Apollo 11 Memories

[Mergs]

I was fortunate enough to be a neighbor of Michael Collins and was invited to watch the launch from their living room with their kids and several others from the neighborhood. It was a magical time living in that area with other notables as Jim McDivit, Dick Gordon, Mike Scott all living one or two houses away. I also had Buzz Aldrin as my Space Exploration merit badge counselor and it wasn't until the 30th anniversary that I was able to meet Neil Armstrong.

 

[TomPPilot]

I was "seven going on eight" in July of 1969. Thanks to my big brother (two years older than me), I was a hand-me-down space nut. He had built several models of Gemini and Apollo (including the model of Ed White's Gemini space walk) that sat on the shelves of the bedroom we shared. Like others have mentioned above, we also had lots of glossy pictures sent to us courtesy of NASA. We even had that flimsy plastic record from the National Geographic magazine, where Walter Cronkite narrated the history of the US space program. We played that record until the grooves wore out.

On the night of the landing, my mother surprised me by giving me permission to stay up late and watch on TV. Ours was a Zenith black and white console model, with the nice wooden cabinet. Our large family was crowded into the living room to see. We were an ABC family, so we got the scoop from Jules Bergman rather than Walter Cronkite. I listened to the air-to-ground of the landing, but I was too young to understand just how much of a close call that landing was. I remember puzzling over the CAPCOM talking about how"you got a bunch of guys about to turn blue".

I clearly recall the TV picture from the moon being upside down when it first came on. It took some technician a few seconds to fix that, and in the meantime we kids turned our heads upside down so we could see what was going on. The picture was really washed out, but we could see enough to be sure that it really was The Moon. When Neil stepped on the surface, and said those "kinda-grand-but-wait-a-minute-what-did-he-say?" words, even we kids knew that we were witnessing the most historic event we might ever see.

We saw many other memorable events from the surface of the moon, and I even tried to catch a lunar liftoff with my telescope on one mission (didn't see beans, of course). But that first landing, first footsteps, and first words, were the most memorable to me.

Tom P.

 

[Rocket_Nut]

I was aboard a sail boat in Santa Monica Bay (just off shore from the Los Angeles airport). The three of us on the boat listened to the landing on a portable radio. It was memorial moment!

 

[CommonMan]

I was almost 11 tears old, I can remember seeing the whole thing on TV. It's strange how I can remember Neil Armstrong walking on the moon, but have a hard time now remembering Jack S_ _ _ _.

 

[drwayne]

I was fortunate enough to be a neighbor of Michael Collins and was invited to watch the launch from their living room with their kids and several others from the neighborhood. It was a magical time living in that area with other notables as Jim McDivit, Dick Gordon, Mike Scott all living one or two houses away. I also had Buzz Aldrin as my Space Exploration merit badge counselor and it wasn't until the 30th anniversary that I was able to meet Neil Armstrong.

I am SOOOOO jealous

 

[Chryseplanatia]

A neighbor of the Collins's??! Holy Moly (as Gene Cernan would say)... that's like casually announcing that you and Tom Hanks golf together every Sunday...

I was 11 or 12 for Apollo 11, watched every second, didn't breathe once I think. My parents were kind enough to let me stay home from school to watch ALL the moonwalks as they occurred, but, as many of you may recall, the networks couldn't be bothered to reschedule the soaps, so much of the EVA duration was unseen... which is why I was so thrilled to be able to buy Spacecraft Films' Apollo 16 DVD set. My family runs for the hills, but I geek out for hours watching Charlie Duke and John Young going about their business like some extraterrestrial episode of "Hee-Haw." What a crew. I just wish I could have seen all of Apollo 12, instead of watching those hilarious simulations... but with Bean and Conrad, the audio alone was almost enough.

I did have a chance to interview Charlie Duke and Aldrin once (not in the saem room...) ... tried to find a way to ask a jaded astronaut "What it felt like" without using those dreaded words. It became clear pretty quick (same with Aldrin and the rest, I think) that it was "just like another simulation." But, somehow, there's something unsaid behind the words... it WAS different, and they WERE changed, but they don't speak of it much (though with the raft of recent documentaries out there, some skilled jouranlist may have gotten more out of them).

Buzz, of course, was much more excited (almost giddy) when I asked about some specifics of orbital mechanics and rendezvous... but that's another story.

For anyone in the Los Angeles area, I am putting together a couple of "You Are There" video events, abbreviated cuts of the Apollo 11 landing on the weekend of July 20. All welcome, it's free. I'll show as much of the EVA as the unwashed public can stand. Location still being worked out.

