Directly from the Personal Collection of Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot Buzz Aldrin

FLOWN LUNAR SURFACE CHECKLIST SHEET DETAILING THE SWITCH PROCEDURES NEEDED FOR🌺 ASCENT AND RETURN TO EARTH.

BUZZ ALDRIN'S provenance letter reads, in full: "On July 16th, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins, and I lifted off from Pad 39A at the John F. Kennedy Space Center on our journey to perform humankind's first landing on the Moon at the Sea of Tranquility.

This page is directly related to the circuit breaker switch and felt tip pen used to rearm the ascent engine so that it would fire and lift the Lunar Module (LM) ascent stage off the lunar surface. The page is a schematic of the circuit breaker panels in the LM cabin. The schematic shows how each circuit breaker should be set to power up Eagle prior to liftoff from the lunar surface.

Page SUR-46 shows panel 11 which was located on Neil’s side of the cabin. The switches to be closed were black in color and the switches to be opened were white in color. This panel provided power to various subsystems such as the the Reaction Control System (RCS), Instrument Displays, window heaters, guidance, Environmental Control System (ECS), communications, and computers.

Panel 16 on my side of the cabin is shown on page SUR-47. While Panel 16 paneled up the same major systems, it powered up different subsystems. The broken circuit breaker switch armed the ascent engine and was named 'Eng Arm' on Row 2 under 'Stab/Cont' or Stabilization and Control. The engine arm circuit breaker was supposed to be closed, but the breaker switch was broken off at some point during our time working inside the cabin. We knew without that circuit breaker we would not have been able to fire the ascent engine. It was then that I figured out that I could use my felt tip pen to push the circuit breaker in and arm the ascent stage engine for liftoff from the Moon. 

This Lunar Surface Checklist page 'SUR 46/47' is one of the few objects carried to the lunar surface and is also a rare example of an astronaut flight-certified object used during our mission to be the first humans to land on the Moon." 

REFERENCES:

NASA. Apollo 11 Stowage List. Mission AS 506 CM 107/LM-5. Houston, Texas: M🔜anned Spacecr♛aft Center, July 15, 1969, pp 37 & 58

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