Hello and welcome to the History Hour Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson,

the past brought to life by those who were there.

And this week we're marking 50 years since the first moon landing.

That's one small step for man.

One giant leap for mankind.

We'll take you to the heart of that Apollo 11 mission,

plus we have a broad sweep of other space history.

Fred Hayes, one of the astronauts on the ill-fated Apollo 13 flight.

The biggest thing was confusion.

A number of readings on several meters told me immediately we had lost one oxygen tank.

I immediately had just a sick feeling in my stomach.

Also the first woman in space. had just a sick feeling in my stomach.

Also the first woman in space and how a Soviet dog called Liker became the first living

creature in space.

She was a very patient dog, very affectionate, she was easy to train.

She was considered very clever. She had very expressive dark eyes.

That's all coming up in this space-based podcast. But we begin with Apollo 11 itself

and our first eyewitness to that truly historic mission that took Neil Armstrong and

buzz-oldering to the surface of the moon could hardly have been closer to the action.

Jerry Griffin was a flight controller on Apollo 11 and he's been speaking to Simon Watts.

T-minous 60 seconds and counting. We passed T-minous 60.

The Armstrong reported back when he received the good wishes. Thank you very much. We know it will be a good flight.

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