President Kennedy to the joint session of Congress on May 25 1961:
“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”
Here’s an incredible photo of their approach to the landing spot, taken from the lunar module:
Buzz Aldrin to NASA, after landing on the moon:
“This is the LM pilot. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.”
Neil Armstrong to Mission Control:
“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”
The Walter Cronkite telecast as it all happened gives me goosebumps. Of course I didn’t see it at the time, but it puts you right back there.
From The New York Times article on July 21, 1969:
His first step on the moon came at 10:56:20 P.M., as a television camera outside the craft transmitted his every move to an awed and excited audience of hundreds of millions of people on earth.
Neil Armstrong reporting back as he stepped out onto the moon:
“The surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers, like powdered charcoal, to the sole and sides of my boots.”
Buzz Aldrin
And Buzz Aldrin describes what he sees, in my favorite phrase of that momentous day:
“Magnificent desolation.”
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Hi Sheila
I remember very well that day, I was a girl and all the family went to the seaside for the weekend. It was a cold, cold day but we spend the day at the beach and then went to the house to watch the TV and I was amazed. Later we went outside and silently saw the Moon, unforgettable. It was very late when they descended on the Moon, but I saw it on the TV next morning. I couldn’t believe it.
I can relate the feeling of thanking to those words by Amundsen when he arrived to the South Pole: “So we arrived, and were able to raise our flag at the geographical South Pole … Thanks be to God!”
Magnificent desolation, great words.
How easily one forgets what one had for breakfast, but there are moments fixed on your mind forever.
// Later we went outside and silently saw the Moon, unforgettable. //
What an incredible memory. I have goosebumps.
I love the Cronkite video. They used a snippet of it in the opening of APOLLO 13 (still one of my favorite movies ever, and one of the best semi-fictional depictions of real teamwork I can think of), which appears in the video here, about the 1:55 mark, when Cronkite removes his glasses and makes this look as if to say, “Can you BELIEVE this moment?”
It contrasts interestingly with another Cronkite broadcast from five-and-a-half years previously, on a November afternoon in 1963, when then too he removed his glasses in a moment of disbelief at what he was covering….
// one of the best semi-fictional depictions of real teamwork I can think of //
Yes. Absolutely. Howard Hawks would have loved that movie.
and I’m sure you’ve seen Dogfight, yes? Beautiful use of the Cronkite broadcast from 1963.
God, do we need that now.
I know. It’s awful awful right now.
Here’s something that brightened my morning. You may have already seen it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ln3wAdRAim4&feature=youtu.be
Boy, am I going to miss the POTUS and FLOTUS.
Such a wonderful day for humanity, and thank you for reminding us all about it Sheila. I was a wee lass of just 6 when this momentous event happened, and my parents woke me in the middle of the night (in England) to take me outside and point at the moon after the landing, telling me that there really were “men on the moon” right now. It was so exciting to see, and sparked my life-long interest in astronomy.
// my parents woke me in the middle of the night (in England) to take me outside and point at the moon after the landing, telling me that there really were “men on the moon” right now. //
Bah!! So exciting. Historic. I wish we on earth had kept landing on the moon. I guess Mars is our next target for that kind of exploration.
The event from last year was also thrilling – especially the shots of cheering NASA people. That old wonder again, the sense of accomplishment and exploration:
http://www.nasa.gov/press/2015/february/nasa-spacecraft-returns-new-images-of-pluto-en-route-to-historic-encounter
I was in Farragut State park, Idaho, for the 1969 Boy Scout Jamboree. We were listening to the landing on what may have been the World’s Worst Transistor Radio while we washed the lunch dishes. We were permitted to stop washing for the First Step on the Moon. We could hear cheering from the other camp sites in the vicinity and pots and pans banging. That night, or possibly the next night, what must have been a super 8 film of the landing shot off a TV screen was projected at the campfire, on some curved surface (perhaps a band shell?). The image was so dim I couldn’t tell if I was looking at black and white or color. I felt like the top of my head was coming off. Somebody in the BSA read us an official greeting from Neil Armstrong, who was an Eagle Scout. It took them a long time to get us to stop yelling and applauding.
Then there was a talent show. I don’t remember who won, but second place went to a kid from our troop who did a comedy routine based on Don Rickles’ record “Hello Dummy.”
Jeff – this is such a great and detailed comment. I love hearing other people’s memories. And the talent show is all part of the Man on the Moon memory – that’s hilarious!
I love the bit about hearing cheers from other camp sites! Incredible!
Perspective is everything. Time and tide. I grew up being able to walk out in the front yard and watch the rockets rise over the pine trees between me and the Indian River. I always watched but I didn’t take it as anything special. Just rockets my friends’ dads built. Since I knew a bunch of them, it just didn’t seem that extraordinary. They lived in tract houses, came to church at Easter and Christmas (the moms brought the kids the rest of the year), coached us in Little League (some brilliantly, some not-so-brilliantly!), gave us a sharp look and a caustic word if our hair got an inch too long. All in all, the only thing special about the first moon shot in the actual neighborhood was the number of people who showed up from elsewhere. (I got my name in paper for walking down to the end of the street and tracking license plates–49 states, five Canadian provinces and three foreign countries if memory serves.)
Otherwise, no big deal. On to the next project.
I moved away a few years after and it wasn’t until about ten years ago that I went back to visit the NASA museum on the Cape. What used to be a drive-up building with a few photographs of astronauts on the walls is now a Disney level tourist attraction. One of the exhibits shows the inner workings of the space capsule and it’s basically beyond human comprehension. I just sat there and thought “They built that. My friends’ dads….Built THAT!” The design of a hundred thousand parts that had to function in perfect unison for the thing to even get off the ground. Then the hard part started!
I haven’t seen any of those men (or their sons) since 1975 and I don’t know where a single one of them is now. But I’d give a hundred dollars if I could go back and shake every one of their hands. Even my “not-so-brilliant” Little League coach.
Talk about perspective: imagine being in the tiny tiny club of people who have looked on the earth from space. I love hearing astronauts talk about their experiences.
There was a great program (I think on NPR) about those guys and that experience and the “God effect”.
I’ve compared it to stars like Elvis. A handful. Even OTHER big stars can’t understand/commiserate – because nobody else got that far up.
I’ve been watching this site “https://apolloinrealtime.org/11/” – a fantastic real-time stream of the audio, some video, and the photographs from Apollo 11. So fantastic.
(I also was lucky enough to be at Kennedy Space Center a couple weeks ago, because I’m a complete space geek)
Oh wow, Melissa – I’m sorry I missed that real-time stream. Fantastic!
This may be a silly question, but have you seen Apollo 11 yet?
I was 10. I got to stay up late to see The Moment. I remember I was reading a book about the hundred greatest baseball players in history and I fell asleep while reading about Rabbit Maranville, a shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals, among others, from 1912 to 1934. My mom woke me up a few minutes before Armstrong made his walk. So, funnily enough, one of my strongest memories of the event is of Rabbit Maranville.