When Ross and I got married in January of 1969, we decided we weren't going to spend what little time we had at home together after work each night and all day Saturday in front of the television. Ross said TV had been a fixture in their house since he was in his early school years. He had gotten over the novelty of it. Television broadcasting didn't come to Rawlins until I was in elementary school, and we didn't have a TV in our home until I was in the 6th grade. By then I had long learned how to entertain myself with books and reading. TV didn't have any particular hold on me either. So, we turned off the television.
A few months later in July 1969, the TV in our apartment came to life again. We were among the billions of people around the world who were breathlessly tuned in to see every detail of the moon landing we could. It was heady stuff. Could this bold endeavor actually be becoming a reality?
The Space Race had been going on for over a decade since the Russians had been the first to orbit the moon in the late 1950's. Consequently, all the details of the space program were constantly before the people in the newspapers and on television. In fact, as is so very easy to do, the whole NASA thing was probably viewed as one big piece of machinery doing all the critical scientific stuff behind the scenes to make the rockets work and get the astronauts prepared. It was always THEY. I think very few people really thought in singular terms of the hundreds of individuals who literally dedicated their lives to this endeavor which had been a challenging assignment to NASA by President John F. Kennedy of the United States eight years earlier.
In the years leading up to the actual moon walk, anything that was happening in space was merely a backdrop for everyone's everyday lives. The space program was just there. All the time. We heard about it, we read about it, and we saw it on television. Each time the unmanned--and then the manned rockets--took off into space, those triumphant successes and the terrible tragedies when things didn't go as planned, were right there coloring our lives. Like when The first American orbited the moon and then when another rocket caught fire on the launch pad resulting in the death of three astronauts.
I don't want to say it became boring. But over the years, the whole scenario was "just there". It became common place. Nothing really special. Sometimes the successes were so numerous, it was pretty hard to see how difficult each piece of the project was in reality and how critical to the overall objective for an American to be the first person to walk on the moon.
But all that changed in the weeks and days before the moon walk. It was on the front pages of the newspapers again. The television news was full of visual details at the Kennedy Space Center in Houston. Most people hung on every detail of the progress, what the astronauts and their wives and families were doing--perhaps during their last times together--and what the expectations of Apollo 11 were in performance and mission completion.
(Almost everyone, that is. Yes, there were those who DIDN'T want it to succeed and were sure it was all one big hoax by the government for a photo op that would be convincing enough for the world to believe America had won the Space Race which had been going on for more than 10 years.)
Finally Apollo 11 lifted off the launch pad in a Saturn V rocket on July 16th, and the world held bated breath for four days during its journey in outer space until the lunar module Eagle separated from the command module Columbia piloted by Michael Collins and landed at the Sea of Tranquility on the moon. July 20, 1969, 8:56 MDT. And THAT was when the world released its collective breath and freed all that tension. It was finally time for the first man to walk on the moon--an American astronaut was going to be the one to do it!
Neil Armstrong awkwardly climbed down the ladder on the Eagle (awkward because of the bulkiness of his space suit and the lack of gravity) so he could utter those famous words, "One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind", Buzz Aldrin gave a simple but powerful description of the moon's surface. He called it "magnificent desolation." The two astronauts explored the moon's surface, collecting samples, and taking pictures for about two hours.
I personally thought it was important that they left behind an American flag, a patch honoring those astronauts who had been killed, and a brass plate on the lunar module Eagle that reads, "Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon. July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind."
It was an occasion to remember that beautiful summer night in Denver at 253 Gant Street when Ross and I sat there in our apartment watching an American astronaut walking on the moon! We were overcome with emotion. We were giddy! There were also tears of relief and joy for everything that had transpired. We almost forgot those astronauts still had to come back to earth for the mission to be successful.
Fifty years!
None of my children was even born yet! (Harold, the oldest, arrived three months later.) So they have never lived in a time when man had not yet walked on the moon. Life has whizzed by with all the joys and sorrows that living on earth at this time can bring. Many of our everyday gadgets and technology were first developed when stuff had to be invented to get man to outer space--and then to the moon. I thought it was terrific then that all those rockets had been prepared and utilized for that lunar mission. My mind boggles now all over again since the news has again focused on what an incredible feat it really was. That it even happened at all is a testament to so many people!
I have found myself holding my breath AGAIN when I have re-watched the footage of the actual moon walk--even though I KNOW how the story ends! And I have been moved to tears that workers and the teams at the space programs didn't hesitate to put God in their comments and thankfulness for His goodness and blessings of protection for them all. On one of the missions the Christmas before, the astronaut orbiting the moon at that time even read from Genesis in the Bible about the creation, as the astronauts saw the earth rise in outer space--just as we see the moon rise. It was beautiful!
How could I have been so lucky to be alive at that time to witness such a profound event? Likewise it's been a great experience during the last few weeks to re-live those never to-be-forgotten occurrences. But.....
Fifty years!
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