Apollo 11

Monday, October 20th, 2008

In 1957, my dad dragged us kids out of bed to watch the news on our little black and white 9" television. There was no picture just a series of squawking sounds; it was Sputnik 1. And my dad, being my dad, explained why it was important and what it meant. Can't really say that I actually remember what he said but it set me off on a lifelong fascination with space, both astronomy and exploration that exists to this day.

So, on a Friday in July 1969, I took a day off work (didn't get much holiday then) to watch the event of my life. Turned on the TV, closed the curtains to see better and wired my reel to reel tape recorder to the TV to capture the sound. My friends told me later that I risked electrocution in doing this. Ho hum, I am still alive. This is what happened that Friday afternoon:

Yes I know it's long but I still remember every moment - power transfer is complete, guidance is internal, ignition sequence start but I never heard 'launch commit'. Can you imagine the excitement and the anticipation?

My species finally going to another world.

Norman Mailer wrote a whole book about it, 'Fire on the Moon' and it is clear that he was in awe just as I was. He followed the countdown word for word, just as I did. He is a writer and I am not so here are his words:

Two mighty torches of flame like the wings of a yellow bird of fire flew over a field, covered a field with brilliant yellow bloomings of flame and in the midst of it, white as a ghost, white as the white of Melville's Moby Dick, white as the shrine of the Madonna in half the churches of this world, this slim angelic mysterious ship of stages rose without sound out of its incarnation of flame and began to ascend slowly into the sky, slow as Melville's Leviathan might swim, slowly as we might swim upwards in a dream looking for the air. And still no sound.

I find it magic to this day.