14:15,100 --> 00:14:17,530
as the spacecraft makes its critical burns

284
00:14:17,530 --> 00:14:19,960
to get into the exact trajectory necessary

285
00:14:19,960 --> 00:14:21,693
for a successful lunar landing.

286
00:14:24,710 --> 00:14:27,500
Armstrong and Aldrin move to the lunar module

287
00:14:27,500 --> 00:14:30,030
and prepare for separation from the mothership

288
00:14:30,030 --> 00:14:32,050
and their descent to the lunar surface.

289
00:14:32,050 --> 00:14:34,127
Two minutes 53 seconds from reacquiring

290
00:14:34,127 --> 00:14:35,470
the spacecraft.

291
00:14:35,470 --> 00:14:38,230
Collins will remain solo in lunar orbit

292
00:14:38,230 --> 00:14:39,493
awaiting their return.

293
00:14:40,440 --> 00:14:42,500
Leaving the moon and going back to lunar orbit

294
00:14:42,500 --> 00:14:44,893
is actually a relatively easy maneuver.

295
00:14:46,710 --> 00:14:49,190
It didn't place really great demands

296
00:14:49,190 --> 00:14:51,160
on the Guidance Computer.

297
00:14:51,160 --> 00:14:52,640
But the lunar landing did.

298
00:14:52,640 --> 00:14:55,357
It was by far the busiest phase of the mission

299
00:14:55,357 --> 00:14:57,093
for either spacecraft.

300
00:14:59,110 --> 00:15:00,940
The lunar landscape is comprised

301
00:15:00,940 --> 00:15:03,350
mostly of craters and rocks.

302
00:15:03,350 --> 00:15:05,290
Picking the spot where man would land

303
00:15:05,290 --> 00:15:07,483
required a great deal of calculation.

304
00:15:08,450 --> 00:15:11,800
Risks varied from landing on a boulder and tipping over

305
00:15:11,800 --> 00:15:13,810
to sinking into a soft crater

306
00:15:13,810 --> 00:15:16,213
and disappearing forever into a dust cloud.

307
00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:20,690
With the help of lunar scientists

308
00:15:20,690 --> 00:15:22,480
and images from a lunar surveyor

309
00:15:22,480 --> 00:15:25,060
sent just before the Apollo missions,

310
00:15:25,060 --> 00:15:27,480
NASA selected several suitable sites

311
00:15:27,480 --> 00:15:29,453
with minimal boulders and craters.

312
00:15:31,650 --> 00:15:34,830
The lunar orbiter mission took a lot of photography

313
00:15:34,830 --> 00:15:37,870
of the lunar surface that was so valuable

314
00:15:37,870 --> 00:15:40,300
to the Apollo planning.

315
00:15:40,300 --> 00:15:42,670
Not only photography, but it began to define

316
00:15:42,670 --> 00:15:44,430
the gravitational field around the moon,

317
00:15:44,430 --> 00:15:48,100
which was also very important to guidance and navigation.

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00:15:48,100 --> 00:15:49,770
It was critical that the guidance

319
00:15:49,770 --> 00:15:51,790
and navigation could determine the position

320
00:15:51,790 --> 00:15:53,540
and flight path of the lunar lander

321
00:15:53,540 --> 00:15:55,453
before descent to the surface.

322
00:15:56,570 --> 00:15:59,650
On Apollo 11 the landing was divided into three phases.

323
00:15:59,650 --> 00:16:03,600
There was the breaking phase, the visibility phase,

324
00:16:03,600 --> 00:16:06,163
and then there was the semi-manual landing phase.

325
00:16:07,160 --> 00:16:08,570
This is Apollo Control.

326
00:16:08,570 --> 00:16:12,500
Armstrong and Aldrin began checking out

327
00:16:12,500 --> 00:16:14,630
activating the lunar module.

328
00:16:14,630 --> 00:16:17,007
Both spacecraft looking very good at this time.

329
00:16:17,007 --> 00:16:20,780
During the breaking phase one of the main tasks

330
00:16:20,780 --> 00:16:23,340
was to get the landing radar locked onto the surface.

331
00:16:23,340 --> 00:16:25,120
After the radar had locked on,

332
00:16:25,120 --> 00:16:28,360
Buzz Aldrin keyed in a special display

333
00:16:28,360 --> 00:16:30,750
in order to watch the landing radar data.

334
00:16:30,750 --> 00:16:32,720
Houston, you're looking at our Delta H.

335
00:16:32,720 --> 00:16:34,457
That's affirmative.

336
00:16:34,457 --> 00:16:36,121
And as soon as he did that.

337
00:16:36,121 --> 00:16:37,366
1202.

338
00:16:37,366 --> 00:16:40,116
(dramatic music)

339
00:16:45,110 --> 00:16:48,590
The alarm light lit up and we heard from

340
00:16:48,590 --> 00:16:51,268
the spacecraft's program alarm.

341
00:16:51,268 --> 00:16:52,786
[Computerized Voice] Program alarm.

