Goofs

The word "NASA" on the tail of Armstrong's X-15 is in yellow lettering when he lands but (correctly) in black after the recovery team arrives.

When Armstrong stands on the very edge of a moon crater looking into it, between wide and high shots his distance from the crater rim shifts.

When Armstrong stands on the very edge of a moon crater looking into it , between wide and high shots his distance from the crater rim shifts.

The interiors of the various spacecraft are shown as slightly grubby, with the appearance of grime and fingerprints. Actual spacecraft are kept scrupulously clean to reduce the possibility of floating debris causing an equipment failure.

Neil Armstrong never trained in the spin test device, known as MASTIF (multi-axis spin test inertia facility). The device was used for the original Mercury program astronauts but was deemed unrealistic and abandoned. It is considered an irony in space program history that Armstrong never trained in this device and yet is one of only two astronaut to actually experience the condition the device simulated.

When Neil is shown by the crater on the moon in profile, he doesn't have a camera mounted on his chest. In reality, there was one very prominently mounted there, and Neil Armstrong took almost all the pictures. This is why nearly all of the pictures of the Apollo 11 astronauts on the moon feature only Buzz Aldrin.

There is a great deal of vibration during the entire Apollo 11 launch, and the vibration gets worse after first stage separation. The Saturn V did in fact have vibration problems, but the vibration was not as bad as depicted in the film. At the mission debriefing, Neil Armstrong reported that the first stage was like "going over rough railroad tracks," the second stage was "the smoothest I've ever seen," and the third stage was "a little rattly."

Transmissions between the earth and the Apollo capsule as it neared the moon were shown as comments and instant responses while, in fact, the moon is 240,000 miles away and there is a 1.4 second delay in the time it takes for electronic signals to travel that distance. Thus, a comment on one end would take 1.4 seconds to reach the receiver with another 1.4 seconds for the response - a total of 2.8 seconds minimum between making a comment and receiving a response.

LEDs were not used on the Apollo spacecraft. The 7-segment displays shown in the film are electroluminescent displays.

When the astronauts' dinner party is interrupted by news of the Voskhod 2 EVA, the kitchen TV is plugged into a 3-prong electrical outlet. This is correct for the time period. The 1947 National Electrical Code required new houses to be built with 3-prong outlets in the kitchen.

In the last meal before the Apollo 11 crew heads into space, Neil is shown eating using the European style, with fork in left hand with the tines pointed down. This surprises some American viewers but Neil Armstrong did eat this specific breakfast in that specific manner - it is seen in the famous sketch by Paul Calle and various photographs.

Incorrectly Perceived As Goof: At least two goofs indicate that questions of cost by the public and protests against the space program were overblown in the film, and that NASA in the 1960s had overwhelming support. This is a myth following the successful moon landing, and is not true from contemporary opinion polls.

"Consistently throughout the 1960s a majority of Americans did not believe Apollo was worth the cost, with the one exception to this a poll taken at the time of the Apollo 11 lunar landing in July 1969. And consistently throughout the decade 45-60 percent of Americans believed that the government was spending too much on space, indicative of a lack of commitment to the spaceflight agenda."

When the photojournalist is shooting at the Armstrong home, the close-up of the photographer is mirrored/reversed. The Leica camera he is holding normally has a transport knob on the left hand side.

When one of the astronauts is shown collecting a lunar soil sample, the crotch strap of his spacesuit is undone.

Towards the end of the movie, Neil is standing on the moon and a tear falls from his face. That tear reacts to normal gravity but on the moon that tear would have fallen slower.

The spacecraft sets were reused from previous productions and in a number of shots there is a fair amount of wear and tear. The fact is that the spacecraft were all custom crafted and brand new, with only a few months of training use at the most.

At no time when they are in space are any stars visible in the sky. Everything is pitch-black. Even with the glow from the Earth's surface, there should be stars everywhere.

The film makes it seem like there was massive public sentiment against the space program. This is absolutely not true. American s were determined to beat the Russians and to go to the moon. It caught the imagination of America and the world. While some were against it, they were little more than a fringe until after the thrill of the moon landing had died down. The near-disaster of Apollo XIII game people pause, however, and Congress eventually pulled the plug on moon missions. Public sentiment was very much pro-Apollo in the late sixties.

The daughter of Neil Armstrong is pictured with brown eyes when both parents have blue eyes. This is impossible.

During the launch scene for Apollo 11, during the aerial shot of Cape Canaveral (then known as Cape Kennedy) from out over the Atlantic, the Shuttle Landing Facility is clearly visible in the background. The SLF was not constructed until 1974.

In the beginning of the movie, supposedly taking place in 1961, Armstrong is studying a medical book that contains a picture of a brain MRI. MRI technology was not developed until the 1970s.

The X-15 flight depicted in the film where the aircraft bounces back out of the atmosphere occurred on April 20, 1962 not in 1961 as shown in the movie.

The exterior view of the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) has the USA flag painted on the side of the building. This was not present during the Apollo Era. This painting was completed in 1976 for the country's Bicentennial.

The performance of Gil Scott-Heron's "Whitey on the Moon" is presented as taking place before the 1969 landing, but the song was not released until 1970.

The movie depicts lunar terrain as incredibly rugged with sheer crater walls and cliffs. In one scene Armstrong stands on the brink of a crater that looks like a deep, dark, well. In fact slopes on the Moon are very gentle, almost never greater than 35 degrees, due to lack of wind and water erosive processes. Aside from rocks and boulders (which Armstron had to avoid while landing), the lunar terrain has a smooth appearance thanks to sandblasting by micro-meteoroids for billions of years.

From Cape Kennedy, the Moon had just risen and was only 14 degrees above the horizon at liftoff - so the Moon was not visible to the astronauts looking upward through the hatch window.

Just after exiting the LEM, Armstrong looks toward Earth. It appears as a crescent because it is side-lit, as is the lunar landscape in the foreground. But the reverse angle (of Armstrong's mirrored visor) shows the LEM shadow pointing toward Earth. This means that Earth should be fully illuminated and circular.