Apollo 11 – Day Three

And from the Apollo 11 moonshot this day 50 years ago, we bring you... music, bad language, and a UFO.

According to the Shropshire Star of Friday, July 18, 1969, mission controllers at Houston were startled to hear "blue language" cracking back from the Apollo 11 spacecraft streaking ahead of schedule to the moon.

It happened when the ground communicator, Charlie Duke, called up Buzz Aldrin, describing his grandstand view of America, to ask if he could see Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California.

Aldrin: "I can see a 104 (fighter aircraft) taxiing out on the runway."

Duke: "Man, that's super."

Aldrin: "Those damn b******s always have a 104 taxiing out for take-off."

The Star said that although the pair were obviously joking about what Aldrin could see, the language might earn the crew a mild "watch it" rebuke as the world was virtually listening in to every word they said.

Then there was the music. The Apollo crew took with them portable tape recorders, on which they played music tapes for their own entertainment during the journey. But unknown to them their voice-activated microphones were being triggered by the music and broadcasting it back to Houston.

"We're wondering who's on horn," Houston asked an initially baffled Neil Armstrong.

The crew were also to enter the lunar module, called Eagle, for the first time, to check all was well.

Eagle was the spacecraft, which looked a bit like an insect, which would land on the moon, crewed by Armstrong and Aldrin.

Built by Grumman, with wafer thin walls – when somebody on the ground dropped a screwdriver it went straight through the floor – it was of course a vital part of the Saturn V payload. The drastic weight-saving of the design meant there weren't even seats.

Early in the journey to the moon the command and service module carrying the astronauts had turned round to dock with the LM, or "lem," which had been stowed behind them, and extract it. Thereafter they travelled attached none-to-nose.

On completing their work in Eagle, Armstrong and Aldrin returned to the command module, which was called Columbia, and closed the hatches behind them.

At that point Apollo 11 was 57 hours and 44 minutes into its mission, and 179,490 nautical miles (332,415 kilometres) from Earth, travelling at a speed of 3,121 feet per second, or 2,127mph.

In under three hours it would pass a milestone as the spacecraft moved into the lunar sphere of influence, which meant that the moon's gravity would have the predominant effect on its trajectory. It signified the ultimate break with Earth.

As another day drew to a close, and the crew settled down to a nine hour rest break, the astronauts spotted a flashing object out of the window, which appeared to be catching the sunlight as it tumbled.

Armstrong wondered whether it could be the abandoned third stage of the Saturn launch vehicle.

After checking, Houston told him that that was 6,000 nautical miles away. So it wasn't that.

The mystery was never resolved, and has since led to various UFO conspiracy theories.

Mike Collins said that at one point it looked like a hollow cylinder, at another like the shape of an open book.

One theory was that it was a panel from the lunar module that had broken away.

And lastly, the question everybody wanted to know about the mission, but felt it was indelicate to ask.

Zero gravity complicated bodily functions. The astronauts had a low residue diet, but when needed, they had collection bags with adhesive rims which stuck to their bottoms, while for urine there was a condom-like pouch attached to a tube which vented into space.

While we're clearing things up, if you ever wondered why transmissions from Houston to Apollo 11 were punctuated by beeps, the answer is that these were (and are) called Quindar tones, their purpose being to trigger the ground station transmitters when there was an outgoing transmission from Earth.