Cheers-

 

[jim48]

I am so happy that I started this thread! Keep 'em coming!!! I am particularly enjoying the posts from folks my age, 10-11 at the time, just kids caught up in the wonder of it all! -And damn was it wonderful!!!

 

[yildizyildiz]

In 1969 when Armstrong first landed on the moon, it was the biggest event of our time. It left everyone watching in awe. The moon lander, a machine that looked like a miracle in technology at the time, is nowadays the technical equivalent of something so small and insignificant as a Furby toy. Technological progress is so accelerated that even the humans that are behind the technology are surprised by its power and potential. We ask the question “how far can we really go?” The conclusions we reach may surprise and even scare us. National Geographic goes deep into scientific research to find answers for these questions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdaBwh20nIk

 

[Mergs]

A neighbor of the Collins's??! Holy Moly (as Gene Cernan would say)... that's like casually announcing that you and Tom Hanks golf together every Sunday...

Well, uh, as a matter of fact we golf on Saturday, not Sunday, but I didn't think that was important enough to point out! :lol:

Not really.

But I do have a copy of an old Estes Rocket magazine cover done by Mad Magazine that shows the astronaut checking out the bottom of a Saturn V with techs counting the million or so Estes engines stuffed in the nozzles that Mike autographed for me.

As for Gene, I used to work for him when he was a part owner of Johnson Engineering. Interesting guy.

 

[Krispace]

I was fortunate enough to be a neighbor of Michael Collins and was invited to watch the launch from their living room with their kids and several others from the neighborhood. It was a magical time living in that area with other notables as Jim McDivit, Dick Gordon, Mike Scott all living one or two houses away. I also had Buzz Aldrin as my Space Exploration merit badge counselor and it wasn't until the 30th anniversary that I was able to meet Neil Armstrong.

I am SOOOOO jealous

Make that one more! Still, got to attend a Saturn V launch: even better, so shouldn't complain!

 

[mikek4]

My Apollo 11 story actually began months before July 1969. I was 14 and dreaming of being an astronaut so I starting lobbying my Dad that we should vacation in Florida and go see the launch. He was a WWII aviator so he bought it and even got congressional passes before the trip so we'd be able to view from on the cape, around 3 miles from the rocket. On July 16, we had to leave our Orlando hotel at 2 a.m. to get to our prime seating on the Cape. We got there around 4 a.m. and could see a beautifully lit up Saturn V sitting on the pad ready to go. That morning the crowd was just electric, hoping the ship would take off today with no rescheduling. The big countdown clock on site and the PA system from mission control kept us aware of the countdown. As we got under 1 minute, I climbed up on the hood of our car to have the best vantage point possible. As the engines ignited in the seconds before launch, the flames spread out to both sides seeming to set the horizon on fire. The rocket started to slowly lift off and a few seconds later the sound wave hit us, powerful enough that you could actually feel it against your chest. I stood on the car watching until it was out of sight and en route to orbit. Then came the drudgery of driving off the Cape in the enormous traffic jam, but at least we could hear all the details on the radio as they entered orbit and prepared to fire again and head to the moon. The next couple of days in Florida were boring in comparison and then we flew home to New Jersey to get back in time for the landing on the 20th. That night we all sat in front of our small black and white TV set amazed to see Armstrong step onto the surface--and to think that just a few days earlier we'd been there to see them depart. Needless to say, it was the memory of a lifetime. Thanks, Dad.

 

[bbfreakDude]

Well, to have memories of that time I would have had to existed. Seeing how I didn't until 1984, I missed that boat. That being said, I don't even remember when I first heard about the Apollo program. History class maybe? Whenever it was, it wasn't made a big deal out of obviously.

It wasn't until much later that I realized what a mammoth task it really was. Even today we take it for granted. Complaining that it isn't that difficult and we should already be back there by now, or that since we've already been there we've learned and done everything and shouldn't go back. Anyway, didn't mean to get started another argument, but I do believe the first time I saw footage of the Apollo 11 landing at the very least was on a computer. Probably one of those tiny quicktime videos en encyclopedia software.

Unfortunately, most of my generation doesn't give a damn about space exploration. Its understandable, we've lost our wide eyed excitement about space travel and space exploration. We take it for granted as if it'll always be there, because for some of us its always been that way. With NASA's future up in the air, and nobody else nowhere near as capable. Well lets just say the past means nothing if we can't continue to move forward.

