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The BrainFood Show

How NASA Learned to Land on the Moon

The BrainFood Show

Cloud10

History, Education

4.91.6K Ratings

🗓️ 12 October 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On July 20, 1969, the whole world gathered around their flickering television sets and watched in awe as astronaut Neil Armstrong who, if not for someone secretly slipping his very late application to the astronaut program into the pile wouldn’t have even been there (more on this in the Bonus Facts later), climbed down the leg of a strange, spidery vehicle, stepped onto the surface of the moon, and spoke the immortal words: “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.” …Followed by the much less memorable second words, “I can – I can pick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers like powdered charcoal to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine, sandy particles.” But for the first time in history, a human being had set foot on another world. The historic flight of Apollo 11 was the culmination of a massive eight-year effort to realize President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth by the end of the decade. But the road from the earth to the moon was far from a smooth one, beset by numerous hurdles and setbacks. For example, the deaths of the Apollo 1 crew in a launch pad fire on January 27, 1967 prompted a complete redesign of the Apollo spacecraft, while ongoing problems with the Saturn V rocket’s massive F-1 rocket engines nearly resulted in the cancellation of the entire Apollo programme. But perhaps the greatest challenge of all was deciding how to land on the moon in the first place. Solving this seemingly trivial question proved far more difficult than expected, requiring years of careful study and the heroic persistence of an obscure but determined engineer. This is the story of how we learned to land on the moon only a little over a half century after humans were still hitching up covered wagons to go places. Host: Simon Whistler Author: Gilles Messier Editor: Daven Hiskey Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

If you're something of a coffee connoisseur, perhaps even wishing you could travel with your coffee maker for maximal caffeination while on vacation or a business trip, well, have we got a product for you? A couple years ago, I got recommended the AeroPress and my wife and I have been using it regularly ever since, and coming full circle, they're now sponsoring us. If you've never seen one, AeroPress is a small, super portable, manual coffee press. Think French press, but with some key features in the design to give a much less bitter and incredibly smooth flavor, as well as to make it super fast to make a cup of coffee. To do this, it uses a unique 3-1 brew tech, sort of a mix of espresso, pour over, and French press, and as someone who normally finds coffee a bit too bitter, the results here are generally one of the best cups of coffee I've ever had. You can actually taste the flavors in the beans instead of just the bitter. And here's the kicker, it's super portable for travel, it weighs basically nothing, won't break in your bag, and bruise a full cup in under two minutes. And cleanup takes approximately only 10 seconds, no more suffering through gross instant coffee on the road. And as for cost, the AeroPress is under 50 bucks. And on top of that, right now, AeroPress has an exclusive offer just for our listeners. Visit AeroPress.com slash brain food. That's A-E-R-O-P-R-E-S-S-S dot com slash brain food. And use promo code brain food to save 20% off your order.

1:13.0

Once again, that's AeroPress.com for slash brain food. Use promo code brain food at checkout and

1:17.6

finally ditch bad coffee. You'll thank yourself every morning.

1:20.6

Hi, I'm Cassidy. And I'm Amanda. And we're the host of Drinking the Kool-Aid, a comedy podcast

1:26.2

dedicated to The Mysterious.

1:27.8

Tune in every week while we cover two chilling tales about everything from cults to aliens to the paranormal, all with a sense of humor.

1:35.1

So grab a drink.

1:36.0

And tune in to drinking the Kool-Aid wherever you get your podcast.

1:42.4

On July the 20th, 19669, the whole world gathered around their flickering television sets and watched

1:47.6

in awe as astronaut Neil Armstrong, who, if not for someone secretly slipping his very late

1:51.8

application to the astronaut program into the park, wouldn't even have been there, more

1:55.1

than a bonus fax. Later, climbed down the leg of a strange spidery vehicle, stepped onto the surface

2:00.4

of the moon and

2:01.3

spoke the immortal words that's one small step for man one giant leap for mankind followed by the

2:07.4

much less memorable second words i can i can pick it up loosely with my toe it does it here in

2:12.8

fine layers like powdered charcoal to the sole and sides my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an

2:17.9

inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the

2:23.3

fine sandy particles. But for the first time in history of the human being had set foot

2:27.6

on another world, the historic flight of Apollo 11 was the culmination of a massive eight-year effort

2:32.5

to realize President John F. Kennedy's goal

2:34.9

of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth by the end of the decade.

2:39.2

But the road from the Earth to the Moon was far from a smooth one, beset by numerous hurdles and

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