The zoo attended a very interesting lecture by Dave Reneke yesterday. Dave told us many little known facts about the Apollo 11 landing on the moon, July 21st 1969. Some of these I list for you below.

*Neil Armstrong was late submitting his application for astronaut training, but his good pal was on the reception desk and slipped his application in at the bottom of the pile. an intriguing case of “The First shall be last, the last shall be first”.

*Neil also had a close brush with death in the moonlander “flying bedsted” experimental machine, when it went out of control at the airfield. He ejected in the nick of time, he bit through his tongue – shrugged off the wreckage and went home for lunch.

*He and Buzz Aldrin were thought to have a 50/50 chance of surviving the trip. President Nixon was not keen on the project and axed a lot of the space programme.

*The average i-phone, in 2019, has 1,000 times more computer power, in kilobyte terms, than the moon lander’s computer.

*On final landing approach to the moon Neil over rode the computer and flew the machine manually to avoid a rock field. They had 17 seconds worth of fuel left on landing. It is said he had hydraulic fluid in his veins. Both pilot’s heartbeats went to 160 – so they were human!

*Neil Armstrong had secretly brought a wafer and tiny glass of wine, to celebrate Holy Communion on the surface of the moon.

*When Buzz climbed back in the lander his backpack knocked a vital switch off the panel. He used a metal pressurised ball point pen, (which he just happened to have), to poke in the vacant hole where the switch had been -and it turned the blast off sequence on….

*When the Lunar Module rendezvoused with Mike Collins in the orbiting spacecraft they locked into the receiving bay and knocked on the locked entrance hatch. Mike said “Who’s there?”

Neil died in 2012, an all American hero.

And to think my pal Ham the Chimp, helped this incredible project to succeed! More power to the zoo!

Gibber! Gibber!

Chugley

The Space Struck Chimp