13 Minutes to the Moon: 3. Long Island Eagle

The extraordinary story of the ‘Eagle’ spacecraft, which landed astronauts on the Moon. Built by Long Island engineers, it was a spacecraft like no other - one designed to land on another world. The result was the spidery lunar module, a spacecraft that was “difficult to fly and easy to crash”. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin spent hundreds of hours in the simulator to prepare for every possible manoeuvre required for the daring, final thirteen-minute descent to the lunar surface.

Hosted by Kevin Fong.

Starring: Charlie Duke Dick Dunne John Devaney Alan Contessa Neil Armstrong courtesy of the Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Tom Kelly courtesy of the MIT Museum Collections

Archive: Johnson Space Center Oral History Project Archive: MIT Museum Collections

Theme music by Hans Zimmer for Bleeding Fingers Music

#13MinutestotheMoon www.bbcworldservice.com/13minutes