 

[Mallender]

I was just over a year old so I don't remember it at all, although my parents tell me they brought me downstairs to watch it on their black & white tv. I was too young to remember any of the Apollo missions.

What saddens me is that by the time of the _next_ moon landing I'll probably be too _old_ to know what's going on!

NASA will probably fly their sick-stick to and from the ISS, 4 crew (never 6), no automated cargo delivery version. Ares V will probably get cancelled. And the next person on the moon will be Chinese, or Indian, maybe even Russian. Maybe that's a good thing - if NASA can't act then maybe they can at least react.

The alternative is a space program like that of the UK - nothing but a shoddy museum on an industrial estate.

Richard
Nottingham, UK

 

[Mergs]

<edit>

Apologies for the thread jack - will look for other venues to voice opinions.

BTW - I was at what was then Ellington AFB attending my one and only Civil Air Patrol encampment. The orderly room was packed as we all crowded in to watch the live coverage on what was then a largish sized B&W tv. Truly awesome. and humbling.

 

[bbfreakDude]

I apologize, and since I can still edit at the very least I'll do my part. Mod, feel free to delete this post.

 

[MeteorWayne]

MOD HAT ON***

Listen folks, these last two post are not concerning the topic title, which is Apollo 11 Memories.

Please stick to the topic at hand.

I will probably exorcize these two and place them in another thread; if I can't find an approriate one, I'll create one.

MOD HAT OFF***

Meteor Wayne

 

[emanem]

I was 17 and working as a waiter at a camp in the Catskill Mountains of NY. The camp director did not allow anyone to watch the landing on TV at camp, so a bunch of us snuck out of camp, went down to a local tavern and stayed there all night watching on a small tv they had set up in the corner with terrible reception. Was definitely worth the lecture when we returned and I'd do it again.

 

[SpaceJeff]

Re: Welcome to the Apollo 11 40th Anniversary Forum!

I was 11 years old, and I knew exactly how historic the Apollo 11 landing was, just as I was aware of the significance of the other Gemini and Apollo missions that led up to it. (I was really too young to grasp what was happening during the Mercury program. When Scott Carpenter overshot the recovery zone by 250 miles, and no one knew where he was, or whether he was alive or dead, my mother nearly killed me when I walked over to the TV, said "This is boring", and turned it off!) My whole family - my mother, my father, my sister, and her husband - were in our family room, gathered around our console Magnavox TV (which had a "huge" 27" screen) for both the landing and the walk on the surface.

I also knew then, as I know now, that the truly historic and difficult part was not Armstrong and Aldrin climbing down the ladder and setting foot on the surface - the hard part was landing the damn thing! To this day, I get chills when I hear "Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has landed". On the other hand, when I hear Armstrong's "That's one small step for [a] man" recording, I wonder whether the "for [a] man" part just wasn't picked up by Armstrong's microphone (which is what Armstrong says happened, I understand) or whether it was just the most historic blooper of the 20th century.

This was before I knew anything about the "60 secionds" and "30 seconds" announcements by Mission Control referring to "60 seconds of fuel left" and "30 seconds of fuel left", and before I found out about Armstrong flying the Eagle horizontally to avoid a field of huge boulders. Now that I know exactly how difficult it was, and how near a thing it was to disaster, well, that's probably why I still get chills when I hear the "Tranquility Base" line.

My parents and my sister and brother-in-law were all "into" the space program, but I was a fanatic about it. I had my father make sure he could be home that day weeks in advance. I was disappointed that there would not be video of the landing itself, but I understood the technical barriers to having that sort of video streaming back to Earth while they were also supposed to be sending all the technical telemetry data and the voice communications. (Something else of which I was unaware was that Mission Control kept losing the telemetry, and that multiple computer code alarms nearly caused the landing to be aborted.)

Unlike most other Americans, I did not lose interest in the space program generally, or the Apollo program in particular, after the successful recovery of the Apollo 11 astronauts on July 24, 1969. In fact, around the time NASA announced that it was cancelling the Apollo 18, 19 and 20 missions, I realized that these "moonshots" would soon be coming to an end. I lived in Phoenix, Arizona at that time, and I decided I was going to go to Florida to watch the launch of Apollo 17 in person. As things turned out, my mother knew a woman in Miami whose boyfriend owned and flew a 6-seat private plane (a Piper Cherokee). Consequently, I was able to watch the launch of Apollo 17 from the air, 9 miles from the launch pad. (This was the closest the FAA and NASA would allow aircraft to come to the launch pad.) Because the launch occurred at night, we were able to fly down the Florida coast and watch the rocket as it staged from the first to the second stage, and then watch the tight, blue flame of the second stage slowly recede into the night. Seeing the staging was just as clear and easy as it was watching it on television, although I strongly suspect it would have been harder to see the details of the event if it had launched during the daylight hours.

