Forty years ago this past day (July 16), I actually started my day on the evening before. I don't remember whether or not I slept at all that night.
The early part of the day on the 16th, I was in the UPI Radio studio trailer at the Press site on Merritt Island, FL -- a huge government reservation then known as The Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Our "soundproofed" studio was in the back part of the trailer with the UPI Wire Service writers in the front. We sat immediately south of the towering VAB - The Saturn Vehicle Assembly Building and about 3.5 miles west of the launch pad. That was considered to be a "safe distance" in case the Saturn V rocket exploded on or slightly above the launch pad.
With microphones in front of me, at my side were my "sidekick", Les Roberson, who would describe the liftoff of Apollo 11 from outside the studio where he could get an unobstructed view. Later in our coverage, Les would be our "color commentator". On the other side was our producer / director, Scott Peters. Les was local to Brevard County, Florida. Scott was the Radio News Director for UPI Radio and UPI Audio Services. During the earlier Project Gemini, in Houston, at the Manned Spaceflight Center was Col. John "Shorty" Powers, our "technical expert". However, for the moon flights, I handled both anchorman and "expert" responsibilities.
We began our coverage for this historic flight for the first manned landing on the moon from the studio at the KSC Press Site. As soon as the Apollo spacecraft had left earth orbit and was "safely" on its way toward the moon, Scott jumped on a flight for Houston and I stayed in Florida. A couple of days later, history would be made . . . by the NASA team and three brave space explorers, and by the UPI team.
Leading up to this flight, UPI had sent a photographer to meet me, and we had travelled all over the area, taking publicity photos of me, looking up at the sky, standing in front of the Saturn V rocket on its launch pad, seated in the studio at our microphones . . . all kinds of locales. The pictures were then used by the UPI Sales Department to "sell" our coverage of the American Space Program to radio stations all over the world. By the time we opened our mics for the first words of this broadcast, we were speaking via the largest radio network ever put together for any event in history.
Radio stations from all over the States and several "foreign" countries had been contacting me for weeks to record "promos" for them, promoting our space coverage on their local stations. It was a wonderful and rewarding chore. I got to speak with news reporters and production managers all over the world. What an experience!
I knew our coverage would be making history, but at launch time, I hadn't even the faintest notion that I would be a part of that history, not just a reporting observer.
As soon as Scott Peters arrived in our studio at the Manned Spaceflight Center in Houston and could take over our broadcasts, with our engineer, we left our studio near the Apollo launch pad and moved to our regular studio at Cocoa Beach. This studio had some advantages for us, not the least of which were several UPI newswire teletype machines.
With these machines, clacking away in the next room from the broadcast studio, we could keep track of anything else that just might be going on in the world at the same time as Apollo 11's landmark flight. And some things WERE going on.
Most of the day after launch was relatively quiet, with our making an "updater" broadcast twice each hour and a full report at the top of the hour for all of our affiliates around the world. Even though this trip was unique for what it signified, if one could ever say that flights to the moon had become routine, this part of the Apollo mission had been done before. Several flights had already been made to the vicinity of the moon. Though this was to become the first "lander", the transition from earth to moon had been practiced enough that the entire team (and the news corps) had become relatively familiar with the trip and what to expect.
Little did we realize at the time, that events were unfolding elsewhere in the country that would take much of the attention away from this historic event and carve out another niche in history, for an unexpected tragedy.
On Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, five young men were partying with several "boiler-room girls" who had been working on Bobby Kennedy's Presidential campaign. Who could have known that the next day, young Edward (Ted) Kennedy would take one of those girls in his Oldsmobile 88, and make a wrong turn off the Chappaquiddick bridge, right into eight feet of cold, dark water, and history.
For the rest of this historic flight, the Apollo 11 astronauts would share headlines with the story of Kennedy and the tragic drowning of Mary Jo Kopechne.
10:15 p.m., Monday July 20, 2009
Over the years since President Kennedy's announcement that we would land Americans on the moon before the end of the decade of the 60s, anticipation had been building. More excitement built with each flight. The "race" with the Soviet Union was in the minds of all who followed each new advancement by our space program and our astronauts.
