The elevator continued to rise on the mobile launch platform, and the three of them were getting farther and farther away from the ground, Zhang Heng looked up at the sky in the distance, where a red morning sun was rising from the shoreline.

Light and darkness are perfectly intertwined at this moment, like a frozen film.

"Hopefully we'll see such a beautiful sight again." Collins whispered from the side.

Despite the astonishing height of the Saturn 5, the elevator eventually stopped in front of the covered bridge.

NASA staff opened the elevator door for them and nodded at them, while the engineers completed one last pre-launch check, and the three of them walked across the bridge between the rocket and the launch platform and into the cramped command module.

Zhang Heng tried his best to keep the spacesuit from touching the complicated instruments and pipelines around him, and at the same time found his seat, and the door of the command cabin slowly closed behind him.

At this point, only the three of them were left in the spacecraft.

Armstrong and Collins are both old NASA veterans, and they have already flown in astronautics before this, so they are both very calm, but compared to Armstrong's unchanged look, it can still be seen that Collins is a little nervous.

After all, NASA has just had a series of things before, mysterious infectious diseases, and crazy attrition in training camp...... All of this seems to be in line with the widely circulated rumor that "God does not want humans to go to the moon".

Even with Corinthian's mental qualities, it is difficult to completely ignore these distractions.

But when the mission began, he quickly gathered his mood and concentrated on this space flight.

Like the historical Apollo 11, NASA still arranged Armstrong as the commander, Collins as the command/service module pilot, and Zhang Heng replaced Buzz Aldrin as the pilot of the lunar module.

Collins was also the only person who did not go to the moon during the Apollo 11 mission, as he needed to stay in the command/service module when the lunar module and the command/service module were separated, and once Armstrong and Zhang Heng were unable to return from the moon, Collins would have to pilot the command module back to Earth on his own.

In terms of safety, he is the highest among the three, but the price is that he has come to the "doorstep" of the moon but can't go up to take a look, but in terms of mission priority, he is still higher than Zhang Heng, the pilot of the lunar module.

After contact during the quarantine period, Zhang Heng, Armstrong and Collins also became a lot more familiar, because Armstrong and Collins returned to the team relatively late, and the three did not have the opportunity to train together, which made NASA's senior management once very worried about the tacit understanding between the three.

However, now, they have no better solution, so they can only try to create an environment for the three of them to be familiar with each other during the quarantine period, and Zhang Heng also took this opportunity to determine one thing.

That is, what happened in parallel copies doesn't carry over into normal copies, and Armstrong has no memory of the time the two spent together at Lewis's flight propulsion lab 14 years ago.

This can also be seen in the expression on Armstrong's face when the two meet again, and Armstrong looks at him as if he were looking at a stranger.

Zhang Heng still had a little regret, although he also knew that this situation was the most likely, because after 14 years, his appearance had not changed in any way, and there was no trace of aging on his body, which was not a normal thing in anyone's eyes, and it was difficult to find a credible reason.

Regarding what happened after the two separated, Zhang Heng more or less also had some understanding from the Internet and books in later generations.

Armstrong married Janet Elizabeth Hillen, whom he met in college in 1956, and they had three children, and his daughter Karen was diagnosed with a malignant tumor that left her speech and walking abilities, and Karen died on Armstrong and Janet's wedding anniversary.

This incident hit him hard, which is why Zhang Heng felt that his whole body became more silent when he saw him for the second time, although Armstrong never showed grief in front of anyone.

But he later applied for NASA astronauts, in addition to his own love for flying, there was no sense of escape, perhaps only high-intensity training and work can make him temporarily forget the pain of losing his daughter, in addition, Armstrong's marriage road is not smooth.

In 1989, Janet left a note at the dinner table for Armstrong, asking for an end to their 38-year marriage, in Armstrong's own words

- "Our marriage was like a failed flight, silently collapsing...... If possible, I would also say that I love my wife and I am sorry......"

But at the moment, Armstrong, who was sitting in the command/service module, did not think about these things, and he had already focused all his energy on this mission, which is why NASA rated Armstrong as a stable and reliable leader.

In a sense, although Armstrong and Zhang Heng are in different eras, they have a lot of similarities, and they can see each other's shadows from each other.

There was a tacit understanding between the two at the Lewis Flight Power Laboratory at the beginning, and when they returned to the copy of the Apollo training camp fourteen years later, although Armstrong did not remember what had happened before, the subtle sense of tacit understanding between the two had not completely disappeared.

Armstrong can also perceive this, he and Zhang Heng are obviously only meeting for the first time, but there is a feeling of reunion between old friends after a long absence, and Zhang Heng seems to know his family situation and early experience very well.

…………

The ground control center in Houston issued an order for the countdown to the last two minutes of ignition, and all the staff on the ground had been evacuated to safety.

Just today, more than a million people came to the scene to watch the launch of Apollo 11, in addition to dozens of cameras broadcasting the whole process, Zhang Heng used the last time to check the seat belt on his body again to ensure that nothing was lost.

And at this time, the countdown also came to the last 15 seconds, and the internal guidance was activated...... With nine seconds left, the engines began to ignite, and the five F1 rocket engines of the first stage rockets were running at full capacity, burning about 12,000kg of aviation fuel per second, equivalent to the combined afterburner consumption of 1,500 jet fighters.

The red flames erupted from the base, bringing up a huge cloud of sand and dust around it, and the powerful thrust generated by this propelled the spacecraft off the ground.