Al Shepard, the chief of the astronaut office, assigned each one of us a specific area of responsibility, in which we were to train ourselves to become experts. Buzz Aldrin was assigned mission planning, which meant he attended all the meetings on that subject. In 1964, we were trying to figure out how many flights in earth orbit we would need to make sure that we were ready to fly to the moon, and Buzz became our expert in planning these flights. His biggest problem was to calculate how many different kinds of rendezvous we had to practice before trying a lunar landing. Once two men were on the moon, they could get back to earth only by making a successful rendezvous with their third partner waiting in orbit. Bill Anders was assigned the environmental-control system, which is a fancy name for all the plumbing on board a spacecraft. Some pipes carry oxygen to breathe, others carry water to drink or to cool equipment. Then there are a lot of fans and pumps and storage tanks and other things which Bill had to understand.
What do You think about Flying To The Moon (2011)?
