First of all, that shielding comment is WAY over-kill for the radiation present on the moon or in Earth orbit. People were very cautious about this back then and did not understand that thin metal would block out about 98% of such “radiation”, the vast majority of which is not highly penetrating x, gamma, or cosmic rays. The space shuttles do not have heavy armor on them and they protected the astronauts flying in them from radiation just fine.

Second, by timing the radio waves to and from both the Eagle lander and the moon orbiter it is not difficult to calculate how far away the transmitter is or by doing this rapidly and comparing the differences in the results how fast it is moving. This is basically how traffic RADAR works to measure the speed of a vehicle.

Last, Dr. von Braun was a very well educated man but like a lot of academics, his street smarts were… lacking. My father knew and worked with him at the rocket testing facility in Huntsville, AL, in the late 1950s and was also on the team that launched the 1st US satellite into Earth orbit via a US Army Redstone missile.

As to Neil Armstrong, what a life he had! He achieved something that no one else ever will. He was the FIRST human being to ever walk on a planetary body that was not the Earth. RIP, Neil… ya done good!