>> on july 20, 1969, astronaut neil armstrong became the first walk on the moon. next, author and journalist leon waggener discusses his book, leap."ant he said armstrong who died in of had a lifelong dream going to space. waggener also details the moon explains the advancements that made the moon walk possible. this 2004 event is about 45 minutes. >> thank you, thank you for coming. an book started when english magazine called "sunday" to goworking for asked me

to a little town in southwestern of at at i never heard that point, neil armstrong's hometown, and write a story for th anniversary of the moon landing. to wepocetta. charming and not far interestingly from day ton where tinkeredt brothers had in their bicycle shop and flight. talked to numerous friends and so, ly and in doing discovered no book had ever been written about neil armstrong, very i was very, surprised. he only thing close to it was "life" magazine at the time of the space landing put together a biography of f a

the three astronauts that landed apollo 11.ere on but no proper biography had ever been done. over the years i thought that it should be. gradually learned more about him. and i took it to my publisher sold him on it and began in earnest interviewing people who had shared his journey, some of other -- fellow astronauts as well as the people people, the men he served in korea with. of lked to just about all the surviving men who were in of an aircraft carrier with him in the korean war. i talked to many of the people

purdue university with. nd learned much about his remarkable life. i first came to this, i that isome of the mythos think built up over the years. first was a recluse, one of the sort of unfairly been hooked to his name for some reason. had more or less een mistakenly chosen to land on the moon and afterward sort hole appeared into a somewhere. none of that is true. it's interesting to see what an engaged person he's been over the years in his life. was remarkable as a young man n that he decided that he

wanted to go to the moon when he was very, very young. wanted people that he to go to the moon and he to do that. but the really remarkable thing course, not only, of that he eventually did it, but that his entire life was geared accomplishing that goal. and i think in terms of a role it's a commendable hing to have never once faltered and to pretty much make all of the right moves over a lifetime. he learned to fly. 16th birthday, he got the first license to fly. before he got a driver's license. signed up for the naval reserve ir training program before the

korean war. he went to purdue where he studied aeronautics. a year and a ar, hef into his time at purdue, was called up for active duty to go to korea. before he wentl, more or he was chosen fly one appenstance to of the first jet combat fighters that america launched which is f-9.anther 79 missions.flew was shot up pretty badly once, and had another plane's wing by the cables that he north koreans during that conflict used to string across over sights that they wanted to protect.

out.had to bail and was nearly killed. but coming back to tell the tale, he learned a lot, obviously. and was well on his way toward a career in aeronautics. graduated for purdue. then went to work for then naka, he forerunner to nasa, the ational affiliate, the group group that preceded it. he was first assigned to lewis center in cleveland. were working on some of the difficult daunting problems that space travel posed. the 'd gotten in really at front door on space.

wo of the things they were looking at it, lewis, that -- metalogy. it rder to get into space, was obvious you needed a medal that didn't exist at that time. tolerate a metal to the enormous temperatures and space and going into returning would involve. the other thing interestingly at lewis was an investigation into energy to travel to interspace. it was thought that atomic be the only thing probably that would be powerful it.gh to do so that was considered very seriously in the years in the '50s. recruited after about a year and half, two years at lewis, to then go to where he wanted to go, where all

fliers who wanted to do things moon which goes lancaster, california where the high-speed drive and test center was. tests where the real were being made in the air. go into space. able to fly several of the x planes. the x-15. which people at that time i neil included, believed would be a rocket that would go moon, it would be the forerunner of the market going moon.e it would be flown completely by the pilot rather than launched. would have t complete control over it and would go to the moon.

this, of course, turned out not to be true. but nobody at the time really how fast you had to go to escape the earth. the feeling at that point was that these -- these rocket powerful enough to do it. the x-15 was an extraordinary craft. 55 feet long. 22 feet.span was 4,500 milesm 0 up to burstur with an 85-second of explosive ammonia and liquid oxygen. of it was a plane that a lot the pilots who flew it seemed to very was -- you were very, happy when the engine stopped, unlike most all other planes.

