In the sixties I was a huge space fan. I read a lot of science and science fiction books. Until Apollo 11, I had not missed watching a televised American space launch.
The big exception was Apollo 11.
By the day of the launch I was in the middle of a student trip to Paris. I had a small transistor radio and listened to the launching and news about the landing from the tiny speaker. Sometimes I was able to receive Voice of America but other times I could only get the French translated version with the original English faintly heard in the background.
The landing was in the evening with the actual Moon Walk late at night. We asked the dormitory manager if we could use his television for the Neil Armstrong one small step for mankind. Unfortunately he forgot to mention that their TV was broken! Argh! So it was back to the tiny radio for the big event.
I did save my International Herald-Tribune from July 21st. Over the years I saved several more newspapers and magazines from that big week. I have several such as that Herald-Tribune and an unopened Life magazine framed in my hallway.
Apollo 16 Moon Flag
I was impressed in 1972 when my new friend Tom H. told me that his father's secretary was marrying an Astronaut. The following year I visited Tom's Family in Nassau Bay, Texas. That is very close to the Johnson Space Center.
Tom's father had a small framed nylon American flag in the front hallway of his home. I was impressed to discover that it was a signed memento from John Young from his Apollo 16 moon walk.
During that visit I finally saw the film from the Apollo 11 landing in a theatre at the Space Center. Looking back it is amazing how our instant communications and universal video recordings have changed our memories of many events.
In decades not so far in the past, if things were not caught on TV the first time around one might never see them in reruns.
Tom was riding lawn mower for the space program at the Space Center and Vandenburg Air Base. Eventually I talked him into driving me home and we have visited each other many times since.
1 comment:
I enjoyed your post on the Apollo 11 moon landing. Thought you might enjoy this story:
The Apollo 11 astronauts almost forgot to leave a goodwill message disc on the Moon’s Sea of Tranquility. Buzz Aldrin remembered that it was in his sleeve pocket and tossed it out of Eagle onto the Sea of Tranquility. Neil Armstrong then touched it with his boot just before the closeout procedure.
The disc, made of a tiny wafer of silicon, has messages from Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, the Vatican and 73 other nations. Government leaders were concerned about the image of America “taking over” the Moon. Therefore, a plaque declaring that “We came in peace for all mankind” was left as well as the goodwill messages.
The messages are often prophetic, such as the one from Eric Williams, which simply states, “It is our earnest hope for mankind that while we gain the Moon, we shall not lose the world.” The messages were shrunk down to microscopic size onto a silicon wafer the size of a Kennedy half dollar coin. It requires microscopic magnification to read them.
After deciding to plant an American flag on the Moon and before the
wording was finalized for the plaque, the U.S. State Department authorized NASA administrator Thomas O. Paine to solicit messages of goodwill from the
leaders of the world's nations to be left on the Moon.
Thought you might like this story.
My new book "We Came in Peace for all Mankind" discusses this in great detail.
Tahir Rahman, author
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