How did the astronauts prepare to land on the moon?

Answer 1

The astronauts only hands-on source of practicing manuvering for lunar landings was by using the LLTV, or the Lunar Landing Training Vehicle. This platform consisted of a vertically-mounted jet engine with four sets of a "pod" of four rocket boosters positioned on the vehicle's sides in order to mimic the rockets' similar orientation on the LEM. It was designed to serve as a 1G simulator for powered-descent, e.g. the act of landing on the moon using the decent stage of the LEM. The LLTV was, however, highly unstable, resulting in several astronauts ejecting from the craft before it crashed. One of the pilots of the LLTV was Neil Armstrong, who ironically gained his privileged position on Apollo 11, at least in part, by showing his quick reflexes when he ejected from the LLTV during a practice session.

The other method of training for powered-descent was by practicing with the navigation computer. The computer would act as an autopilot, guiding the astronauts down to around 100 feet from the lunar surface. At that point, the navigation computer would relinquish control of the LEM retro rockets and the astronauts would manually guide the spacecraft to a suitable landing site. The training that took place was mainly to practice management of the navigation computer and to combat any errors that might spring up as a result of its guidance.