As exciting as the first trip for a moon landing was, during the approximately 72 hour transit time from earth orbit to lunar orbit and landing, for most of the three days there were some deadly dull moments.
All that dullness faded quickly as Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin separated their moon landing craft -- Eagle -- from the main capsule. Mike Collins stayed with the ship that would bring them home, and did not get to leave his footprints in the lunar dust on this first mission.
Everyone who was near a TV was glued to the "smeary" black-and-white pictures being beamed back from the moon.
I was in our darkened little studio, watching a NASA monitor, listening to the "air-to-ground" at this same time that evening, and doing my very best to describe the awesomely technical things which were happening so they could be understood by "the milkman in Milwaukee" who could not see them. Our audio engineer Bill Wilson was in the other half of the studio and found it hard to keep his eyes on the network audio controls, because he, too, was watching the monitor.
As the Eagle descended, I kept one eye on the Apollo 11 flight plan, and listened as they read out the "numbers" describing the historic descent, altitude, speed, fuel remaining.
"Fuel remaining" began to be more and more critical as they blasted the rockets engines, bearing them down gently toward the dusty surface. Flight controllers in Houston at the Manned Spaceflight Center were even more on the edge of their seats than I. When the spacecraft finally did touch and the engines were shut down, there were 10 seconds of fuel left. With the "coolness" of an experienced test pilot, Neil Armstrong had used all his fuel efficiently, moving laterally as he descended, searching for a smooth place to land. He did not want to land with one of the Eagle's legs in a crater. A tipped over spacecraft would have meant that it would become their tomb instead of their lifeboat which would return them triumphantly to earth. No one knew how deeply the lander's feet would sink into the lunar dust either. There were estimates, of course, but no one yet knew how deep the dust went, nor whether it would even support a man, not to mention their much heavier spacecraft.
We all breathed again when Neil Armstrong said, "Houston, the Eagle has landed!"
And now 40 years ago tonight, the two of them would be leaving the relative safety of Eagle to step onto the surface, fulfilling an age-old dream of mankind.
What he said, as he took the last big step off the end of the ladder was, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." The voice-activated communications gear turned off their transmitters when there was no sound being made, then turned it on again when an astronaut started to speak. It took sometimes a full syllable for the transmitter to become completely activated. Armstrong had paused just long enough after "step for . . ." for the transmitter to turn off. When he said, "a man"...the "a" was lost from the transmission while the mic "keyed up" again.
Because of that fluke, the first words forever remembered as coming from the moon's surface were "That's one small step for . . . man . . . one giant leap for mankind."
Regardless, there is little doubt that the speech he had rehearsed was true. One of the largest of technological "giant steps" mankind has ever taken.
So many myths have grown up around that moon landing . . . I'd like to address them all, but probably have not yet even HEARD them all.
One of my friends and colleagues during those years covering the space program was Jay Barbree, NBC Radio News correspondent for more than 50 years now. I suggest you read his column from today on MSNBC's website. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31965108/ns/technology_and_science-space/ Jay deals with all of the myths I've heard, and much better than I.
My own personal little piece of history?
I heard today that a record 40 million viewers were watching the event unfold on television, spread across all the networks. Those who could not watch were listening to radios wherever they could find them.
I mentioned earlier that UPI Radio had put together the largest radio network in history for this signal event. Not only was it the largest around the world, but across the United States as well. At the time, Mutual Radio Network had the largest number of station affiliates of the major networks, followed by ABC Radio Network.
For this event, UPI Radio surpassed even Mutual by about 100 station affiliates.
The next day following the first moon walk, our producer Scott Peters told me that a Nielson survey indicated that 30 million people had been listening to our broadcast in the United States alone.
Thirty million!!
I almost wet my pants!
Thirty million was a new record for listening to one radio broadcast up to that time. I don't know whether, 40 years later, that record still stands. But, it was my own personal little piece of history. I've been blessed to have been a part of it.
Of course, the astronauts returned safely with several pieces of the most valuable real estate ever discovered. They brought back about 60 pounds of moon rocks and dust to be studied by scientists ever since. The space program and brief lunar explorations are still paying dividends 40 years later.
That about wraps it up from here for now. This is Art Thompson, UPI Radio, at the Kennedy Space Center.