342
00:16:52,786 --> 00:16:54,634
1202.

343
00:16:54,634 --> 00:16:58,226
(static drowns out speech)

344
00:16:58,226 --> 00:17:02,809
Apollo 11, this is Houston, how do you read?

345
00:17:07,127 --> 00:17:09,750
It's a 1202 alarm, which was an alarm

346
00:17:09,750 --> 00:17:11,900
we never expected to see in flight.

347
00:17:11,900 --> 00:17:15,140
It was an emergency, it was scary.

348
00:17:15,140 --> 00:17:17,960
I can still remember looking across the room

349
00:17:17,960 --> 00:17:21,163
at a couple of the guys saying, "Oh my god, 1202.

350
00:17:22,317 --> 00:17:23,697
"What's going on?"

351
00:17:25,300 --> 00:17:27,810
A problem with the rendezvous radar electronics

352
00:17:27,810 --> 00:17:30,330
is stealing precious computer time.

353
00:17:30,330 --> 00:17:33,873
Aldrin's special display tips the computer into overload.

354
00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:37,060
Columbia, Houston, over.

355
00:17:37,060 --> 00:17:39,710
1202 alarm is the statement that says

356
00:17:40,590 --> 00:17:43,290
we ran out of space and we're taking care of it.

357
00:17:43,290 --> 00:17:45,060
Columbia, Houston, we're standing by, over.

358
00:17:45,060 --> 00:17:46,990
There was priority system set up

359
00:17:47,890 --> 00:17:50,180
in the Apollo Guidance Computer

360
00:17:50,180 --> 00:17:53,440
so that priority tasks could interrupt

361
00:17:53,440 --> 00:17:55,110
tasks with less priority.

362
00:17:55,110 --> 00:18:00,060
If we had waited a second to do the next full calculation

363
00:18:00,060 --> 00:18:01,460
it would have gone unstable.

364
00:18:03,350 --> 00:18:05,560
The priority display said I'm more important

365
00:18:05,560 --> 00:18:09,500
than any of you, so it interrupts everything

366
00:18:09,500 --> 00:18:11,223
that's been set up to go.

367
00:18:12,830 --> 00:18:14,750
The Apollo Guidance Computer was trying

368
00:18:14,750 --> 00:18:17,600
to process too many computer commands at once

369
00:18:17,600 --> 00:18:19,740
during the landing sequence.

370
00:18:19,740 --> 00:18:22,980
The exhausted computer sounded its 1202 alarm,

371
00:18:22,980 --> 00:18:24,463
signaling an overload.

372
00:18:25,670 --> 00:18:26,880
If you're talking about the landing,

373
00:18:26,880 --> 00:18:28,230
there's nothing you can do.

374
00:18:29,220 --> 00:18:30,540
You can't complete the landing

375
00:18:30,540 --> 00:18:33,650
so your only option now is to just go back

376
00:18:33,650 --> 00:18:34,750
to the command module.

377
00:18:36,420 --> 00:18:38,610
NASA's Jack Garmin had a cheat sheet

378
00:18:38,610 --> 00:18:41,010
and was confident the computer could be trusted.

379
00:18:42,470 --> 00:18:45,050
Margaret Hamilton and a team of software engineers

380
00:18:45,050 --> 00:18:47,573
had programmed the computer for such a scenario.

381
00:18:48,600 --> 00:18:50,740
So through the whole period of that alarm

382
00:18:50,740 --> 00:18:52,610
the spacecraft was still under control.

383
00:18:52,610 --> 00:18:56,200
Had it been capable of stealing the cycles

384
00:18:57,205 --> 00:18:59,050
it would have been a disaster.

385
00:18:59,050 --> 00:19:02,490
The computer worked exactly as it was designed.

386
00:19:02,490 --> 00:19:03,947
Columbia reading you loud and clear.

387
00:19:03,947 --> 00:19:07,810
It was a combination of hardware, the software,

388
00:19:07,810 --> 00:19:11,040
an amazing system of systems.

389
00:19:11,040 --> 00:19:14,700
Operating system that was designed by Hal Lanning

390
00:19:14,700 --> 00:19:17,610
really was a blessing to that

391
00:19:17,610 --> 00:19:21,020
because when it got to overload situation

392
00:19:21,020 --> 00:19:24,700
it just did the important jobs and landed.

393
00:19:24,700 --> 00:19:26,780
Attitude control is good.

394
00:19:26,780 --> 00:19:28,840
Manual altitude controllable.

395
00:19:28,840 --> 00:19:31,400
The ruling was that the landing could continue

396
00:19:31,400 --> 00:19:33,680
unless there were further signs of problems,

397
00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:35,851
and therefor the call was a go.

398
00:19:35,851 --> 00:19:40,250
Roger, understand, go for landing.

399
00:19:40,250 --> 00:19:42,510
Years of preparation and testing

400
00:19:42,510 --> 00:19:44,823
paved the way for the historic landing.

