(“Twang” is not in any official transcripts, but in all the sound clips.)
We all know that “Eagle” and “Columbia” were official designations publicly known and used even prior to liftoff. We also know that “The Eagle has landed” became the officially historic unscripted “first words” spoken from the surface of the moon.
But my question concerns the term “Tranquility Base”. Was this an unscripted term invented by Armstrong (either on-the-spot or planned in advance), or was it an official term used by NASA even prior to the actual landing?
My guess is that it was Armstrong’s invention, but I’ve never heard the question discussed. Who’s got the Straight Dope?
I will be corrected if I am wrong, but as I recall, the Eagle’s landing site was on a part of the moon known as the Sea of Tranquility. Therefore, once the lander touched ground, that point became Tranquility Base. Nothing mysterious about it.
Yeah, that explains why the landing site wasn’t called “Moon Base Alpha” or something. But the site didn’t really have to have any specific name other than “that particular area of the Sea of Tranquility”. But it was given this specific name, and my question is, whose idea was it?
Armstrong: “Tranquility base here, the Eagle has landed.”
At least that’s what I remember - was it really “copy you on the ground”? Anyway, I was told that this line by Houston was to remind Armstrong to say the historic line. Certainly sounds like it - that Houston wanted Armstrong to say in plain English that they were safely on the ground.
Dimly recalled from Andrew Chaikin’s book, A Man on the Moon:
“Tranquility Base” was Armstrong and Aldrin’s idea. The intention was to emphasise the fact that they were explorers, rather than just pilots, which is what all astronauts had previously been. Hence “base”, a term more associated with terrestrial exploration (as in “base camp”) than with space flight.
Armstrong: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
I’ve checked the Chaikin book and I can’t find the explaination TomH recalls. I tend to agree with kunilou that Tranquility Base was just the logical name for the place. Whether the term was widely used by NASA planners before the landing or first used by the crew during the landing, I don’t know.
An interesting aside:
Using the logic of Arctic explorers, Eagle wasn’t really the first visitor to Tranquility Base, Snoopy was. Stafford and Cernan of Apollo 10 came within 9 miles of Tranquility base a month before Eagle landed. If you divide 9 miles into the total distance to the moon and call it a margin error, then Snoopy(the Apollo 10 lander) was as much the first spaceship to reach the moon as was Perry the first to reach the North Pole or Amundson was the first to reach the South Pole. A silly comparison but still interesting.
Me too. In the Chaikin book there aren’t even reference numbers for the notes in the text. You have to keep flicking to the back of the book every ten or twenty pagesjust to see if there are any notes referring to the particular bit you’re reading.
If it’s important, say it in the text. If it’s less important, say it in a footnote. But putting 40 pages of material, unreferenced, in the back of the book, makes it look like he couldn’t reach agreement with his editor about what went in and out.