but it was a big step. it was something that allowed man for the first time to touch 70 miles, almost 70 miles in the air. to see that deep space purple for the first time. because it tant allowed man to determine whether r not the effects of zero gravity or nearly zero gravity that.er man could tolerate which is obviously incredibly go to the lement to anywhere in space. turned out you could. nd also you could maneuver in airless space that the thrusters little plane could be

used to move, to maneuver. it was a big step. the earl live '60s became convinced rather reluctantly, really, that what were doing at drydon wasn't work.to what was going to work was what thegoing on in houston with rockets. so he somewhat reluctantly astronaut program got involved and in the gemini mission. gemini eight, which was the first orbital missions in which he would dock with another craft. that was something that also was essential to do if you were to go to the moon. the idea, the proposed involved to the moon

going in a mother ship that ould orbit the moon and a lander that would break off from it and settle down on the moon. which it eventually did. so gemini 8 was an important part of that. unfortunately, everything went wrong with gemini 8. once they hooked -- hooked up agina aircraft, there was orbiting the earth. thrusters turned bulky and sort misfiring. neil and dave scott, the co-pilot, started spinning around, both craft started to spin around. at a speed that became so were very hat they close to passing out.

away and able to break take manual control and go to the earth. that event had several epercussion repercussions. one that neil and dave scott looked good to come back alive not have a disaster up there could have ended the space program. because at the time, there was a -- there was a lot of opposition, there was a amount of opposition in congress. enormously expensive. at the height of the space program, 400,000 people working on it. can imagine the costs. a lot of people have estimates of what it cost but i don't really y of them are accurate. enormously t was so big that just i think all of the -- all you can do is guess how much money was finally spent.

-- one t to go back to of the reasons i decided i a lot -- a big chunk of five years working on was because i grew up in the maryland suburbs of washington in the '50s. "duck and cover" generation. and the space program has always interested me. my first recollection of it being personalized was 1957, i in the third grade. into were waiting to go classes, waiting for the bell to ring at forest grove elementary in silver spring.

older the monitor, an boy, a fifth grader or and said to us, a drum rollh merely that sputnik was in the air. each time it flew over, it said spouting out germs and that's what was causing everyone have the flu. pretty wide eyed. we had to say, well, you never know. ortunately my parents and teachers assured me that wasn't the case. personalized it for me. as i said as a young kid every reason that the space race business and sputnik has bearing. and that we indeed were in a

race scientifichnological fight to have the technology that we take that it will go to the next century, go to the the things we needed to do as a society. and clearly it seemed that the doing this and we weren't doing it. -- that k that was a was something that influenced me. neil was on the other side of time untry at the attending a conference in los a test pilot meeting. and he said that his feeling at great.e was that's because it meant that suddenly was going to tes going tond his goal of

the moon was enormously raised that day. in fact, others have said that speculated that if it hasn't happened, sputnik had not launched and we haven't been embarrassed by that, the not have program might come to fruition. there wouldn't have been that drive that president kennedy said before congress and university in 1961. that we would do it, we would because e moon, not it's easy or hard, and that we would do it by the end of the decade. so i think everybody involved in the day program felt of sputnik was probably one of important for all of

us. i would like to just read a little bit. the -- there's a generation now i think that are not too impressed by going to the moon r even going to mars because they're convinced that people have already flown at warp speed things so far ofond that that this is kind small change. to go back to 1969 and take a look at the kind of technology that was available, the computer hat was on the eagle when neil and buzz aldrin landed on the moon is -- is amazing. how weak it was and how much it needed to try to help them to land. nasa itself, the director

of reliability and safety for systems, heortation said at the time, and i don't think this was -- i know it very much.icized but their calculation was that were about five -- between five and ten to one the st these men going to moon and returning alive. astronauts knew that. knew that was the assessment and ere fully aware of how dangerous it was. and buzz said they had about a 50-50 chance of accomplishing it. in the space le program said compared to a long, chain of connections that everything had to fire pretty much perfectly. and if just one of these things down, it could be catastrophic. and it would be catastrophic.

