The Indians’ rookie first baseman Michael Aubrey homered with one out in the top of the sixth to close the gap to two runs.
“Nice one”, said Armstrong before resuming his amazing tale. “Chief among the problems with the LM was the landing radar. A system that, for obvious reasons, Apollo 9 couldn’t test on Earth orbit.”
“What kind of problems are we talking about?”
“Locking on false targets due to the LM’s vibration. Electrical problems that caused arcing. Persistent cracking on solder joints, just to name a few. As a matter of fact, NASA developed a new maneuver in order to be prepared for landing radar related problems. This service module’s Moon orbit maneuver was developed to save descent stage propellant thus increasing hover times during powered descent.
“Apollo 9 had no secondary protocol mission, but Apollo 10 did. It was up to them to test the radar on a powered descent trial run on Moon orbit. But they had a secret agenda as well. Their secondary protocol mission was to deploy an S-band transponder to the surface of the Sea of Tranquility.”
“Wait, before you go on… how did you guys hide the secondary protocol during the mission? Logic tells me that the ship’s systems would’ve transmitted to mission control some sort of data regarding the actions taken”, said Lucas.
“Before activating any secondary protocol task, we would switch our transmission to a previously recorded telemetry data that would match the primary mission. But funny you mention that, because on Apollo 10 they disguised their launching of the transponder by doing it while separating from the descent stage. Not a great idea in hindsight because this caused the LM to start gyrating wildly in all three axes. It took Tom and Gene almost four minutes to regain control of the spacecraft.
“Apollo 10 had very interesting moments. I’m sure you’ve read about the strange music the crew heard while on the dark side of the Moon. Of course there are people who believe those were signs of another intelligent presence on the Moon, but I think that the most reasonable explanation for the weird sounds is that they were being originated by the transponder.
“By the way the transponder lander also included a laser ranging retroreflector that Earth scientists could use to verify the landing. The Eagle’s official landing site was adjusted to correspond with the transponder whereabouts.”
Something in his mind made the old astronaut smile.
“What?” asked Lucas.
“The crew of Apollo 10 was a very special group. Lunar module pilot Gene Cernan described themselves as the kind of people who given an opportunity to land, they just might take it; NASA was not going to risk having a couple of cowboys attempt a Moon landing if the landing radar worked. That’s why the ascent stage of their lunar module was loaded with the amount of fuel and oxidizer it would have had remaining if it had lifted off from the surface and reached the altitude at which the Apollo 10 ascent stage fired; this was only about half the total amount required for lift off and rendezvous with the command module from the surface of the Moon”, said Armstrong.
“If I recall correctly, they got as close as nine miles to the surface of the Moon”, said Lucas. “Just looking at it at such close range must have produced a very hard-to-resist temptation to land. Do you really think they would have attempted it?”
“Even with a full amount of fuel? I doubt it. Tom was a very disciplined astronaut, and as commander he would’ve never strayed from the mission. Anyway, it ended up being a moot issue. The landing radar didn’t function properly, so they were forced to activate their secondary protocol.
“In the end, Apollo 10 successfully accomplished its mission objectives and the stage was finally set for the most important secondary protocol mission of all.”
Indians’ ace Cliff Lee chased off the field
After seeing their advantage trimmed in the top half of the inning the Reds answered with two runs in their half of the inning sending the stellar Cliff Lee to the showers early. 6-2 Reds after six.
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