The Trip There

 After being launched into earth orbit by the Saturn V rocket, and accelerated to escape earth’s gravity, the astronauts had to do the trickiest maneuver of the whole journey.  This was to turn the command and service module around 180 degrees then lock onto the lunar module.  This maneuver was required in order for the astronauts to get access to the lunar module because that was placed inside the Saturn V rocket while the command and service module was on the top.  After the turn, the lunar and command modules were locked together tightly so that the space between was airtight.  When all this was done, the Saturn V Third section was released. 

Every 2 minutes, the Apollo 11 had to roll around to its other side because the sun burned on one side- causing the rockets to overheat and freeze on the other side.  The astronauts called this maneuver the “barbecue roll.”  Five hours into the flight, the astronauts finally got to take off their space suits. 

During the two days in flight, the astronauts ate a variety of space food.  Although these were all dried foods to save weight, yet provide enough energy to the astronauts, only hot water was needed to “cook” them.  There was even soup for the astronauts, except, it was in powder form, until water was added.  Apollo 11 astronauts were lucky they got to eat with spoons, because on earlier space missions, they had to eat out of plastic tubes, similar to tubes of yogurt seen today.

Astronauts enjoyed the weightless movement, although there were inconvenient parts to that.  There were squares of Velcro covering the wall, and there were also patches of Velcro on most items that they brought.  Since you couldn’t really put something down in space, the items had to be placed on the wall when they were not needed.  At the end of the second day, they were already in lunar orbit.