was thatng at the time they very well might not come back. neil hoped that he didn't come gok, the space program would on anyway. them or dn't martyr consider that no lives should be lost on it. nixon then, the president asked his then speech sapphire, "the ew york times" columnist to for an obituary for the neil and buzz. it was ut aside but there in case the worst happened. it's chilling to read it today.

have said, fate is ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace to rest inn the moon peace. these brave men, neil armstrong there's no hope for their recovery. but they also know there is hope sacrifice.nd in their these men are laying down their ives in man kind's most noble goal, the search for truth and understanding. they will be mourned by their families and friends. be mourned by their nation. they will be mourned by the people of the world. mourned by mother earth that sent two of her sons in to the unknown. the exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel one. in their sacrifice, they bind for tightly the brotherhood of man. days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. time, we do much the same.

but our heroes are epic men of and blood. man's search will not be denied. the first and will not leave our hearts. of another e corner world that is forever man kind. would like to read a little bit from the last seconds of the landing of the eagle on the moon. orbiter. was the and eagle was the strange looking creature that looked mantis with g

upside down praying mantis that some people called it to land on moon. neil and buzz climbed into the eagle and separated from to land. time, collins fired the thruster, a redlich in separate the to craft and give eagle a little more room to maneuver. module the landing ship ted from the mother and went to its own orbit drifting down 60 miles above the surface. neil took control, firing the thrusters to slow eagle powered dissent. looking at the window, the plunged feet first to the goal, a small red flame region ng in the nether controlling the fall. then gradually, eagle rolled

the crew was face down, parallel to the surface, watching the dead silent craters canyons grow larger and clearer. landing tingly, the craft with the finely milled walls creeked and groaned. eagle had a fragility to make astronauts careful not to touch the walls, let alone lean against them. mused at the less than comforting thought he could have made a hole in the craft's wall a screwdriver. adding to the sense of impermanency and hurried design bundles of exploded wires and plumbing that littered the craft. on cue from the computer, the engine blasted to full throttle began a 12-minute power drop to 6,000 feet above lunar surface. rattled off numbers while neil kept his eyes glued to the

grid making sure the information the reality before them. there was an alarm onboard larm 1202, the computer was overloading telling them it couldn't cope with the data.t for houston overruled the alarm, had been the crew it expected. veryone involved was aware the computers were woefully inadequate. that was a given. rm strong continued a fast shore approach and asked if the landing had chosen a site after analyzing thousands f photos taken by unmanned craft as well as previous flights circling the moon. despite houston's lack of oncern, the astronauts were no longer visually double checking decisions being made by the computer. instead, they were concentrating the instruments. minute later at 4:58 p.m.

houston time, eagle passed through 400 feet. sewn was to their backs so the landing site was out of the could be seen in sharp contrast. straight ahead, looming toward fast, but geography bearing no likeness to a smooth plane. 600-foot-deep crater, a razor-sharp discartment that the eagles to shreds. later, armstrong said i was of the d by the size motor and we were coming up on them pretty fast. he clock runs at triple speed in such a situation. but the time he said nothing the reacted, disconnecting computer and taking manual the ol, cutting hard to downrange side, skims just over the top of the boulder field. aldrin remained impassive. position, he could only see straight ahead or to the right. big the boulder field, as

as a football field was to the right. couldn't appreciate it at all. we were coming on the slopes, a boulders on that slope. flashed arning flight uselessly late. the blast against the ghost-like previously e undisturbed raised a cloud of moon dust that encircled them and decreased visibility. to rollers in houston had listen intently to the calm talking about eagle's rapidly declining attitude and slow motion. seemed to be going smoothly. the rev rooe was dashed. landing atg in for a a dead slow 8 miles per hour had accelerated to 55 mile-per-hours. steely controllers recalled mouthing the words, dear god. in the years of planning had predicted this.

