For those that don’t know, every ounce carried into space or back to earth from space need to be accounted for to be added into payload and trajectory calculations. If the payload is heavier than the rocket is built for, then it doesn’t make it into orbit. Trying to come back from the moon? Make sure the mass of your space craft is accurate or the thrust you use to get back could cause you to miss the earth completely or throw you into the atmosphere too hard.

Some items were intended to be left on the moon, such as experiments and equipment that couldn’t come back. Some, however, was better left on the moon than trying to bring it back in a confined space for several days. Apollo astronauts needed to use the bathroom and the bags that collected their waste were left on the moon (I’ll going to this subject in a future post).



Buzz Aldrin actually has the honor of being the first person to pee on the moon. Well, to pee while standing on the moon.

According to space historian Teasel Muir-Harmony’s book, “Apollo to the Moon: A History in 50 Objects,” Aldrin’s urine collection device bag broke on a leap onto the lunar surface, leaking into his left boot. So one could say his steps on the moon — or those, at least — were slushier than expected.

“Everyone has their first on the moon,” Aldrin said.

Souvenirs
Before setting back from the moon during the Apollo 11 moon landing, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, and Neil Armstrong were chatting back and forth with NASA to calculate the weight of their spacecraft after collecting moon samples and leaving equipment behind.

Here are some of the transcripts of the conversation about their sample bags:

Aldrin: Now, here are a couple of bags – and I think it’s self-explanatory what goes in them.

Aldrin: Get ready for those million-dollar boxes. Got a lot of weight; now, watch it.

Collins: You intend to keep [garble]?

Armstrong: Yes.

[A few min later after the sample bags are full, speaking with Collins who remained in orbit around the moon during the landing]

Armstrong: Okay. If you want to have a look at what the Moon looks like, you can open that up and look. Don’t open the bag, though.

[Armstrong is allowing Collins a quick look at the Contingency Sample, the first small bag of lunar soil he collected on the surface. He scooped this up and put it in a pocket, in case he and Aldrin had to depart quickly. Although he did not reach the surface, Collins becomes the third human being to get a close-up look at lunar soil. Armstrong’s last comment appears to be an instruction not to open a different bag of samples.]

[At this point Collins possibly makes a remark, not picked up by the onboard recorder, about the gray color of the lunar samples. That would elicit the following ironic wit from Armstrong.]

Armstrong: You’d never have guessed, huh? (Laughter)

[Now filling out the checklist]

Collins: What was that bag [garble]?

Armstrong: Contingency sample.

Collins: Rock?

Armstrong: Yes, there’s some rocks in it, too. You can feel them, but you can’t see them; they’re covered with that – graphite.

[Then, when referencing the mystery bag Collins wasn’t allowed to look in]

Armstrong: You know, that – that one’s just a bunch of trash that we want to take back – LM parts, odds and ends, and it won’t stay closed by itself. We’ll have to figure something out for it.

That final line from Neil was where he referenced the bag to Mission Control who was calculating the return trajectory. This was imperative as the return trajectory calculations would have needed to accommodate the additional, unexpected weight (about 10lbs) in order to allow the team’s safe re-entry to Earth.

The bag was never mentioned upon returning to earth and was forgotten about.

In the wake of his death, Carol Armstrong donated many of Neil’s Apollo 11 artifacts to the National Air & Space Museum. She also shared some of her husband’s correspondence and paper files to Purdue.

Not until 2015 did Carol Armstrong email the museum with the news she’d found, “a white cloth bag filled with assorted small items that looked like they may have come from a spacecraft.” With the email, she included a picture of the items, spread out on her carpet.

Though not all of the items were from the Apollo 11 mission, the white bag used to carry the items, the camera used to film Neil descending the ladder from inside the Lunar Module, and a safety tether used for space walks are confirmed from the Apollo 11 moon landing. Hidden away in Neil’s Armstrong’s closet for 50 years.

If you ever wanted to be as an exciting of a person as I am, you can actually read through all communication transcripts from all the NASA missions. https://history.nasa.gov/afj/ap11fj/index.html