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If you’re interested in traveling to the moon, here’s a chance to (literally) take a page out of Apollo 11’s handbook: the National Archives has this snippet of the Apollo 11 flight plan, and it’s basically a how-to for a successful space flight!

If you can figure out how to read it, that is, which would indicate you already know a bit about rocketry. (So many acronyms! And what do those doodles mean???) Thankfully the Archives put together a small guide to reading at least some of it:

This page is one of 185 pages in the plan. Each page represents one hour of the Apollo 11 flight. …

1st column

  • CSM = Command Service Module

  • CMP = Command Module Pilot

  • This column lists tasks for CMP Mike Collins

2nd column

  • (1530 EDT)=elapsed time

3rd and 4th columns

  • LM = Lunar Module

  • CDR = Commander of the Mission

  • LMP = Lunar Module Pilot

  • These columns list tasks for CDR Neil Armstrong and LMP Buzz Aldrin

5th column

  • MCC-H = Mission Control Center-Houston.

  • This column lists tasks for Mission Control

So this is just a single page out of 185 pages–but you can probably just guess at the other 184.

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