had happened.rre armstrong silent as a sphinx. every time houston tried to get eagle, it sounded like chicken scratching and cut ut all together due to the ship's steerable antenna. armstrong y day when was desperately searching a december late alien planet for a spot to alight, help from houston was not an option. cabining light bathed the with the red glow signaling the fuel had 94 seconds of left. without the cushion of its retro feet , a drop of just 10 would damage eagle sufficiently onsentence both men to death the moon. years as te, after astronaut, i felt panic.

armstrong spoke for the first time. a good spot. area one found an side by craters, and the other a field. it was 150 feet about the size of a big house lot. satisfactory. and i was concerned about the fuel level. aldrin continued to carefully moderate the dissent in speed figures like a watch aboard a steamer. he said.down, 40 feet, eagle was kicking up a blinding dust storm, a sparkling grainy dust. a full minute elapsed since the warning. 0 feet from the surface, eagle began drifting back ward, which et off an alarm in armstrong's brain. the spot was good, not great. it was impossible to tell if the gloom oulders in behind them. he gunned forward a tad. were so thick, they

virtually flying blind. houston crackled a terse fuel reminder, 30 seconds. waiting, then control lights in houston flashed indicating the four struts had made contact, though, whether soft contact or hard remained to be learned. eagle was at rest. was suddenly ust and inexplicably gone. moonstal clear view of the escape. armstrong later marvelled, the settle, it disappeared after the engine shut the down. announced in a famously quiet voice, the eagle has landed. rmstrong's heart beat registered 155 beats per minute, slightly more than double normal for him.

is there any questions? >> understood that post moon landing, armstrong was very busy. a lot of this, i think, has been overlooked. became or soon professor of he the university of cincinnati here he worked on the maneuver thing. the two of them started a technology ting the that had been developed by nasa for space flight for health needs. of the things that heimlich was most concerned about was that in heart surgery, it was a very longo go for ime because the blood would be

damaged terribly by the motion of the machines that recycled it. -- the device e that had been -- it had been eveloped to move oxygen and cooling water through the space suits, which they found out 90% less damage than the conventional heart pump did. this in one fell swoop meant 245 heart surgeons could operate for than they had before. save many lives to be sure. they went on for many years some things velop that are not very dramatic but helpful.at are very

about you got any idea the space program at this point? active it's going to be or whether the president has in it.e for >> he was in houston speaking that pretty much the same time the announcement was made bush.sident he said he thought it was a great idea in so many words. very enthusiastic about it. said it made sense and also he it's somethinglt that we could afford. that's all he said at the time. it's affordable too and the reason is the apollo rogram created a tsunami of

technological progress and led to the lap top computers and cell phone technology and a of things undreds that we take for granted now. obviously, it , ed to employment for ump teen thousands and thousands of people for growing the economy, what neil hings like and dr. heimlich did. i think if we did that again, we similar result. i think it would be a positive us. g for >> you have any idea why the public isn't more cognizant of space program he has given them so much in scientific research? guess that nasa a job as e as good of it might in getting that point convincing people that good results that come back

from spending that money. read my book will and learn about some of the things that happened. sputnik up have there yet, another sputnik to -- >> no. >> to boost us. >> no. no. the russians have been very active in space. since then. buzz ad understood it was aldrin that was selected as pilot because he was so skilled as a pilot. that he was ought the only one who could land the event that the computer went down. do you know anything about that? the same way. he told me he felt the same way. he didn't lobby himself. his father who--

is an admiral had some things to say about it in the days that it. up to and his feeling was -- and i think shared by a lot of the astronauts, that the reason that armstrong was chosen over buzz was because armstrong was a civilian. and because of the tenor of the with the vietnam you, the governor felt that sending a military man plant on the to moon would send a message they didn't want to send. later, of course, it was said that it would have been ifficult for buzz to maneuver himself around neil to get out because of where they were standing in the -- in the eagle. know, with all of their heavy things on. i don't know anybody that really believed that. the answer.that's ut i think buzz to his credit

certainly shut up about it and got on with the program. they -- none of the astronauts of those three certainly, collins and neil and friends or t remain become closely bonded, which i think most of us would find surprising. think if you had an adventure like that that you shared, it -- that that would be something that you would have. but they don't. it. has lamented said to me that he had thought that. he would be close for the rest they see each but other at reunions once every 10 ears or whatever and that's about the extent of it. so yeah? >> this is an odd question. aybe it's an urban myth but i understand that harm strong somehow along the way lost a finger? is that -- did. >> is that true? >> he did.