These days, I have a large, framed photo of the launch of Apollo 17 in my office that is signed by Gene Cernan. Also framed below it is an Apollo 17 mission patch. On many occasions, I've spoken to groups of kids - in schools, scout meetings, etc. - about the experience. I am by no means a great public speaker, but whenever I have had the opportunity to talk to kids about the experience, I can tell that my excitement is contagious - even kids who had little interest in space end up asking questions and otherwise joining in the conversation. I agree with Mr. Bolden - we should be able to re-ignite the same kind of excitement about the space program today that existed back in the 60's and early 70's. It was a great time to be alive, but so is today - and tomorrow, if we work on tomorrow hard enough.

 

[xfb109]

like a previous poster I wasn't born until 15 years after the landing. But spaceflight still fascinates me which led to me recently becoming an aerospace engineer. Although I'm just starting my career I hope I can make a contribution to what should've been continued 40 years ago.

 

[Chryseplanatia]

As previously stated, I was 12 at the time of Apollo 11 (which means I now must use fingers to count it...). Not a favorite memory, but one which sticks for some reason is the advertising for one of the later moon walks (can't remember the flight, kust that I was up all night, and it was about 3 or 4am). VolksWagen was running ads at EVERY break, the SAME ad. The Beetle would motor over a lunar landscape, and the tag line was: VolksWagen: Best Car on Zeno." It was only much later that I realized that Zeno was a "who", not a "where." Still, ya gotta hand it to Mad Ave. At least SOMEBODY supported the later flights of Apollo!

Memory #2: wanting to badly to be "a part of the action" for Ap 11, I created a newsletter about the landing, printed it on a Hectograph (like a mimeograph, but produced by pressing paper into a gelatin-filled tray...), and distributing it to my neighborhood. Free, of course, I think I made it through two editions. Then is was back to school!

Thank God for desktop publishing! :lol:

 

[jim48]

Most folks recall Walter Cronkite's reaction when the lunar module safely touched down. In my house the parents preferred NBC News with Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. Frank McGee handled much of the space stuff for NBC, and I also remember that the Apollo coverage was sponsored by Gulf Oil, which ran a commercial showing oil tankers around Scotland or someplace and a rousing song that went mostly "Bringin' home the oil, me boys, bringin' home the oil!" My friends and I at school sang that song to death. "... sailin' into (someplace) Bay, carryin' home the oil..." Who else out here remembers this?

 

[davidmarees]

Growing up in South Africa, they had no television until 1974. All news came by radio, and had to be listened to on very crackly short-wave. We still never missed an Apollo launch, even with the big time difference. How different life was before all this great technology appeared at our fingertips

 

[JonClarke]

I was nearly 11. We did not have TV in Phuket, so we listened to the landing and the moonwalk on a shortwave broadcast from Voice of America. It was early in the morning of the 21st for us.

I got a kid's magazine called "Look and Learn" that hjad a detailedn explanation ofthe mission. My uncle in the US sent me the relevant issues of LIFE magazine, we gort nationaol Geographic as well.

For my 11th birthday Mum cooked a Moon cake, dad made a wooden model LM to sit on it. For Christmas someone gave me a set of 12 foolscap sized glossy prints from the mission.

Wonderful days. I am looking forward to when we go back - and don't care who it is.

Jon

 

[glowboy]

I was 15 years old and in the UK with my parents visiting relatives. I remember staying up almost all night with the TV volume down low (the rest of the household was asleep) to watch the Apollo 11 astronauts walk on the moon. After that I never missed watching a moonwalk even if it meant skipping school.

 

[LVRspaceplace]

I was 11 yrs old, and perched in front of our NEW color TV set with my reel to reel tape recorder. I wanted to record every sound that was transmitted. Little did I even dream of VCR's & DVD's. 9:32 a.m. and lift-off! We were an NBC family... Frank McGee,
Huntley & Brinkley, John Chancellor. However, for the landing, we watched CBS with Walter Cronkite. Not knowing of Armstrong's last few seconds of finding a spot to land, CBS reported the "Eagle" down on the surface as Aldrin was still calling out vectors to Armstrong. And later on , Cronkite almost talked right over those famous first words spoken by Armstrong. Hard as I tried, I fell asleep during the moon walk, just after the President's phone call from the White House.
What a night!!!