50 years since the launch of Apollo 11
On July 16, 1969, 50 years ago, the launch of Apollo 11 to the Moon was made, which constituted an absolute record for television audience at that time, since more than 500 million people witnessed that historic event.
The climactic moment of the liftoff occupied a total of 31 hours of live broadcasting. The different television networks competed with each other by inviting the likes of Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke and Orson Wellles.
The rocket departed from Pad A of Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center. Meanwhile, a million people, including 2,700 reporters, journalists and personalities, held their breath, enduring the heat and equipped with sunglasses, telescopes and binoculars.
The five F-1 engines took nine seconds to reach full power, reaching a consumption of 13,000 liters of liquid hydrogen and oxygen per second. Those engines were capable of producing 3.4 million kilograms of thrust. Those necessary to sell the force of gravity and provide the energy necessary to reach our natural satellite.
Twelve minutes after liftoff, the Apollo 11 mission was in orbit. In the cockpit were Commander Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Lunar Module Pilot, and Michael Collins, Command Module Pilot.
But there was a fourth "crewman". Inside the tangle of 24 kilometers of cables that made up the ship, there was a computer called AGC (Apollo Guidance Computer), whose functions were crucial for the success of the mission: it had to control the stabilization systems, the engine ignitions, calculate the position of the ship and direct all phases of flight.
That computer was a true milestone in human engineering and one of the most complex points of the mission. Curiously, its power was negligible when compared to any current smartphone. It was two thousand times slower, with a speed of 2,048 MHz and its memory was minimal, it only had 72 kilobytes to store programs and another 4 to store data. When any mobile phone today has several gigabytes for those functions.