he did lose a finger, yeah. he resigned from a farm moved back to outside of cincinnati, ohio. cattle. raised it's one of those things like he went through the war, went and to the missions moon and didn't get a scratch on his body. on the farm, he was riding a and or and he reached up caught his wedding band on a ail and it ripped the finger right off. he got off of the tractor, up.ed it carried it uncharacteristically, it on ice and drove to the hospital. louisville, kentucky

where they were in a pioneer program of reattaching fingers nd what have you and it was successfully reattached. i believe he has almost full use of it as a result. it was back at the family farm. >> maybe the farm is more dangerous than the moon? wow. >> with the launch of a chinese astronaut now, do you see that he possibility and the announcement by president bush? of a new a specter space race taking place? >> it would be interesting. be robably would interesting. i doubt it. there's not that military rivalry we had with the soviet cheaper if 's everybody cooperates. and i would think that the just join with the russians and the americans and together.

i would think? money anymore that you could -- you could not try to get every efficiency possible out of it. >> you make these blockbuster goals like, for instance, so thing that seems outlandish and yet possibly land at the time was to on the moon. i suppose now you're talking about -- the president is someone onut landing mars. but given the priorities that isre would be, what prospect there for a -- for such an undertaking. road?now, down the >> it could be done? it's a big task? >> an international goal?

would have to be an international goal. hat would be the proper way to go about it. maybe under the auspices of the united nations, even, something like that. it's something that even maller nations might be interested in getting involved in. if you did it that way, you the every in a nation in world could have their five cents and take pride as a world than as a nation in an accomplishment credit. thing.ock-type a cincinnati suburb. he was divorced about 10 years remarried. travels extensively, lectures on

engineering. and still i think giving interviews to anybody. when i first undertook this, the i did was write him a letter and ask if he could -- if he would give me an interview cooperate in a book? that he wouldn't and wished me luck with it. now he's doing a book. a book now. on all of the research that i did, there were people who said that i will only talk to you if it's all right. and of those people, they all ot back to me and said he hasn't objected. he could have prevented it. he didn't choose to do so. mentioned you you

interviews how many were there? only one that came back with a negative opinion was you speak r, can about that? like neil at all. he didn't like the idea that stronauts would become astronauts. he didn't like the idea they were going to houston. didn'tson for that is he have a college education and he needed that. he was by that time too old. so nothing else really mattered. was e interestingly

involved in a mission to fly a plane out at the air with neil. neil flew and wanted to see how in the and got mired mud. chuck never let him forget it. anybody you ask he'll regale you with that story. >> i read the book as well. of the things that i like you the book is that life to the ch person.

or appeal someone who could have ciences and engineering or follow in these kinds of fields wonder younger people, i if there's any possibility of expanding it to any other media or anything like that. to interest ed younger people in those areas. any possibility of that at all? expanding to other media. >> i'm in negotiation with one the major television networks to do a mini series. there. we're going to make an announcement in a week or so to o a six or eight hour miniseries on it. it's good for me. these guys out to a wider audience about what they accomplished. >> you're watching american

weekend, every weekend, on c-span 3. like n the conversation, s on facebook on c-span history. this year, c-span is touring ities across the country, exploring american history. up next, a look at the recent visit to des moines, iowa. you're watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span 3. >> we are at the henry a. center 50 ntry life miles south and west of des moines. he wallace centers of iowa consist of two location, both honoring the three generations of wallaces. german hillhouse in in des moines, and this 40-acre henry a. wallace coy