This morning at 9:32am eastern marks the 52nd anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11, the first mission to land men on the moon.

It would be a week and an event that I suspect just about everyone on this forum remembers very vividly. For me, it kindled my initial interest in space flight and in turn, my interest in all things rocketry.

Sadly, this year will mark the first anniversary without Command Module Pilot Michael Collins. As we salute the ENTIRE crew of Mike, Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrin, remember Mike’s family in particular this day and the now bittersweet memories it conjures for them.

God bless the crew of Apollo 11 and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who made it all possible.

Earl

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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970

I know right where I was when they set foot on the moon. I had a handheld radio listening to it happing on a tall hilltop firebase in Vietnam.

That date was before my birth, but I know where my Dad was.
Directing F-4, AC-130, and OV-10 traffic from the ATC tower in Ubon, Thailand.

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, and HAVOC !

I was glued to my TV that day and the following days

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If the Sky is the Limit, then,
why is there Footsteps on the Moon?
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Ditto!

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If it flies, I can crash it!

Atomic Bomb + 76. 1st Proton Launch +56

For those who were around at this very night 52 years ago, no doubt if you could be, you were at a TV looking at a ‘simulated’ image (52 years ago I really did not understand what that word meant as a near seven year old) of the Apollo 11 lunar module Eagle on the surface of the moon awaiting the hatch to open and a 38 year old Ohio native Neil Armstrong to step down to the the surface of the moon.

My most vivid memories of that night was that looong wait for them to finally come out. And, that the image of Neil coming down the ladder was, initially, upside down on the TV screen (the large receiving antennas back on earth had switches to ‘flip’ the signal, since the camera on the panel that Neil released before he started down the ladder was actually mounted upside down on that panel).

I watched that broadcast with my parents and an older and younger sister in a small, modest home in a then relatively new residential neighborhood south of downtown Atlanta, somewhat near the suburb of Morrow, Georgia where we had moved to just a month or two after I was born in downtown Atlanta in August, 1962.

We would remain in that house for right at one year longer, when we moved to the Augusta, Georgia area in the summer of 1970.

I have been back by that former home only a couple times since those days, and that bright, shiny neighborhood has aged considerably since those days, as has its former occupants. Very sadly, one of those family occupants is no longer with us and it is the memory of my mom of that I distinctly remember asking over and and over “Is this it?”, and being told by her “No, son, that is just a simulated image.”

That all now really does seem like a long time ago....

And that’s the way it was, 10:56pm eastern time, July 20, 1969.

Earl

__________________
Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970