401
00:19:46,380 --> 00:19:48,380
In the final seconds of the descent,

402
00:19:48,380 --> 00:19:50,480
flying faster than anticipated,

403
00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:52,400
Armstrong and Aldrin overshoot

404
00:19:52,400 --> 00:19:53,893
their intended landing site.

405
00:19:55,630 --> 00:19:58,160
They are heading for a hazardous rocky area,

406
00:19:58,160 --> 00:20:00,210
and manually fly the lunar module

407
00:20:00,210 --> 00:20:03,523
to a safe landing spot with just seconds of fuel to spare.

408
00:20:09,250 --> 00:20:10,520
The alarm showing in this case

409
00:20:10,520 --> 00:20:12,760
was the pilot was flying the vehicle manually

410
00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:15,510
and he was picking out a spot to try to hover over

411
00:20:15,510 --> 00:20:17,460
and then descend to land.

412
00:20:17,460 --> 00:20:20,418
He had to find a spot that wasn't so rocky.

413
00:20:20,418 --> 00:20:21,920
Pretty rocky area.

414
00:20:21,920 --> 00:20:24,730
Worst of all worlds would be to tip it over.

415
00:20:24,730 --> 00:20:27,220
They did in fact come within about 30 seconds

416
00:20:27,220 --> 00:20:28,590
of running out of fuel, which would have been

417
00:20:28,590 --> 00:20:31,450
very dangerous if you're close to the moon.

418
00:20:31,450 --> 00:20:33,654
And then Buzz Aldrin said.

419
00:20:33,654 --> 00:20:36,497
40 Feet down, 2 /12, picking up some dust.

420
00:20:36,497 --> 00:20:39,214
And at that point I knew this was different.

421
00:20:39,214 --> 00:20:40,564
Okay, engine stop.

422
00:20:42,205 --> 00:20:44,312
We copy you down, Eagle.

423
00:20:44,312 --> 00:20:47,687
Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed.

424
00:20:47,687 --> 00:20:49,067
Roger, Tranquility, we copy

425
00:20:49,067 --> 00:20:50,460
you're on the ground.

426
00:20:50,460 --> 00:20:52,320
You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue.

427
00:20:52,320 --> 00:20:54,650
We're breathing again.

428
00:20:54,650 --> 00:20:56,763
One small step for man,

429
00:20:57,680 --> 00:21:00,350
one giant leap for mankind.

430
00:21:00,350 --> 00:21:05,350
The Apollo program, to me, was the most exciting.

431
00:21:05,480 --> 00:21:07,340
A lot of the other things we've done,

432
00:21:07,340 --> 00:21:08,680
with the Shuttle for instance,

433
00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:11,590
have been technically very challenging

434
00:21:11,590 --> 00:21:13,320
but it didn't have the backdrop

435
00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:15,303
of landing on the moon.

436
00:21:17,330 --> 00:21:18,530
It's almost hard to believe

437
00:21:18,530 --> 00:21:20,560
that we were doing all of those things.

438
00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:22,600
The Saturn V worked every time we asked it to,

439
00:21:22,600 --> 00:21:25,980
and the computer system worked every time we asked it to.

440
00:21:25,980 --> 00:21:28,203
It just was a remarkable period in time.

441
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:32,600
The amount of memory that was on

442
00:21:32,600 --> 00:21:33,960
the Apollo Guidance Computer

443
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:37,450
is a couple of orders of magnitudes less

444
00:21:37,450 --> 00:21:40,640
than what you carry around as a smartphone in your pocket.

445
00:21:40,640 --> 00:21:42,190
That's absolutely mind blowing.

446
00:21:45,065 --> 00:21:48,815
(helicopter blades whirring)

447
00:21:51,472 --> 00:21:54,389
(crowd applauding)

448
00:21:56,360 --> 00:21:58,440
It is kind of miraculous to me

449
00:21:58,440 --> 00:21:59,813
that we actually did it.

450
00:22:01,600 --> 00:22:04,840
Doc's attitude is what brought the best

451
00:22:04,840 --> 00:22:06,340
out of these groups of people.

452
00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:10,140
He liked to say that his lab

453
00:22:10,140 --> 00:22:12,160
builds things that work.

454
00:22:12,160 --> 00:22:14,340
And it sounds so fundamental,

455
00:22:14,340 --> 00:22:17,280
but it actually is very key

456
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:19,003
to why Draper's been successful.

457
00:22:20,011 --> 00:22:22,273
And it's a very good legacy to leave behind.

458
00:22:28,022 --> 00:22:30,150
(gentle music)

459
00:22:30,150 --> 00:22:31,620
I can't presume to predict

460
00:22:31,620 --> 00:22:33,370
what the future's going to hold,

461
00:22:33,370 --> 00:22:35,010
but I'm sure it's going to be different

462
00:22:35,010 --> 00:22:36,440
from anything we've imagined.

463
00:22:36,440 --> 00:22:39,160
The human race is certainly gonna go out into the stars.

464
00:22:39,160 --> 00:22:40,730
I thank you very much.