Originally Posted by
biscuit74
Entirely agree. It was nail-biting and exhilarating at the time. Like you I still get a lump in my throat and prickling of the eyes hearing those words..
The calm way all those involved impressed me very much - and like many others I tried in my own small way to behave like that; prepare well and stay calm when things go wrong. It seemed (and still seems) an honour to be a very small part of that same community of pilots & engineers.
Neil Armstrong apparently had nerves of steel - the guy was totally unflappable. My favorite story - I think it was told by Alan Bean (Apollo 12) - was regarding when Neil had to eject from the LLRV literally seconds before it crashed (and then the parachute floated frighteningly close to the crash fireball). That happened in the morning - that afternoon he was in office like nothing had happened - Alan Bean was going to see him in his office for some reason - someone told Alan that Neil had crashed the LLRV that morning. So when Alan went into Neil's office, he immediately said something like 'did you crash the LLRV this morning?' Neil nonchalantly said 'yea' without even looking up from his desk - sort of a 'yea, I almost got killed, no biggie'.
A rare breed indeed.
BTW, the one that always gets me choked up is when I listen to Apollo 8 reading from the Book of Genesis on Christmas Eve 1968. So perfect, even if you're not religious...